THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IN MEMORY OF Professor Aram Torossian l88ii-19iLl f UNIVERSITY EXTENSION MANUALS EDITED BY PROFESSOR KNIGHT THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BEAUTIFUL I ITS HISTORY I THE Philosophy of the Beautiful BEING Outlines of the History of ^Esthetics I'.Y WILLIAM PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder'd without tears. TENNYSON. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 743 & 745 BROADWAY I 891 A II rights reserved Nu Kc PREFACE THIS book originated in a course of lectures delivered to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh in 1889, and afterwards to a University Extension audience in London, and at Cheltenham. In these lectures a dis- cussion of the Philosophy of Beauty, and an attempt at constructive theory, preceded an outline of the History of Opinion, and a critical analysis of the chief theories of ^Esthetic. The former section of the course was longer than the latter, and it was my original intention to expand both of them, in somewhat equal proportions, into a connected Treatise. In making a more minute study of the literature of the subject, however, the works of many minor writers had to be examined, as well as those which have a claim to rank as major. Although they have not added any- thing absolutely new to the philosophy of Esthetics, they have usually restated the problem, common to them all, in such a way as to entitle them to mention and to honourable mention in any History, that lays claim to be even approximately complete. In such a matter, finality is of course impossible ; but fulness, as well as accuracy, is essential in every record of opinion. I have therefore judged it most expedient to omit the discussion of the Philosophy of the Beautiful in the present volume, except in so far as it comes out in the 786 vi Preface critical estimate of theories, and to confine myself in the main to a historical sketch of past opinion and tendency. In this form, and as a work of reference, it may probably be of greater use to the students of the subject, than the constructive theory with which I in- tend to follow it by and by. One or two remarks, however, on the general prob- lem of the Beautiful may serve to bring out the relation in which the speculative discussion of the subject stands to its historical treatment. From the dawn of Philosophy, greater interest has been felt in Metaphysics and in Ethics, than in what is now commonly known as /Esthetics. It has been thought that the questions which arise in the two former spheres are graver, more radical, and also more soluble, than those which belong to the latter. It is one aim of the following pages to disprove this, by showing how the problems of all the departments interlace, and more especially to point out the close bearing which the answers given in the last of them have upon the ques- tions raised in the other two. To see the correlation of the spheres of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, is quite as important to the students of each of them, as it is to note the distinction and the independence of their provinces ; for, as Tennyson puts it Beauty, Good, and Knowledge are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder'd without tears. These lines of the chief seer amongst poets now living, embody the central thought of this book. The word './Esthetic 3 is not a particularly happy one. It is often vaguely used in Philosophy, as well as in ordinary speech ; and, in some quarters, it has be- come a byword of opprobrium a sort of symbol of Preface vii intellectual weakness. 1 The same is true, however, with many other philosophical terms. The realist and the idealist, the catholic and the eclectic, have each been laughed at ; and the best way, as some one has said, to rob philosophic nicknames of their sting, is for sensible men to take them up, and use them. The Greek term cuo"077cris, of which it is the English equivalent, denoted simply perception by the senses ; and as it was employed till the close of last century (even by Kant in his Kriti- ken\ the original Greek idea was retained. Since the time of Baumgarten, however (see p. 51), most writers have limited the term 'aesthetic' to that section of knowledge and feeling, which concerns the Beautiful in all its aspects, including the Sublime along with the Picturesque, and embracing Art as well as Nature. In this definite sense, the word may now be said to be almost naturalised in the languages of Germany, France, England, Italy, and Holland. But is there a philosophy, or a science, of ^Esthetics at all? There are some persons who have a profound appreciation of Beauty, who do not care to theorise about it. They distrust a philosophy of the Beautiful, imagining that if we try to get at its secret, its charm will vanish ; and they think that reflection upon it should be confined to what one of our English writers called it was the title of his book an "analytical enquiry into the principles of taste." This is not only a reaction from the synthetic treatment of the subject, it involves the abandonment of all theory or philosophic speculation regarding it ; and it is not a little remarkable that an agnostic attitude of mind in reference to the 1 The home of ' the esthete ' is easily caricatured ; but, underneath the eccentricities of this type of the dilettante, there has been a real love of the Beautiful, a feeling for as well as an aspiration after it which only require the alliance of robuster elements to give increased harmony to our nineteenth-century life. viii Preface Beautiful is adopted by some of the most ardent up- holders of the a priori or intuitional doctrine of Know- ledge and of Morals. Amongst contemporary idealists there are philosophers of renown who think we cannot reach any satisfactory conclusion in the field of aesthetics. They point to the discord of the schools, their rival theories, the vagueness of argument a maximum of debate, with a minimum of result. They remind us how it was the ambition of every aspirant in philosophy, in his undergraduate days, to solve the problem of the Beautiful; and they say, with the astronomer- poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint, and heard great argument About it and about ; but evermore Came out by the same door, where in I went. The study of History, as well as of Philosophy, shows, however, that this agnostic attitude in reference to the Beautiful is quite as irrational as is the dogmatic attitude of the doctrinaire. There are moods of mind, as every one knows, in which one does not require a theory of Beauty ; but neither, in these moods, do we require a theory of the True, or of the Good. It must also be admitted that when our intellectual discern- ment is clearest and when, in consequence, a theory emerges the underlying mystery of things is often more vividly realised than it is at other times. A theory is only a transient interpretation of the Universe by the 0ew/3os, the onlooker ; and the fact that he has happened to look on it from a luminous point of view does not prevent his seeing the veil of mystery behind. But the speculative puzzle as to what underlies our theories whether they relate to Truth, Goodness, or Beauty never troubles us, till we double back upon our primary instincts, and scrutinise them, or ask for Preface ix their justification. As soon as we do so, our ignorance is disclosed to such an extent that many prefer to theorise no longer, to give up the philosophic quest, and return to the earlier state of mere recipiency and enjoyment. So true is it of all ultimate things, as St. Augustine said of Time, "What is it? If unasked, I know ; if you ask me, I know not." Our apprehension of these ultimata may be, to adapt a phrase of Plato's, "something more dusky than knowledge, something more luminous than ignorance," and we may wisely prefer a twilight view of things, if our eyes are not specially adapted for a direct vision of the sun. It is almost a commonplace to affirm that all our knowledge of existence lies between two opposite realms of ignor- ance. Certainly we at present stand upon a small (occa- sionally sunlit) promontory, stretching out from the land of primal mystery whence we came, into the ocean of a still vaster ignorance, over which we must set out ; and to many minds there is an equal fascination in the girdle of darkness, and in the zone of light. Agnosticism as the formulated creed of nescience never lasts, either with the individual or with the race. It is familiar as a passing mood to all who recognise the final inscrutability of things. But if any one adopts it as his creed, he abandons reason, or pronounces its exercise to be illusory. Neither the individual, nor the race, has ever acquiesced in such a view of its powers, for any length of time ; and specu- lation as to the ultimate essence of things admittedly mysterious always revives, after every temporary sup- pression. The overthrow of an accepted dogma, its demonstrated failure to exhaust the subject with which it deals, instead of preventing the rise of a new one, rather promotes it. All history shows that the world soon tires of its best theories, and that it would rather dispense with philosophising, than be tied down to one x Preface philosophy. Solution after solution is struck out by the mind of the race, like those vital products evolved by the anima mundi, which live and perish in the struggle for existence. They " have their day, and cease to be," but the organic thought of the world moves on, demand- ing a fresh interpretation of the mystery of things ; and it wearies of agnosticism, sooner than it becomes tired of any single theory, however imperfect. That its instincts are on the side of the positive and the con- structive, rather than of the negative and the destructive, will be abundantly seen in the historical outlines which follow. It may be asked, however, why we should care to record all the theoretic guesses, conjectures, and approxi- mate solutions recorded in books and essays, as well as in larger treatises when the main point is the goal to which each has tended, and the discoveries that have very gradually resulted from them? The answer is at hand. It is because there is no final goal ; and because every stage reached in the evolution of the mind of the race, while dealing with the problems of Philosophy, has an almost equal interest. To the student of History, these are not only links in a chain which can never be completed, they are also the pro- gressive unfolding of the Universal Reason which im- measurably transcends that of the individual, and is nevertheless its deepest essence. As such, the theoretic guesses of the earliest generations which we can recover by analogy when statistics fail us are much more interesting than the fossil remains of a still earlier life, which we find in the rock strata of the earth ; and as memorials of past insight, they contain a partial key to the theories of to-day. . Accurate knowledge of previous speculation is always our best guide in the study of a problem that is peren- nial ; and while the history of Philosophy shows that the Preface xi most perfect theory is doomed to oblivion, no less certainly than the imperfect ones, and that they all revive after temporary extinction, we can contribute nothing of value to the controversies of our time by striving after an originality that dispenses with the past. Before we begin the examination of these theories, it is perhaps worthy of note that a study of the Beautiful, and its appreciation, has often proved a counteractive to cynicism, and to the despair of reaching conclusions that are verifiable in other provinces. It is obvious that the study cannot be either begun, or carried on, in the nil admirari mood of the cynic. Even when the search for "first principles" has been aban- doned, metaphysics given up, and the "categorical imperative " deemed baseless, a reliable footing has been found in the sphere of the Beautiful, whence a way may be discovered, leading back into that of the True and the Good. Matthew Arnold represented Goethe as saying The end is everywhere, Art still has truth, take refuge there. Certainly some have found it possible, after the dis- integration of belief in the intellectual and moral sphere, to resist further loss by holding fast to what can be proved within the sphere of Art ; and they have afterwards found some help in the solution of other problems by means of it. The light which it casts on the central inquiry of Theism, I hope to show in my second volume. In the brief analyses which follow both of the major and the minor writers I have, in all important cases, added a critical estimate to the resume given ; and, unless when the opposite is indicated by quotation marks, my account of the theory, the treatise, or the xii Preface essay is one for which I am to be held responsible, and not the author. Some books dealing with the several Arts Poetry, Music, Painting, Architecture, and Sculp- ture which have not been analysed, will be referred to in the subsequent discussion of these Arts in detail. A Guide to the Literature of SEsthetics^ by Messrs. Gayley and Scott (University of California), containing a mass of most useful bibliographical information, reached me after these sheets were in the press ; and an interesting series of papers of a similar kind, by F. W. Foster, in Notes and Queries^ 8th September to iyth November 1888, has only just become known to me. The perusal of these, while too late to be of use in this volume, has shown me that some lacunae remain, especi- ally in the more recent literatures of Germany, Italy, and France ; and I have not been able to deal with that of Russia, though aware that it is a field which ought to be explored. It is less likely that works of importance in ancient, mediaeval, or modern philosophy, up to the last decade, have been overlooked. The German histories of ' Aesthetik ' are more ela- borate than those of France, or any that we possess in England ; but in this, as in other departments of Philo- sophy, German writers confine themselves in the main to their own countrymen. If more learned, they are some- times less catholic than the historians of other lands. From the tendency to dwell too much on one's own literature, few can escape ; and while it has been my aim to study the philosophy of each race dispassionately, and to give prominence to all, it will be found that, in this volume, the British section is longer than the others. W. K. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE ...... v-xii CHAP. I. INTRODUCTORY ..... i II. PREHISTORIC ORIGINS . ... 7 III. ORIENTAL ART, AND SPECULATION 1. Egypt . . 12 2. Semitic Tendencies . . . 14 3. Asiatic Art . . . . .16 IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF GREECE 1. Introductory . . . .18 2. Socrates and Plato . . . .22 3. Aristotle . . . . -27 V. THE NEOPLATONISTS 1. Plotinus .... -30 2. Proclus . . . . . 33 VI. THE GR^CO-ROMAN PERIOD 1. Introductory . . . . -35 2. Lucretius, Virgil, Cicero, etc. . . .36 3. Vitruvius to Philostratus . . 40 VII. MEDIEVALISM 1. The Patristic Writers . . . -43 2. The Thirteenth Century . . . -44 3. The Fifteenth Century . . . .46 xiv Contents CHAP. VIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF GERMANY PAGE 1. Leibnitz to Lessing . . . -5 2. Mendelssohn to Kant . . . -55 3. Herder to Humboldt . . . -59 4. Schelling to Schleiermacher . . -65 5. Hegel to Carriere . . . 70 6. Schopenhauer and Hartmann . . 78 7. Lotze to Jungmann . . . .82 8. The Literature of Denmark . . .89 IX. THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRANCE 1. Descartes . . . , 91 2. Crousaz to Buffier . . . '94 3. Andre to Diderot . . . .100 4. Montesquieu to Cousin . . . .106 5. Lamennais to Jouffroy . . . 113 6. Swiss writers ; Topffer to Cherbuliez . 117 7. Leveque to Thore . . . 1 23 8. Veron, Coster, Vallet, etc. . . .130 9. Guyau, etc. . . . . .138 X. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ITALY 1. Leon Battista Alberti to J. P. Bellori . . 143 2. Rosmini to Mamiani . . . .146 XI. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOLLAND . . . 153 XII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BRITAIN 1. Bacon to Hutcheson . . . .164 2. Berkeley to Hogarth . . '. .170 3. Burke to Sir Joshua Reynolds . . . 175 4. Lord Kaimes to Thomas Reid . . .182 5. Alison to W. Thomson . . . .187 6. Erasmus Darwin to S. T. Coleridge . 193 7. David Wilkie to Sir William Hamilton . . 200 8. M' Vicar to George Ramsay . . . 208 9. Carlyle to Ruskin . . . .216 10. Lord Lindsay to Professor Bain . . . 222 11. William B. Scott to Charles Darwin . . 233 Contents xv CHAP. XII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF BRITAIN (continued} PAGE 12. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Sully . . .239 13. Canon Mozley to Mr. Grant Allen . 246 14. William Morris to W. P. Ker . . 254 15. W. G. Collingwood to J. A. Symonds . . 259 XIII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICA 1. 1815 to 1849 . . . . .269 2. 1867 tO 1876 . . . . -273 3. 1880 to 1890 . . 277 INDEX . . . . . . . 283 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY To present even an outline of philosophical opinion on the subject of the Beautiful, it will not suffice merely to state the chief theories in chronological order, presenting them in their technical framework. Nor will it be possible to proceed by way of exact quotation from the more important treatises that have come down to us from antiquity. However admirable in themselves, literal extracts even from the greatest writers of the world become, like the volumes from which they are taken, dry -as -dust. A "golden treasury" of disconnected wisdom soon loses its character, and becomes one of iron or of clay. To deal in a vital manner with the history of opinion on any subject, it is necessary to show how theories have been evolved, how they have been the outcome of social as well as of intellectual causes, and have often been the product of obscure phenomena in the life of a nation. In the department of ^Esthetics especially, many germs of subsequent theory will be found in the primitive Art of the world. The earliest attempt at ornament of any kind was due to much more than casual fancy, or choice. It was the result of a real perception of the beautiful, however rude ; while each success in embellishment gave new insight to the worker. After many efforts and failures, he paused to reflect on his work ; and out of this 2 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. reflex process doubling back on the primitive perception of Nature, and judging critically of Ornament the earliest theorisings as to Beauty arose. In the poetry, music, and art of each nation and period we have evidence that the general mind of the race has from the first been struggling, as it were, with ideas on the subject of the Beautiful ideas which it has never been able fully to grasp, but which it has discerned for a time, then dropped or lost sight of, under the pressure of other interests. These ideas have not been created by the his- toric evolution of the race. They have been with it from the commencement of its history, although they have some- times been latent, and although their possessors have been often quite unconscious of them. In those countries and periods, however, in which creative Art has flourished most, the criticism of Art has been most fragmentary and least adequate. The reason is evident. When original insight is present and active in a people, it sweeps criticism before it, as a hindrance or an irrelevancy ; but as soon as the flood has spent itself, and the tide begins to ebb, reflection upon the past is natural and inevitable. Men proceed to take stock of their inheritance, and to appraise what they cannot now produce. There were no treatises on the art of Sculpture, for example, written in the age of Pericles ; and no criticism of the art of Painting appeared in the Medicean period. It is worthy of remark that the chief artistic periods in history have not been the most notable, morally and politically. An appreciation of the Beautiful has followed, rather than accompanied, the times of greatest national aspiration and success. It has sometimes been their fruit. In the Athenian and Spartan states, so long as political freedom was esteemed the most precious thing a nation could enjoy, and so long as the struggle for it lasted, there was much less interest in the Beautiful than afterwards. In the Periclean period, when the old robustness had died out, the appreciation of Art set in. Similarly in Rome, after the stern work of the legions had ended, when law and order were established, a certain amount of effeminacy was the i Introductory 3 result of the peace that followed ; and then it was that the appreciation of Art was greatest. Parallel illustra- tions may easily be found, both in oriental and in modern history. It is almost a corollary from this to say that no nation has ever been at the time aware of its own artistic decline. Nay, its critics and art-workers have even sometimes inter- preted, what posterity has seen to be a regress, as a forward movement, or as an ascent. This remark applies to national decadence, not only in Art, but also in every other direction in philosophy, in morals, in political life, and in religion. An important difference between the history of ^Esthetics, and that of almost every other branch of philosophy must, however, be pointed out. In following the course of the logical and metaphysical thought of the world, it is not necessary to take account of all the co-operating causes which have been at work in the intellectual life of each nation. We can detach the speculative effort which has been directed to these problems, from that which has been bestowed on others, without injury to the treatment of the former, and often with distinct advantage. It is true that in dealing with Ethics we must always take into account the effect of moral theory on practice, and on social life generally. It will be found almost impossible, however, to detach the history of the philosophy of the Beautiful from the theory and the practice of the several Arts. The evolution of speculative thought on the subject of Beauty is mirrored to us in the development of Art, and it is thus perhaps that its tendencies are best understood. We see the working, and at times the fermenting activity, of a particular aesthetic theory in the subsequent history of an art -school, and not only in the literature of a period, but in the very customs of society. The two are so closely upbound that a theory of Beauty is at the same time a doctrine of Art, while every doctrine of Art is based upon a theory as to the nature of Beauty ; and the history of the two run on parallel lines, and often on the same ones. Being thus so closely kindred in origin, and evolved together, it is evident that a knowledge of the 4 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. history of Art is essential to a knowledge of the theory of Esthetics. In the historical outlines which follow, it will some- times be found that a philosophy of the Beautiful lies by implication within a speculative system, when it is not ex- plicitly announced. Even if Plato had never touched the subject in any of his dialogues, it would have been possible, from a study of his ideal theory, as unfolded in the Thecetetus, the Sophist^ and the Parmenides, to foresee more than the outward form which a philosophy of the Beautiful would assume, in any school which drew its inspiration from him. St. Augustine's work De Apto et Pulchro has perished, but we can without difficulty reconstruct his theory from other passages in his writings. The sentences of Thomas Aquinas on the subject are like the fragmentary bones of the mammoth, found as fossils in the drift, but a whole volume may be written (and has been) on his doctrine de pulchro. Descartes wrote nothing directly on the sub- ject, nor did Leibnitz ; but neither the Cartesian nor the Leibnitzian doctrine on the nature of the Beautiful is difficult to find. This will be seen more fully in its proper historical place. It will be further seen that the constancy with which the two great schools of philosophical thought on this subject appear and reappear in history in every country arising, falling, and rising again, in every literature assuming new phases, but in each showing themselves superior to the assaults that seemed for a time to over- throw them is the best evidence that there is a funda- mental truth at the heart of each, as well as an integral place for ^Esthetics within the hierarchy of the sciences. Taking then the history of opinion on the subject of the Beautiful, along with the Art which has reflected it, we might roughly divide its periods as follows. (In the two first what we have chiefly to note is the embodiment of the Beautiful in Art. It is not till the third is reached that philosophical reflection upon it strictly begins.) (i) The beginnings of Art, as seen in palaeolithic ornament, wood and bone carving, and decorative work of all kinds. (2) i Introductory 5 Oriental Art, and speculation of the simplest kind ; includ- ing, as subsections, (a) the Egyptian, (b) the Semitic or Hebrew, (c) the Assyrian, (d) the Persian, (e) the Indian, (/) the Chinese, and (g} the Japanese. (3) The Greek Philosophy and Art. (4) The Alexandrian. (5) The Grasco- Roman period. (6) The Mediaeval. (7) The Philosophy of Germany. (8) The Philosophy of France, including that of Switzerland. (9) The Philosophy of Italy. (10) The Philosophy of Holland. (n) The philosophical writers and literary critics of Great Britain and Ireland. (12) The Philosophy of America. (13) That of Denmark, Russia, and other countries. It is scarcely possible to exhibit the progress of philo- sophical theory on the subject of the Beautiful, or the progress of the Art which has embodied it, in exact chronological order, by merely passing from century to century, and noting each important doctrine or treatise, and each great art-product, in the precise order of their appear- ance. If this could be done, it would doubtless show how the organic thought of the world has evolved itself along particular lines. In thus tracing the wider evolution of the mind of the race, the sequences of national development would, however, be lost to view ; and the progress of the Philosophy of each nation, within its own area, and its characteristic type of Art, are quite as significant as is the growth of organic thought and cosmopolitan art. It is therefore every way most convenient to deal with the history of opinion within broad national areas successively. The one disadvantage in this method of procedure is that if we follow the stream of doctrine within each country from its beginning to its close, and note every writer of importance, there cannot fail to be occasional repetitions. This will perhaps be forgiven if we find in the end that, while there is " nothing new under the sun " alike in philo- sophical theory and in artistic work in another sense everything is new, in virtue of the local phases it assumes, and the characteristics which mark it off, both from its predecessors and its successors. In tracing the sequence of opinion in each country we 6 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP, i must note the influence of foreign as well as of native thought. German speculation, for example, told directly upon that of France, in the development of the type of philosophy which arose in Paris at the beginning of this century ; and it is impossible to understand the intellectual position of Jouffroy and LeVeque without some knowledge of Kant, Schelling, and Hegel. The affinity of genuine philosophy in all ages, and the solidarity of the thought of the world, are nowhere seen more clearly than in the history of aesthetic theory. CHAPTER II PREHISTORIC ORIGINS Primitive Man So far back as we can go, by the help of the memorials which survive, and by the further light of analogical infer- ence, it would seem that primitive man had a real, although a dim and rudimentary, appreciation of the Beautiful. As soon as the qualities of objects were perceived, as distinct from their quantity or bulk, their aesthetic side was also noted. Beauty was recognised as a fact, and efforts were even made to reproduce it in ornament, in a rude sort of way. Accepting the analogy between the development of the faculties of a child, and the evolution of the race at large, we may trace in the infantile stage of the latter a love of brilliance, of warmth, and of vivid contrasts of all sorts, alike in colour and in sound. Bright flowers, gaily plumaged birds, clear strong notes, and all natural products that were vivid (whatever their other features), attracted primitive man, apart from their utility. No doubt the discernment of use would enhance the sense of beauty at the very outset ; but, from the first, use was not the sole interest or the primary charm ; it was only a secondary and an accessory one. It is not difficult to imagine a savage at the time when his home was a cave or a forest grove amusing himself in the bright weather by imitating the voices of birds, or by scratching rude outlines of them, and of other animals, on the walls of his dwelling, or on the rock -faces around. 8 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. It would be the natural outcome of a joyous mood of feeling on a bright day ; and the excitement of the play-impulse the spiel-trieb, of which Schiller makes so much in his ^Esthetic Letters would urge him on. The recognition of the Beauty of Nature, however, springs from a source much deeper than this spiel-trieb ; and there cannot be a doubt that prehistoric man showed a real appreciation of orna- mental forms. The representation of animal and vegetable products such as the antlers of deer, and the leaves of plants and trees on the sides of the cave -dwellings is proof of this. Probably the appreciation of colour was still earlier, although no record of it survives ; but on their flint- arrows and the handles of their knives there were rude attempts at carving, or decorative ornament, of a purely imitative kind. It was most natural that the bravest or most honoured in a tribe of savages, the primitive chief, should wish to possess some mark of distinction, that he should wear as a trophy some memorial of an animal slain (a feather or a horn), and that he should have his weapons made ornamental as well as useful. The most useful shape for the primitive weapon would first be discovered, and that it should afterwards be ornamented, if the ornament did not lessen the use, followed almost as a matter of course. The absence of highly developed art in the memorials of primitive man has been taken as an evidence against the descent, and in favour of the ascent of the race. It has been said that had we " lapsed from higher place," the art of the primitive world would have been more perfect than any that the world has subsequently known. Be this as it may, it is evident that to the rudimentary instinct of self-preservation which was at work from the first there was added very early the instinct of adornment or beautification. These two instincts have always worked together, although the second was longer in becoming visible. Its development may have been delayed until it was quickened by the rise of a new want. As is well known, the higher any organism is, the more numerous are its wants. As they multiply, they vary ; and as they vary, they become refined. Primitive man, engaged mainly in the ii Prehistoric Origins 9 struggle for existence, was not highly intellectual. He had comparatively few things to record beyond his efforts at self-maintenance, and no great variety of feelings to express. Neither intellect nor emotion was as yet evolved into com- plexity ; but as soon as their evolution began, with the growth of mind came differentiation of faculty, and it was only to be expected that the play-impulse and the art-impulse would be evolved together as twin tendencies, and that the cave - dwellers should amuse themselves by carving and decoration, as much as by dance and song. Primitive art was to a certain extent an imitation of Nature, but while imitation guided it, the copying became creative. Its purpose was to produce something which the mere looking on Nature did not yield, else why have copied it ? Why not have been content with gazing at, or with hand- ling, the things copied ? From its earliest phases, in tracing rude outlines of figures on walls, to the carving of wood and bone with flint-knives, from this to the moulding of vessels in clay, or the twisting of vegetable fibre into baskets, and thence to primitive metal work, not only did use direct the art of savages, but a sense of ornament also guided it. Another element seems to have been conjoined with this, somewhat early in the history of man. As nature-worship was probably one of the earliest forms of religion, primitive art represented Nature for a religious purpose, and of necessity made use of symbols. This, however, was not developed to any great extent, until we reach the historic period ; and, so far as surviving memorials guide us in our reading of history, the principal thing to be noted in the art of savages is that at a very early period a sense of beauty was added to that of utility. Occasionally, though rarely, the use was lessened by the ornament ; more frequently the beauty was sacrificed to the use. Ornament, however, was seldom thrust in unnecessarily. It was put in for a pur- pose, and left to tell its own tale ; while an artistic spirit is sometimes seen, even in the way in which things were left unfinished. Mr. Andrew Lang is of opinion that the theory of the earliest Art being "the disinterested expression of the io The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. imitative faculty," is " scarcely warranted by the little we know of art's beginnings " (Custom and Myth, p. 276). The earliest art was, he thinks, decorative rather than imitative ; and he points out that some aboriginal races distinguish their families by plants or animals, from which they fancy they have sprung, and that they occasionally blazon their shields or tattoo their breasts with images of these creatures which custom he thinks may be the origin of heraldry. That primitive art was never imitative for any other than a practical purpose, may perhaps be an extreme position. It is difficult to see why the palaeolithic men of the Dordogne should, 50,000 years ago, have carved figures of the reindeer on their knife-handles for a purely practical purpose. The ornament did not help them in the subsequent use of the knife. May not some real perception of beauty of form, a desire to copy it, and to retain it because it was "a thing of beauty " as well as a successful copy, have guided them from the first ? All that Mr. Edward B. Tylor has written on the subject of Primitive Man is worthy of special consideration. In 1890 he wrote: "We are not yet in a position to say anything clear and definite as to the principles of beauty as apprehended by primitive man. The savages who re- present primitive man, like the mammoth period men, show clearly by their artistic works that they had ideas of what was beautiful, but we do not know what led them to think their ornamental patterns beautiful. I do not even know what led them to think a necklace of berries, or a feather in their nose, a beautiful appendage. At the Pitt Rivers Museum we are working out some evidence that orna- ments are often broken-down representations of men, dogs, cords, plaiting, etc., with a sense rather of utility than of decoration." To this may be added what Mr. Owen Jones has said of savage ornament : " The ornament of a savage tribe, being the result of a natural instinct, is necessarily always true to its purpose ; whilst in much of the ornament of civilised nations, the first impulse which generated received forms being enfeebled by constant repetition, the ornament is ii Prehistoric Origins u oftentimes misapplied, and instead of first seeking the most convenient form, and adding beauty, all beauty is destroyed, because all fitness, by superadding ornament to ill-contrived form. If we would return to a more healthy condition, we must even be as little children, or as savages ; we must get rid of the acquired and artificial, and return to and develop natural instincts" (Grammar of Ornament, p. 16). CHAPTER III ORIENTAL ART, AND SPECULATION I. Egypt A WIDE interval separates the art-work of prehistoric man from the earliest known relics of the Egyptian and Assyrian artists ; and the links of connection between the two are irreparably lost. In examining what survives, we start with a really high state of civilisation. At the very dawn of history, both in Egypt and Assyria, Architecture is already developed on a colossal scale, alike in Pyramid and Temple, with statues corresponding. We find sculptured walls and painted tombs. We find picture-writing, and hieroglyphics of many kinds, on slab and column while in Egypt there was certainly some appreciation of landscape beauty. In pictures which still survive, we have representations of houses with gardens attached, containing ponds, and parks with game-preserves, in which the element of beauty is as evident as that of utility. In the remarkable Egyptian figure of the scribe, now in the Louvre, the pupils of the eyes are formed of rock- crystal, placed in white quartz. He is represented as look- ing up to a speaker ; and the expression of the countenance is not much inferior to that of the best Greek statues. It belongs probably to the period of the sixth dynasty. Such a work of art, however, is exceptional ; and it is to be observed that, as a rule, the artist was not honoured in Egypt, as he came to be in Greece. He was usually one of the working class. The artist was lost in the house-painter or CHAP, in Oriental Art, and Speculation 13 decorator, the architect in the mason or builder. This may partly explain the monotony and the repetition which characterise Egyptian art. Its features were stereotyped (the lotus-flower, for example), and copied mechanically for ages. While the earliest surviving art of Egypt is the most perfect, Mr. Owen Jones is of opinion that all that remains shows it to us in a state of decline ; and that monuments which were set up 2000 years B.C. are only the ruins of more perfect ones. He thinks that the earliest known Art of Egypt is inferior to the still earlier unknown Art, and that " the Egyptians were inferior only to themselves " (Grammar of Ornament, p. 22). This judgment is more than doubtful, but in connection with it, it is worthy of note that we find no trace of foreign influence at work in Egyptian Art. Its primary root seems to have been the imitation of a few natural forms, which were immensely varied (and to that extent idealised), but in the main always true, and always symbolic. The animal-worship of Egypt perhaps fostered the re- cognition of the beautiful ; but it is to be observed that, to the Egyptians, the divine element in the world was seen in life simply as such, not in the characteristics of life. They appreciated quantity rather than quality ; and we find no trace among the populace of delight in Beauty, certainly no enthusiasm for it ; while the Sublime in Nature seems to have awakened a feeling of awe and repulsion, rather than of attraction. The decorative art of Egypt was chiefly used, not to ornament the house, but to enrich the Temple, and there is, in consequence, a certain austere gravity and severity in it, which contrasts notably with the ease, the freedom, the lightness, and the grace of Greek art. Like the enig- matical sphinx, it is massive, ponderous, mysteriously great. It was drawn, it is true, from Nature ; but in Egypt Nature dominated over man. The stupendous river, with its mys- terious annual flood, and the not infrequent sand-storms from the desert, made him feel his insignificance in a way in which it was impossible for any one to feel it in Greece, or even in Palestine. But as a compensation for this 14 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. there is, in all the art of Egypt, an explicit recognition of a sphere beyond the visible, and of an existence above the merely phenomenal life of the present. One of the most accomplished of Egyptologists, Mr. Edouard Naville of Geneva, assures me that there is no Egyptian writing bearing on the subject of the Beautiful, in the abstract, apart from the concrete objects, in which the artists of the country have tried to realise their conceptions of it. This is precisely what we would expect a priori. The first Egyptian philosophising on the subject was in the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria. 2. Semitic Tendencies Within the Semitic race a higher note was struck. There was probably a greater appreciation, both of the beautiful and the sublime, in Palestine, than in any other country to the east of Greece. Evidence of this will be found in the Hebrew books, especially in the Psalter, the Book of Job, the Song of Solomon, and the writings of some of the prophets. It is of course only in stray passages that it comes out, but these passages show that the finer spirits of the Jewish race had a perception of Beauty, and could record it in a way that is not surpassed in the contempor- aneous literature of the West. On the other hand, we have no evidence that Nature was appreciated by the Hebrews for its own sake. It was chiefly valued as yielding a series of illustrations or revelations of a higher Nature detached from it, and yet controlling it. It was thought of as an area, the separate provinces of which were inhabited, not by a multitude of deities, but by one, and that one " half concealed and half revealed " within it. It was a vast and varied keyboard, touched at intervals by the hands of an unseen player. This gave a character of its own to the Hebrew poetry. It was dualistic and anti-pantheistic to the core. It is equally important to note that Beauty was intro- duced, as decorative Art, into the forefront of the Jewish in Oriental Art) and Speculation 15 religion, and became the close ally, if not an essential part of its ritual. " Cunning workmanship " in architecture, as well as in the construction of utensils for the temple-service, splendour in decorative work ornament, in short was a necessary adjunct of the ceremonial. But the average Hebrew mind had no appreciation of the Beauty of Nature for its own sake. If the peasantry ever thought of such things as "the sweet influence of the Pleiades," it would be from some utilitarian reason connected with their life as agriculturists. If the reli- giously disposed ever really "considered the lilies of the field," it was as a parable conveying some lesson for themselves. It is easy to see why a race expressly for- bidden to make use of " graven images," and constitu- tionally apt to take " the sign for the thing signified," should not have attained to the distinction of others (of the Greeks, for example) in Sculpture. The finest statuary of the age of Phidias, supposing it to have been transferred to Palestine, would probably have been broken to pieces by the people in a fit of solemn wrath, at the instigation of one of their prophets. But it is less easy to explain the want of an appreciation of simple Beauty in the world of sight and sound. In its physical features Palestine in some respects resembled Greece. It was " a land of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills " ; but the charm of the green earth and the silent sky, the glory of sunrise and sunset, seem to have been little felt ; while the sublimest ravine in the hill country was to the popular imagination but "the valley of the shadow of death." We may perhaps account for it when we recollect that the main element in the education of the Hebrew race was the recognition of a Power superior to Nature, and controlling it. Hence it was an ethical, not an aesthetic idea that held the central place in Palestine, and ruled the life of the nation. The chief function of the teacher, or prophet, was to restrain the people in their tendency to sink from the moral toward the ceremonial ; and it is worthy of note that, when he failed, and the people resorted to image- worship, those which they constructed were not beautiful. 1 6 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. This want of beauty in the images used in religious worship applies, however, to the orientals generally. Scarcely one of them, in Assyria or India, had any beauty. It may have been partly due to the way in which the god was separated from the element over which he was supposed to preside, or to control. There was a cleft in the popular imagination between natural objects and the powers that were supposed to inhabit them. Had there been a closer identification of the two, and the Divinity been regarded as the very soul of the element, the " graven images " might have been truer to Nature. 3. Asiatic Art The Assyrian and Babylonian Art was not original, pro- gressive, or specially distinctive. It was artificial, borrowed, and retrograde. It was an Egyptian development, but it was a copy of Egypt, not in its prime, but in its decadence. Besides, it was conventionalised in the effort to convey instruction. This is usually the case whenever Art becomes a homily, or is designed with a view to teach lessons to the people. The Art of Persia again, perhaps also derived originally from Egypt, and some of it transmitted through Assyria, worked itself clear of the rigidity of the former, and the mannerism of the latter. In decorative work, in Painting as well as in Ornament, and in Poetry as well as in Painting, the genius of the Persian race, while receiving ideas from outside and assimilating them, has taken a line of its own, in which beauty predominates. This, however, is a relatively late feature in the art of Persia. In the earlier times, the sense of Beauty slumbered, as it did in India, and amongst the Aryan races generally. It is perhaps the more remarkable that it should not have awakened earlier in India, when we remember that almost all the distinctive types of philosophical thought had sprung up, that a monistic as well as a dualistic conception of the world prevailed alongside of the popular polytheism and nature- in Oriental Art) and Speculation 17 worship. But there is scarcely a trace of a feeling for the Beautiful in the Brahminical or Buddhist writings. The testimony of Professor Max Miiller on this point is more valuable than the conjectures of those who cannot speak with his authority. In June 1890 he wrote : ' ' The question which you ask has occupied my mind for many years. I remember Humboldt, when he was writing his A'osmos, asking me what the Indians thought of the Beautiful in Nature. I gave him several descriptions of Nature, which I believe he published, but I had to tell him that the idea of the Beautiful in Nature did not exist in the Hindu mind. It is the same with their descriptions of human beauty. They describe what they .saw, they praise certain features ; they compare them with other features in Nature ; but the Beautiful as such does not exist for them. They never excelled either in sculpture or painting. Their sculpture is meant to express thought, and they do not mind giving a god ever so many arms to indicate his omnipotence. When painting comes in, they simply admire its mirroring and life-likeness. With regard to actions, again, they speak of them as good or bad, brave or mean, but never as simply beautiful. ... It would be quite impossible to render rb Ka\6v in Sanskrit. Beautiful, sobhana, means bright ; pesala, variegated ; ramantya, pleasant. The beauty of poetry is expressed by madhflni, the sweet things ; the beauty of Nature by sobhd, splendour. Of course there is a goddess of beauty, Srt, and Lakshmti but they are both late, and they represent happiness rather than simple beauty. Even this negative evidence may be useful as showing what is essential for the development of the concept of the Beautiful. But it is strange, nevertheless, that a people so fond of the highest abstractions as the Hindus, should never have summarised their perceptions of the Beautiful. I wish I could have given you a more satisfactory answer, but ein Schelm giebt mehr als er hat. "F. MAX MULLER." With this quotation from Mr. Max Miiller we may return from the East to Europe. The large questions involved in the development of Turanian Art, its history in China and Japan, can only be dealt with by specialists ; but while the story of the evolution of the sense of beauty and of the art-spirit in these lands is extremely interesting, we have no analysis of it in their literature, no philosophy of the Beautiful. CHAPTER IV THE PHILOSOPHY OF GREECE i. Introductory ONE of the chief contrasts between the oriental and the western Art of the world is that the former has been so much more stationary than the latter. It has moved slowly, austerely, and in a narrow groove ; while with the austerity and narrowness the orientals have been content. Their artists have worked on from generation to generation in a mechanical fashion, repeating old designs, alike un- conscious of the theory of their own work, and ignorant of that of other nations. They have not reflected on their procedure, and could give no theoretical account of it. The western spirit, on the contrary, has been usually active, and sometimes restless. Hence its Art develop- ments have been more rapid, and various, than those of the East. They have gone through several cycles of rise, decline, and fall ; and all the while the mind of Europe has speculated upon its work, and evolved art-theories in number. The two great art -periods in European history have been that of Greece in the age of Pericles, and that of the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ; but the philosophical tendency that underlay these periods has been very different. It may perhaps be said that, in the former, synthesis prevailed over analysis ; while, in the latter, analysis has predominated. The tendency in Greece almost from the first was a tendency to unite, or combine CHAP, iv TJte Philosophy of Greece 19 details in a harmonious whole. The tendency of the modern world, on the contrary, has been to divide, and to subdivide, till it has almost missed the unity that underlies division. Generalisations are, however, very often deceptive, and it is always wise to test them by a subsequent examination of the facts on which they are based. In doing so in this case, it is desirable to note that the monism of Greece which was the prevailing type of its philosophical thought inasmuch as each philosopher took his one principle as explanatory of the whole of Nature was quite consistent with the recognition of Beauty, as an objective reality. Pervading the universe as a whole, it was supposed to have localised itself (as it were) in certain places and in certain things. But it was a sense of the unity and ultimate identity of all the particular things which reveal the Beautiful in virtue of the elements they possess in common which underlay the consciousness of the Hellenic race, felt rather than expressed, that dis- tinguished it from others. Probably no nation ever felt that the True, the Beautiful, and the Good are one, in the same simple instinctive way that the Greeks felt it ; and the philosophical conviction that everything true is also beautiful at its root, and that everything beautiful is also essentially good, must have greatly quickened the aesthetic sense of the nation. It is more than doubtful if any modern nation has had the same delicacy of perception and even sensitiveness to Beauty as the Greeks had ; and it is probable that the intellectual ideas of the people had a good deal to do with this. The sense of symmetry and proportion, of order, and moderated energy, was constitutional with them ; and we find it embodied in their architecture, illustrated in their sculpture, and the very soul of their poetry. We see it in their daily life and institutions, in their games, nay, even in the construction of their philosophical systems. Perhaps the most significant thing about it is that the greatest results were reached with scarce a sign of effort. The instinctive way in which its great artists went straight from the actual world, 20 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. with its multitudinous types and symbols, to a world that tran- scended it, made Greece pre-eminently the land of the ideal. It is an extremely interesting, and a very difficult, ques- tion in historical criticism how this characteristic of the Greek civilisation was produced. Many causes doubtless co-operated to bring it about It was partly due to the inherent vigour of the earliest settlers on the peninsula of Hellas, and to the mingling of diverse races, as wave after wave of population, and of conquest, swept westwards from the old home of the Aryans, or southwards from a European source. Climatical causes would co-operate with those of race. The physical features of the land, its usually serene climate, reacted on the people ; and the result was that in Greece Nature in no sense subdued man. On the contrary, man very easily became the interpreter of Nature, and the deft manipulator of her forms. The natural affinity of the Greek mind with excellence of every kind, and its rapid assimilative power, must also be taken into account. Athens had an eye always open to the East ; and it received influence both from Syria and from Egypt. The development of the most distinctive features of the nation was, however, more an evolution from within than a graft from without. Physically the Greeks were more beautiful than any of their contemporaries. Their gymnas- tics doubtless helped to strengthen their physical type, and the race had a passion for the possession of Beauty. There were " contests for Beauty," both amongst the men and the women of Hellas ; while the national honour given to the artists of the beautiful, in contrast with the menial rank of these men in other lands, helped forward the appreciation of the people. A sophist might be despised, but a great Greek sculptor was honoured of gods and men. Partly for this reason, the beautiful and the useful were identified in the popular mind. It must also be remembered that each one of the arts, as it rose into eminence, helped the others that had pre- ceded, or were contemporaneous with it. The poetry of Greece reacted on its painting, its sculpture, and its archi- tecture ; and the several arts reacted on the public life of iv The Philosophy of Greece 21 the nation. The Panathenaic procession was an epitome of all that was most characteristic of the race, and the frieze of the Parthenon, on which that procession was represented by Phidias, is the most splendid specimen of the art of Greece. Through the mingling of the diverse elements that entered into the Hellenic character each holding the other in check the culture of the nation became many- sided and harmonious. National symmetry was its out- come ; and the beauty which lies in moderation, or the golden mean between extremes, was not only the aim of the artists, but it was also to a very large extent reflected in the social life of the people. It may also be noted that imagination and reason were combined in Greece as they had never been com- bined before. It was not the love of Beauty alone that fired the imagination of the Greeks. The speculative instinct was also at work ; and, as the people delighted in clear intellectual views, as well as in agile mental move- ment of all sorts, they could not fail to direct the latter to the problem of Beauty. Beauty was everywhere before their eyes, in their daily life ; and into all their temple worship it entered, as an absolutely necessary element. They could not understand a religion from which the beautiful was absent ; and it had a place in their marketing and games, as well as their conflicts by sea and land. It was therefore to be expected that in Greece we should find the beginnings of a literature of ./Esthetics ; but it is only a beginning that we do find. The nation was too busy with the work of creating Beauty in all the Arts, to devote very much of its time to a reflective analysis of its nature. It is usually so, in these periods, when originality is great, and the productive impulse strong. Underneath the creative spirit, however, there lurked the critical ; and the speculative habit was developed so early in Greece, the love of synthesis and of clear theoretic views was so persist- ent, that the founders of all the great schools of Philosophy could not fail to speculate on the meaning of Beauty, as well as on the nature of Knowledge and of Conduct. 22 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 2. Socrates and Plato Passing over the anticipations of later thought to be found amongst the Pythagoreans who emphasised the principle of order and symmetry we may begin the history of Greek opinion with Socrates. The theory of Beauty suggested by him so far as it can be called a theory is a very defective one. It was not in this direction that the insight of the great moralist lay. If Socrates did not identify the Beautiful with the useful, he certainly made their utility the test of beautiful things ; just as in his ethics, after his quarrel with the doctrine of Aris- tippus, he fell back upon a utilitarian test of the morality of actions. This was, to a certain extent, a sign of his catholicity. On the other hand, with all his intellectual eminence and perhaps just because of his greatness as a moralist Socrates did not appreciate Beauty, in and for itself. It had little glory to him, " because of the glory that excelled it " in human conduct. It was the purpose which beautiful things subserved that chiefly interested him. In his Memorabilia (iii. 8) Xenophon narrates a con- versation between Aristippus and Socrates, in which the latter says, " Whatsoever is beautiful is for the same reason good, when suited to the purpose for which it was intended." " Whatsoever," he adds, " is suited for the end intended, with respect to that end is good and fair ; and contrariwise, it must be deemed evil and deformed, when it departs from the purpose which it was designed to promote." He goes on to apply this theory of fitness to the beauty of such things as houses. Those houses are most beautiful which are most convenient. This is not a partial theory, it is an altogether erroneous one, as will be abundantly seen in the sequel ; but it is worthy of note that Socrates seems to have realised that the beauty of expression is superior to any other kind of beauty. In another passage of the same chapter of the Memorabilia it is recorded that he went one day into the atelier of the sculptor Clito he had himself been a sculptor iv The Philosophy of Greece 23 in his boyhood and remarked to him that the best sculptor was the man whose statues best expressed the inner workings of the mind. As all the world knows, Socrates' chief pupil, Plato, developed his master's philosophy along many lines, draw- ing out its latent significance and its hidden implicates ; and it is with his name, more than with that of any other thinker, that future generations have associated Idealism, both in Philosophy and in Art. Consciously or uncon- sciously, all idealism draws its inspiration from Plato ; and if his theory of the Beautiful was not fully wrought out (which it was not), this was partly due to the fact that he lived in such a constant atmosphere of Beauty, both artistic and literary, that he did not care to analyse it speculatively in the same way that he analysed the nature of the true and the good. The intellectual and moral theories of his day were sectarian and full of flaws ; while the pursuit of know- ledge was as fitful as the standard of duty was capricious. He did not find so much amiss in the art of the period. It was the age of Pericles. In the Gorgias it is affirmed that things are beautiful "with reference to some standard" (474), but in this dia- logue Beauty is measured by the standard of " pleasure and utility." In the Hippias Major and no question need here be raised as to the genuineness of this dialogue, or of its place in the Platonic canon Socrates is represented as discuss- ing with Hippias, a peripatetic sophist from Elis, amongst other things, the question of the Beautiful. Various theories are started, and all are rejected as inadequate. Socrates asks Hippias, What is Beauty? What is the common quality in which beautiful things, each very diverse one from the other, all agree ? ert Se KCU So/ce? aot avro TO KaXov u> KCU raAAa Travra KO ry dta. ov yap av iruiroTe elSei/ 6(j>da\/J.bs ijXiov ytcrj yeyevTjfj.tj'os, ov5 rb KaXbv ai> tdoi ^vxh /*?? Ka\i] yevtvdu 5ri irpwrov deoeidrjs Tras, Kal /caXds Tras et /ueAXa debv re Kal Ka\6v. 32 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. that the actual and the ideal do not harmonise. The ideal transcends the actual ; and as soon as the individual mind has a glimpse of the former, the latter no longer satisfies it, but a pursuit begins, which can only be satisfied by some sort of identification with the ideal. Each individual object in the realm of the actual, however beautiful it may be and even although an artificial halo of the beautiful may gather round it is of use only as yielding a point of departure towards the absolutely and infinitely beautiful. But now, in what does the beauty of single objects, individual and external, consist ? In his flight to the transcendent, Plotinus does not ignore this question. He t explicitly raises, and at least tries to answer it. Does it 'consist, as Aristotle thought, in symmetry? The Neo- platonist answers " No." And why ? First, because objects individually beautiful are not all " made up " of parts, symmetrically adjusted and correlated. They are wholes, in which the parts are taken up, and lost to view. And secondly, because parts that are symmetrically adjusted may be individually ugly. No. It is only when the external , mirrors the internal, when matter is radiant with mind, : when intelligence permeates the unintelligent, when the ideal (different from and detached from the actual) is super- imposed upon it, and pervades it for the time being, that any individual thing becomes beautiful. Nature is thus a con- itinuous mirror of what transcends itself, and it is only when it reflects the transcendent that any single object has beauty. The merit of the Neoplatonic philosophy is the merit of idealism in general. It is not the particular doctrine which it taught, but its taking us away alike in the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic sphere from manifoldness, from scattered " opinions," miscellaneous " principles," detached " points of view," bundles of " ideas," suggestive " notions," et hoc genus omne, to that unity where no division is, and therefore to the rock that is higher than we. In contrast with this, the experience philosophy whether in knowledge, morals, or taste gives us multiplicity without unity, the heterogeneous without the homogeneous, the associated without the associating bond. Idealism is v The Neoplatonists 33 always needed as a counter-weight in the scale over and against this doctrine of conglomerates, which denies an underlying unity. So far good, and so far we are indebted to Plotinus and to Plato ; but that is not enough. We must also find some link of connection between the two realms, between the one and the many, the ideal and the actual ; and to be adequate, the link must be an organic one. It is unfortunately the case that the theory of Plotinus does not bridge the chasm any more satisfactorily than Plato's did, six centuries earlier. 1 2. Proclus A contemporary of Plotinus wrote a work, TTC/H vif/ovs, on the Sublime. This work, ascribed to Longinus (213-273), is well known, and has often been edited and annotated. It contains no real light, however, on the philosophy of the subject. On the whole, it may be said to revert from the Neoplatonic teaching to the doctrine of the founder of the Academy. Homer and Plato are the writers whom Longinus chiefly quotes. In describing the Sublime as that which " strikes home" (sec. i) and that which " sinks deep," which " transports one's soul, and exalts one's thoughts " (sec. 7), as that which "pervades, and throws an audience into transport," we manifestly do not get far beyond the com- monplace, despite the praise of the critics. Proclus (412-485) wrote, amongst other works, a treatise on the theology of Plato ; the twenty-fourth chapter of the ist Book of which is "concerning divine Beauty, and the elements of it, as taught by Plato." He recognised a primary suprasensible Beauty which is the cause of all the secondary or derivative beauty of the world, whether seen in mind or matter. It is the bond of union in the suprasensible realm. A certain delicacy or ethereality characterises it ; also a splendour and loveliness which make it the object of love. It is this sovran beauty that 1 An " examen critique " of the doctrine of Plotinus will be found in J. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire's L ' cole d'Alexandrie (1845). D 34 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP, v moves and attracts the things of sense, that causes them to energise. The infinite Beauty moving through the world is the source of finite splendour, and by love men are drawn toward it, and participate in it. Proclus saw clearly the fallacy of the imitative theory of Art. " He who takes for his model the forms which Nature produces, and keeps to a literal imitation of these, can never reach what is perfectly beautiful. Nature is full of disproportion, and falls short of the true standard of Beauty." CHAPTER VI THE GR^ECO-ROMAN PERIOD I. Introductory WE have no discussion of the philosophy of Beauty in Latin literature. In almost all the classic writers there are allusions to the subject, in Cicero especially ; and the poets Lucretius and Virgil glance at it ; but " let others study Art," said Virgil in the ^Eneid, " Rome has somewhat better in hand, viz. Law and Dominion." The love of Beauty, and its passionate pursuit, had done its work in Greece. It passed away, giving place to a different ideal ; and, while the Roman world could not ignore the beauti- ful, it contented itself, for the most part, by utilising it. The aim of Greek Art was to reach the ideal and express it, the artist being forgotten in his work. In Roman Art, the aim was a kind of splendour or magnificence that reflected back both on the artist and his patron. Rome enriched herself by bringing Beauty into her service, and made it tributary, without loving it supremely ; and when Greece became a dependency of Rome as part of Italy had once been Magna Grsecia the Art then in the ascend- ant was more imitative than original. Sculpture still flourished, and far exceeded in amount the early splendour of the Periclean age ; but while we have the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Belvidere as its outcome, the ideal grace of the Phidian art had vanished. Every great Roman had statues innumerable in his villa, but it was the age of the dilettante and the connoisseur. Collectors laid their 36 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. effeminate hands on Art, and almost killed it. So far as there was any attempt at originality, it was as a chronicle of the greatness of the Latin race that Art was made use of. It was a record, not an inspiration. Every ancient writer on Art refers to Euphranor ( 362 B.C.) as a master. The date of his birth is uncertain, but, as the subject of one of his paintings was the battle of Mantinea, he cannot have died before 363. He was both painter and sculptor, and he wrote a work, so Pliny tells us, De Symmetria et Coloribus ; and from Pliny down to Hirt (Geschichte d. Bild Kunst.^ the symmetrical excellence of his own work has been noted. Philostratus praises him much as an artist ; so does Pliny. His value to the student of the progress of philosophical thought lies in the fact that he developed, both in his teaching and practice, those principles of Art which Greek Philosophy had inculcated in its prime. A century and a half later, during the time of the Second Punic War, Plautus, the chief writer of Roman comedy, ' flourished. The only reason for referring to him is, that the teachings of idealism come out in his assertion that the | poet seeks for that which does not as yet exist anywhere, and finds it. How then does he come by it ? He obtains 1 it from within, from his own mind. Thus, too, it is that the idealist is the best historian, because he is the best inter- preter of what exists. He combines (e.g. in a drama or in a novel) what no individual life presents, but what is truer to Nature, and a far better mirror of his age, than the prosaic chronicle of the lives of the majority of the men and women that exist would be. 2. Lucretius , Virgil ', Cicero ', etc. Another century, and we reach two Roman writers whose works cast some light both on the opinions of the educated few, and on the attitude of the national mind toward Nature and the Beautiful, viz. Lucretius and Virgil. Perhaps no poet of the ancient world combined, so well as Lucretius did, the intellectual survey of Nature with an vi The Greece- Roman Period 37 imaginative study of it as the mysterious abode of an in- scrutable power. He was the philosophical poet of antiquity par excellence. He did not deal primarily or directly, how- ever, with the Beautiful in Nature. His great work, De Rerum Natura^ is a scientific poem on the origin of things, and their characteristics in the ever-evolving life of the cosmos. A somewhat diluted Neoplatonism was the intel- lectual atmosphere of his age ; but Lucretius was far more scientific than Plotinus or Proclus. He invariably kept much nearer to reality ; and, by a half-speculative half- imaginative flight, he rose to a more uniformly consistent idea of law and order than any other of the ancients, while an aesthetic view of the universe was contained within the scientific one. The atomic theory, and the doctrines of the constancy of the sum of existence, and the indestructibility of force, carried with them the idea of harmony or cosmic order, and implied a doctrine of the sublime. His genuine appreciation of Nature, his sympathy with it in all its changing moods " the reign of law " being everywhere recognised is noteworthy ; but Lucretius saw both beauty and sublimity behind the laws of Nature, as in later years Oersted saw them. Far more than Virgil did, he rejoiced in Nature for its own sake ; and, while the desire " rerum cognoscere causas " was dominant, there is also throughout his great poem the feeling for Nature, and an occasional sense of its charm, that seem almost to anticipate the deeper appreciation of the nineteenth century. The Latin race, however, theorised less than the Greeks had done on the phenomena that called forth their admira- tion or delight. Relatively speaking, there is no theory of Beauty at all to be found in Roman literature ; but it does not follow that the finer spirits of the nation appreciated it the less on that account. There is ample evidence, even in Catullus, and much more in Virgil and Homer, of these poets' joy in Nature, in her various phases and her changing moods, throughout the day and year, from sunrise to sunset, and from spring to winter ; and not only of a delight in Nature in general, but of the charm of landscape. As the late Professor Sellar put it, "The love of natural scenery 38 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and of country life is certainly more prominently expressed in Roman than in Greek poetry. . . . The conscious en- joyment of Nature as a prominent motive of poetry first appears in the Alexandrian era. The great poets of earlier times were too deeply penetrated by the thought of the mystery and the grandeur in human life to dwell much on the spectacle of the outward world. Though their delicate sense of beauty was unconsciously cherished and refined by the air which they breathed, and the scenes by which they were surrounded ; yet they do not, like the Roman poets, yield to the passive pleasures derived from contemplating the aspect of the natural world " ( The Roman Poets of the Republic, pp. 17, 18, ed. 1881). Throughout the Georgics at once a book of Nature, and a book of the Farm this delight in the ever-renovating life of the world comes out. But in Virgil, perhaps, the most noteworthy passage bearing on the subject is that stately one in the speech of Anchises towards the close of the 6th sEneid, in which, after yielding the supremacy to other nations in Art, he claims for Rome the government of the world (11. 847-853). It is thus that Mr. Sellar traces the difference between Virgil and Lucretius : " The secret of the power of Lucretius lies in his recognition of the sub- limity of natural law in ordinary phenomena. The secret of Virgil's power lies in the insight, and long-practised meditation, through which he abstracts the single element of beauty from common sights, and the ordinary operations of industry" (The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age, p. 2 3 1 , ed. 1 8 7 7 ). Again, in The Roman Poets of the Republic (pp. 1 8, 19) he writes: "Lucretius, while contemplating the majesty of Nature's laws, and the immensity of her range, is at the same time powerfully moved to sympathy with her ever-varying life. He feels the charm of simply living in fine weather, and looking on the common aspects of the world such as the seashore, fresh pastures, and full -flowing rivers, or the new loveliness of the early morning." In Horace's enjoyment of his Sabine farm and the Bandusian fount, etc., and in Catullus's delight in the vi The Gr (ECO- Roman Period 39 " Venusta Sirmio," we have a genuine appreciation of the charm of Nature ; but, in addition to this, Horace has a special claim on the student of the development of ideas, as he was perhaps the first to arrange the several Arts in anything like order. We have no such arrangement of them in Greek literature, as in the Ars Poetica. Aristotle in his Poetics refers to painting, music, and the drama, as well as to poetry (it is curious that sculpture and architecture were omitted, when their triumphs were so obvious around him) ; but it was Horace who first drew out the parallel or com- parison between poetry and painting. Cicero's allusions to the subject of Pulchritudo must not be forgotten, and in Cicero we get a somewhat distant approach to an analytic treatment of the subject. In the De Offidis (i. 36) he tells us that " Beauty is of two kinds, one of which consists in loveliness, the other in dignity." In the 4th Tusculan disputation (31) he defines a par- ticular type of Beauty as " the apt configuration of body, with a certain delicacy (suavitas) of colour superadded " ; and when discussing, in the De Oratore, the characteristics of the perfect orator, he illustrates his thesis by an example drawn from the sculptures of Phidias. He says : " My con- viction is that there is nothing in the world so beautiful that it cannot become more beautiful ; whence it follows that what cannot be disclosed by the eye, or the ear, or any of the senses, can be understood by the mind, or expressed by the countenance. So too with respect to the statues of Phidias, which are the most perfect specimens of the art of sculpture that we possess, and the other paintings I have mentioned, we can conceive things still more beautiful. Phidias himself, when he was at work upon his Jupiter or Minerva, had no model before him from which he con- structed a likeness ; but he had in his mind an ideal of beauty, the constant vision of which guided his hands in their executive work. As, therefore, in every form and figure there is something perfect which is not beheld by the sense of sight, so it is by the mind that we perceive the ideal of oratory ; it is only its image that we hear with our ears." 40 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 3. Vitruvius to Philostratus In the reign of Augustus a Roman writer on the theory of Art became, and for many generations continued to be, the chief authority in Italy and elsewhere on the subject of Architecture. Vitruvius (M. Vitruvius Pollio), contemporary of Diodorus Siculus, composed his treatise, De Architecture some time between the years 20 and 1 1 B.C. He was him- self an architect, but the only building known to have been designed by him is the basilica at Fanum. His treatise deals with military as well as with civil architecture, and is technical rather than speculative ; but its design was to furnish his patron Augustus with certain principles by which he might judge of existing buildings, and determine the plans of new ones. He discusses the education of an architect, the materials for building, the orders of architecture, and the decoration of houses. The first of his ten Books is the most interesting to the student of the theory and history of Art. In the first chapter, Architecture is discussed in two ways, " ex fabrica, et ratiocinatione," but the two are not kept distinct. Vitruvius's style is extremely terse and ob- scure. In the second chapter he says : " Architectura autem constat ex ordinatione, quae Graece rais dicitur, et ex dispositione, hanc autem Graeci Sia#eo-iv vocant, eurythmia, et symmetria, et decore, et distributione, quae Graece OIKO- vofjiia dicitur." Thus his five principles of composition, or rules of art, are (i) utility, rais ; (2) proportion, harmony, and symmetry ; (3) disposition, or the arrangement and construction of forms, Sta^eo-ts ; (4) the distribution of forms in a distinctive style, oiKovopia ; (5) Decor. It is in the discussion of " proportion," under his second head, that Vitruvius is theoretically most explicit. Sym- metry results from proportion, and proportion is the har- mony of the parts of a thing with the whole of it. He deals first with the proportion of a single whole within a larger unity, and next with the proportion of a whole com- posed of several minor unities. The laws of symmetry were deduced, he thinks, by the great artists of antiquity vi The Grceco- Roman Period 41 from the human body, and then applied to architecture ; and he traces an analogy between the relations of the parts to the whole in the human body, and in all well-constructed buildings. The abiding interest of the book is that it is a treatise on Architecture, based on the principle of proportion. There is almost nothing in the writings of the Roman Stoics on the subject of Art, although in his 58th epistle, 15-18, Seneca draws a distinction between iSea and etSos, which should be noted in passing. The original, in the mind of the painter or sculptor, is the t'Sea ; the copy, transcript, or likeness of which is the efSos. In the nth Book of Quintilian (42-118 A.D.), on "Ex- pression," we have an account of the progress of Greek Art from Polygnotus to Apelles, and from Phidias to Lysippus. It is an excellent specimen of historical statement, clear and terse, with no word wasted ; but Quintilian does not discuss the theory of the Beautiful. In the 35th Book of the Historia Naturalis of the elder Pliny we have some interesting details about ancient paintings and Art ; but, while there is a mass of informa- tion as to details, there is no discussion of principle in Art. Pliny is an unreliable authority, and is only to be trusted when he is giving a quotation, if even then ! In the first chapter of the 3d Book of Arrian's Discourses of his master Epictetus ('ETrt/crryTov Atar/3t/?ai), written probably in the latter half of the second century A.D., a thing is described as beautiful when it is " most excellent according to its proper nature." " As the nature of each is different, each seems beautiful in a different way." But if what makes each thing beautiful is its possession of the excellence peculiar to it, it surely follows that what makes one creature beautiful may make another ugly. A little after the middle of the second century, Galen, the great physician and one of the most voluminous authors of antiquity, wrote his book Tre/ot TWV ' ITTTTOK/OCXTO vs KCU nXarwvos Aoy/xarcav (On the dogmas of Hippocrates and Plato). In Philosophy he was a follower of Aristotle, but he united some of the best things in Neoplatonism with the traditional 42 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP, vi teachings of the Stagirite. In the 5th section of the above book, Galen writes (he is speaking of Chrysippus) : " He believes that Beauty is not to be found in separate things, taken one by one, but in the symmetry of members, e.g. in the suitable arrangement of one finger with another, of all the fingers with the palm and the wrist, of palm and wrist with the elbow, of the elbow with the arm, and in fact of all the members with each other, as is laid down in the canon of Polycleitus." Philostratus, who belonged to the second and third cen- turies A.D. who wrote the life of Apollonius, and of the Sophists wrote also a work which he called EIKOVCS (Imagines}. In this he explains a series of sixty- four paintings, which he represents as existing in a villa in which he resided near Naples. In the preface he says that a knowledge of human Nature is necessary for supremacy, or even for any achievement in the art of painting. The genius of the painter must make the outward express the inward. He must understand how to make the physical frame express the mind within it. He refers to the idea of the ancients that the key to the art of painting is to be found in "symmetry," which is a harmony or balance of / the spheres of the outward and the inward ; and traces a parallel between the art of poetry and the art of painting. Maximus Tyrius, a Greek writer of the age of the Anto- nines the date of whose birth and death is unknown wrote AiaAc^eis (Dissertationes) on various philosophical subjects. He is chiefly interesting to the student of the history of art -theory from the fact that he endorsed the root-principle of idealism, that the beauty which painters give us, drawn from every quarter, is a beauty which it is impossible to find in any single natural body. He therefore held that Nature was inferior to Art. CHAPTER VII MEDIEVALISM I. The Patristic Writers DURING the long period of medievalism which separates the close of ancient philosophy from the rise of the modern spirit in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were comparatively few writers who dealt with the problem of the Beautiful, or seem to have thought it worthy of serious treatment. When interest in knowledge for its own sake had dwindled, and the stream of civilisation was stopped in certain quarters altogether, and in others made artificial by alien causes, it was not to be expected that much interest should be taken either in Nature or in Art. In traversing those centuries, and seeking for any casual notices of the subject in out-of-the-way treatises, we must, as Hegel says, put on seven-league boots, or perhaps one might rather say that we must make a flying leap from century to century. As soon, however, as we see any sign of a revival of Philosophy, within the shelter of Catholicism, interest in the problem of the beautiful returned as one of its elements. It was present as a latent factor, influencing all other problems more or less, although it scarcely showed itself in the active discussion of the schools. Passing over Clemens Alexandrinus, who touched its margin in his Paedagogus (iii. i), the most important treat- ment of the subject in Patristic literature was by St. August- ine. At the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven he wrote a 44 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. little book De Apto et Pulchro. It was his earliest work, and he dedicated it to a Roman orator, Hierius. The book has unfortunately perished. In his Epistolae, Book i. 3, St. Augustine writes : " Quid est corporis pulchritude ? Con- gruentia partium cum quadam coloris suavitate." In the Confessiones, he followed Socrates in identifying the beauti- ful with the useful. " Videbain in ipsis corporibus aliud esse quasi totum, et ideo pulchrum ; aliud autem quod ideo deceret, quoniam apte accommodaretur alicui, sicut pars corporis ad universum suum" (lib. iv. cap. 13). There is another passage in which he modifies his teaching thus : " Pulchrum esse quod per se ipsum ; aptum autem quod ad aliquid accommodatum deceret" (lib. iv. cap. 15). His views on music are to be found in his De Vera Religione, and De Musica. St. Augustine was a Christian Platonist, who regarded the Divine Nature as the fountainhead of Beauty ; and, in a slightly Neoplatonic fashion, he taught that in our approach to and contact with the fountainhead, Beauty is disclosed to man directly. About a hundred years after St. Augustine, we find a scholar of the fourth century, a man of real genius, but an eccentric virtuoso and dilettante Cassiodorius (468-562 ?) who wrote many works on many themes. Amongst these was one on Liberal Studies, which was a sort of compendium of the Seven Arts (which were supposed to exhaust the curriculum of knowledge), and which was for a long time an authority in the Middle Ages. He discussed the subject of the Beautiful very imperfectly. And not much more can be said of Martianus Capella (490 ), whose work was a sort of encyclopedic analysis, summarising the knowledge of the Middle Ages, in which the principles of the seven Liberal Arts, which were supposed to be the omne scibile^ are discussed. It is an ill-assorted miscellany. 2. The Thirteenth Century Scattered through the writings of the subtlest thinker of mediaevalism, Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274), there are VII Medievalism 45 reflections on the subject of Beauty, which some of his dis- ciples regard as the profoundest in philosophical literature. The Abbe P. Vallet, for example (see p. 133), has written an elaborate work, LIdee du Beau, dans la philosophic de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. In almost every word of his master, Vallet finds the germs of a theory. The discussion on " Pulchritudo " in the Summa is meagre ; but Aquinas wrote " De Pulchro " in his Opuscula, and there are sentences in his commentary on Lombard's Book of the Sentences, in his Contra Gentes, and elsewhere, which, when taken to- gether, and mutually compared, yield a tolerably complete doctrine of Beauty. There is, of course, a great risk of our reading later developments of thought into Aquinas, just as he used sometimes to interpret both his " philosophus " (Aristotle), the Hebrew, and the Christian books ; but whatever we make of his theory, we may agree with P. Vallet that he opens up to us " immense horizons " of thought. Perhaps the two aphorisms of Aquinas which are most to the point are " Pulchritudo habet claritatem " (Comm. in Sent. I. dist. 31, q. 2, s. i) and "Ratio pulchri consistit in quadam consonantia diversorum " (Opusc. de Pulchro]. He also defines Pulchritudo as " Resplendentia formae super partes materiae proportionatas vel super diversas vires, vel actiones." This resplendentia formae, the brilliance, or eclat, communicated to matter by the ideal form it assumes, and by which it is clothed as well as permeated, is a very significant feature of the Beautiful ; and, as stated by Aquinas, it is a characteristic attempt to define the ultimate mystery. In the Summa he says: "Ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur ; primo quidem integritas, sive perfectio ; quae enim diminuta sunt, hoc ipso turpia sunt " (I. qu. 39). In the 5th quaestio in 1 he defines Perfectio thus : " Illud est perfectum, cui nihil deest secundum modum suae per- fectionis." Again : " Tune unaquaque res optime disponitur, cum ad suum finem convenienter ordinatur. Finis enim uniuscujus est bonum" (Cont. Gent, proeem. c. i). Again, in the De Pulchro : " As for beauty of body, a certain fit proportion of members, and colour superadded, is necessary 46 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. without which there is no beauty so for Beauty uni- versally, to the proportion of the parts and of the whole there must be added a certain ' claritas formae.' " Again : " Pulchritudo non consistit in componentibus, sicut in materialibus, sed in resplendentia formae sicut in formali; et haec est quasi differentia specifica, complens rationem pulchri." Again : " Pulchrum nunquam separatur a bono, sicut pulchrum corporis a bono corporis, et pulchrum animae a bono animae." There are passages in the Convito and in the Vita Nuova ( 20) of Dante (1265-1321), and also in the Divina Commedia, bearing indirectly on the subject of the Beautiful ; but the subject was grasped by him intuitively, not dis- cussed speculatively. In his grief for Beatrice he turned to Philosophy for consolation ; and seeking for silver, he found gold. But it was not into the sphere of abstractions that Dante rose, by the help of the philosophic formulae of the understanding. He ascended to a higher realm by the sheer force of intuition. By " the power of a peculiar eye," he saw separate things embraced within a higher unity, that " unity where no division is." 3. The Fifteenth Century Dante's great successor, Savonarola (1452-1498) for successor he was in the illustrious brotherhood, not only of "the makers of Florence," but of the great men of the Italian renaissance was pre-eminently a religious teacher ; and it has even been supposed that he was an iconoclast as regards the Fine Arts. This is unjust, and has led a perfervid admirer, M. Rio, to represent him, in his Art Chretien, as a sort of reviver of Christian as opposed to Pagan art. The latter is a preposterous statement, although the breach between Savonarola and the natural- istic art, which was chiefly in vogue with the Medici, did not lead the former into any opposition to Art in general. The classical renaissance, which Cosmo de Medici favoured, was a type of art that had departed far from the ideal of Fra Angelico ; and it was to that earlier ideal, vii Medicevalism 47 enhanced by the robuster qualities of Buonarotti, that Savonarola turned. He did more, however, than sympa- thise with a new ideal of Art. He also spoke and wrote on the subject of the Beautiful. In one of his sermons, for the third Sunday in Lent, he asked, " In what does Beauty consist ? In colour ? No. In Form ? No. Beauty, as regards composite things, is born of the correspondence of parts and colours. The beauty of simple things is in their light. Behold the sun and the stars, their beauty is in the light they shed ; behold, the spirits of the blessed, their beauty consists of light ; behold, God is light. He is Beauty itself. The beauty of man and woman is greater and more perfect the more resemblance it hath to primary beauty. What then is j this Beauty ? It is a quality resulting from the proportion | and correspondence of the members and parts of the body. Thou dost not call a woman beautiful on account of her beautiful nose or hands, but when all is in harmony. What is the source of this beauty? On investigation, thou wilt see that it emanates from the soul." It is, as in another sermon he says, when the soul shines in the beauty of God, j that a divine charm is given to the body. \ To Savonarola the moral and religious interest was supreme, but he wrote a small book on the " Division and Utility of all the Sciences," in reply to a request from his scholar friend Agolino Verino, one section of which is "An apology for the art of Poetry." His aim in the little book was to show that poetry, like every other branch of culture, had its place of value. He held that the essence of Poetry was philosophic thought, but that the purpose of Poetry was to persuade by example. He then proceeds, however, most narrowly to denounce the classical poets of antiquity, and would have had them all as ruthlessly con- demned, and their works placed in an index expurgatorius, as Plato would have had them banished from his ideal Republic. There is no doubt that the general strain of the teaching of Savonarola was alien to an appreciation of the Beautiful. It could hardly have been otherwise. He 48 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. had other, and relatively to his day perhaps more important work to do. No other writer, either of the earlier or the later medievalism, dealt with the theory of Beauty ; and one of the most distinctive features of those centuries now known as the " Dark," was the want of an appreciation of the Beautiful, whether in art or in life, its absence from the thought, the style, and the character of the times. Albrecht Diirer (1471-1528) was perhaps the first European artist who studied Nature carefully, for its own sake, and with a view to make it a subject for Art. He was the founder of the landscape art of Europe, although also and eminently a figure painter. He had studied Vitruvius (see p. 40), and himself elaborated a theory of proportion, of which he wrote, and which he tried to practise. His two chief works were his Book of Measure- ments and Book of Human Proportions. In these he did not, however, lay down any dogmatic proposition as to Beauty. He saw the immense variety of its types, noting even that two human figures might both be beautiful, and yet neither resemble the other, in any single point or part. He said: "No man liveth who can grasp the whole beauty of the meanest living creature." ..." Men deliberate, and hold numberless different opinions about Beauty, and they seek after it in many different ways. I certainly know not what the ultimate measure of true Beauty is ... but we must find perfect form and Beauty in ' the sum of all.' "... " I have heard how the seven sages of Greece taught a man that measure is in all things (physical and moral) the best. Those arts and methods which most approximate to measurement are the noblest." ..." Beauty dependeth upon many things. When we wish to bring it into our work, we find it very hard. We must gather it together from far and wide. . . . Out of many beautiful things something good may be extracted, even as honey is gathered from many flowers. The true mean lieth between too much and too little. ... I apply to what is to be called beautiful the same touchstone as that by which I decide what is right " (MS. Brit. Mus. IV.). Diirer else- VII Medi&valism 49 where wrote : " Use is a part of Beauty," and " The accord of one thing with another is beautiful." More important are his words: "Depart not from Nature, neither imagine of thyself to invent aught better, for Art standeth firmly fixed in Nature, and whoso can thence rend her forth, he only possesseth her." " We find in Nature a Beauty so far surpassing our understanding, that not one of us can fully bring it into his work." i CHAPTER VIII THE PHILOSOPHY OF GERMANY i. Leibnitz to Lessing IN the philosophy of Leibnitz (1646-1716), who led the idealistic reaction in Germany along a track of his own, we have no explicit discussion of the problem of the Beautiful ; but some of the most characteristic features of the Leibnitzian teaching gave rise to, and reappear in, the subsequent ' aesthetik ' of Germany. Leibnitz held that we rise from a sort of sub-consciousness, or confused groping, into the explicit realisation of things. An indistinct perception yields to a distinct one ; and, although there is a differ- A ence, there is no chasm between the two. The clear per- ception of the harmony of the Universe is an intellectual or ( scientific grasp of it ; but, in the vague or obscure realisa- \ tion of the same, we perceive its beauty. Thus, the perception of Beauty is an unconscious or half-conscious discernment of harmony ; and our knowledge of the true and the beautiful is distinguished simply as the clear and the dim perception of the same thing. (Cf. Principes de *la Nature, etc., 1714.) As one of the most appreciative of Leibnitzian scholars puts it, the sphere of the Beautiful in poetry and art is "on the borderland of the unconscious and conscious ; it lies in the twilight of the perceiving and sentient soul. The great world of the petites perceptions, the half-illuminated storehouse of our mind, where the ideas hover when they merge out of darkness into full light this is the home of the Beautiful" (J. T. Merz, Leibniz, p. 185). CHAP, vin The Philosophy of Germany 51 It is only the germ of a doctrine of the Beautiful, how- ever, that is to be found in Leibnitz. The first to elaborate a theory on the subject was Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762). He was the younger of two brothers, both of whom became teachers at Halle. Reared in a school which was prejudiced against both Wolff and Leibnitz, he ultimately became their intellectual disciple. He developed the Wolfian doctrine, however, along a special line ; and, although he discussed Philosophy in almost all its aspects, he will probably be remembered chiefly as having been the first in Germany to call attention to Beauty as a distinct branch of knowledge. His book which virtually created the science in Germany was called Aesthetica^ and published at Frankfort on the Oder in 1750, republished in 1758. Baumgarten identified the Beautiful with the perfect, and defined it very vaguely as Perfection apprehended through the channel of sense. He classified the provinces of philosophical inquiry as respectively those of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. Cousin's classification of them (Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien) was derived from Baumgarten ; but the latter distinguished the True (or the sphere of Logic) from the Beautiful (or the sphere of Esthetic) simply as two sections of knowledge, the former of which was clear, and the latter obscure. In contrast with the clear knowledge which Logic gives, Esthetics gives us only dim or confused knowledge (verworrene Vorstellungen). ^Esthetic is at one and the same time, however, perception through the senses, and a discernment of the Beautiful, the scientia cognitionis sensilivae being the same as ars pulchre cogitandi\ the facultas dejudicandi enabling us to see unity in variety, or agreement in difference. 1 Baumgarten wholly ignored the side of feeling, or emotion, in the apprehension of the Beautiful, em- phasising the intellectual side only. His adoption of Leibnitz's doctrines of optimism and pre-established harmony 1 Baumgarten' s treatise begins : " Aesthetica . . . ars pulchre cogi- tandi . . . est scientia cognitionis sensitivae." Again he says: " Per- fectio cognitionis sensitivae ... est pulchritudo." 52 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. led him into a sort of esthetic fatalism, which harked back to the Aristotelian doctrine that, as it is in Nature that we find the highest disclosure of the Beautiful, the chief pur- pose of Art is to imitate Nature. Baumgarten recognised the Beautiful as an intellectual element existing in Nature, but he did not connect it with the life of Nature or the anima mundi. Had he done so, he would have seen that it is not to be identified with the actual (i) because life and change are synonymous, and (2) because the vital type is kept up, and is even strengthened, by specific departures from it in individual cases. A pupil of Baumgarten, and his biographer, Friedrich Meier (1718-1777), developed his doctrine in his Anfangs- griinde der Schbnen Wissenschaften (1748). It was at his instigation that Baumgarten gave his Aesthetica to the world, and Meier cared more for this than for any other part of his master's philosophy. He opposed the realistic 'teaching of the. Aristotelians of his day Batteux, etc. that successful art is an imitation of Nature ; and held that in objective Beauty we see perfection mirrored to us, so far as that is possible, in sensuous forms. Friedrich Nicolai (1733-1811), of " Universal Library" fame, began his literary career by writing Letters tipon the Present State of the Fine Arts in Germany (1755), but although he had been a pupil of Baumgarten, and imbibed his spirit, and although his chief interest was in the depart- ment of aesthetic, he contributed nothing to the advance- ment of philosophical theory. Some years afterwards (1771), Johann Georg Sulzer (1720-1777) wrote a theory of the Fine Arts, Allgemeine Theorie der Schonen Kunste. He followed Wolff, in finding the essence of Beauty in perfection, which was also the one in the manifold ; and he points out that, as things are beautiful in themselves, and not merely in subjective taste, aesthetic pleasure is much higher than any sense enjoyment can be. Although his book went through four editions, and was subsequently added to by three of his literary friends, as well as translated into French, Sulzer's was, on the whole, a sterile discussion. It is somewhat curious vin The Philosophy of Germany 53 that for many a year the Germans considered Sulzer their chief authority in the subject of the Beautiful, although he did not advance aesthetic theory beyond the position to which it was raised a decade earlier by his friend Breitinger in his preface to J. J. Bodmer's Critische Betrachtungen iiber die poetischen Gemdlde der Dichter (1741). In 1764, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) published his Geschichle der Kunst des Alterthums. This was the first German work on the history of Art, and was almost an epoch-making book. Winckelmann was a Prussian, educated first at Dresden, and afterwards at Rome, where he lived with Cardinal Albani, and was made prasfect of antiquities in the city. Amid the ruins of the world of Ancient Art, in the metropolis of Italy, he planned the work, which gave his countrymen their earliest and what is still one of the freshest delineations of that world. It might without exaggeration be defined as a divination of the spirit of Hellenic Art by a nature of kindred simplicity, penetra- tion, and strength. One chapter of his book is entitled "The Essential in Art," and in it he discusses the nature of the Beautiful. He finds it easier as many others had done to say what it is not, than what it is ; but he tells us that, during all his historical studies in Greek Art, Beauty seemed to beckon to him. " I cast my eyes down before it, as did those to whom the Highest appeared, believing that I saw the Highest in this vision." He tried to unite all single beauties into one figure. He failed in this ; but he recognised the truly beautiful which was felt by sense, but recognised by the understanding as one, and not manifold. He held that the essence of Beauty consists, not in colour, but in shape colour might assist it, but did not constitute it and further, that Beauty is different from that which merely pleases or charms us. A person or an object might possess charm without being beautiful. He rejected the! theory that Beauty lies in the harmony of any single thing with the object of its being, or in the harmony of the parts of a thing with the whole of it ; and held that the highest Beauty was " like an essence extracted from matter by fire." It was always heightened by simplicity, and there 54 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. was also the absence of individuality in it, so far as in- dividual traits introduce an element of limitation. In this ! connection Winckelmann made use of the figure, Beauty should be " like the best kind of water, drawn from a spring : the less taste it has, the more healthful it is, because free from foreign admixture." Since all individual objects had some fault or defect, the excellence of ancient Art seemed to him to consist in this, that " as the bee gathers from many flowers, so were the ideas of beauty brought together from many different quarters." The selection of the most beautiful elements, and their harmonious union, produced the ideal, which was the highest possible beauty, and which existed, not in outward nature, but in the mind alone. Winckelmann found it easier to say where Beauty resides, than to tell us in what it consists. He selected " the youthful form, in which everything is and is yet to come, in which it appears and yet does not appear." It is obvious that this is a partial theory, from the fact that there is beauty in maturity, as well as in youth, and even in extreme age. In addition, it is narrowed by its limitation to beauty of form, or mere outline. He did not take account of expression, or the incarnation of thought and feeling through form. His illustration of Beauty as pure spring water is the root of a fallacy. Ideal Beauty according to that symbol would be stiff and inflexible, a rigid uniform entity. The theory was acutely criticised by Hermann Hettner in the Revue Moderne, January 1866. Winckelmann's theory, however, and his critical estimate of Greek art, had an effect far beyond the department to which his book was devoted ; and we find it telling soon on the literary, the philosophical, and the archaeological study of his time. It suggested much, for example, to Lessing. The charm of his really great book is that Winckelmann was no mere archaeologist, or dry chronicler of facts, but an ardent enthusiast for the Beautiful, a philosophic poet, who loved Beauty for its own sake. In 1769, five years after the Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums appeared, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing viii The PJiilosophy of Germany 55 (1729-1781) published his Laokoon, one of the finest fragments of aesthetic criticism in the literature of Ger- many. It was directed against the idea embodied in the maxim sit ut pictura poema, and its purpose was to bring out the distinction of the plastic arts from poetry. Lessing may be described as an eighteenth -century Aristotelian, who maintained that the function of Art was solely and simply to reflect the Beautiful. But he points out that the Greek artists would paint nothing but the beautiful. They were idealists in the sense that they would not reproduce the real if it was ugly. " Who would paint you, when nobody will look at you ? " expresses the rule of their work. He has drawn out the provinces of Poetry and Painting in the Laokoon with much felicity. As sculpture and painting represent what is coexistent and permanent, they are more limited than poetry is. Form and colour have no range at all comparable to that which Poetry can traverse ; the scope of the latter being practically limitless. The name of Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) should be mentioned here in passing. He was a German artist ; court painter to Augustus, King of Saxony ; a friend of Winckelmann (to whom he was of great service at Rome) ; and a writer on art. His definition of Beauty, however, was vague enough, " visible perfection, an imperfect image of the supreme perfection." 2. Mendelssohn to Kant In 1783 a friend of Nicolai, Johann August Eberhard (1739-1809), published a Theory of the Fine Arts and Sciences, and in 1803-1805 a Handbook of ^Esthetics in four volumes. These works call for no special remark. A much more important writer was Moses Mendelssohn (1726-1786), who must be regarded as the intermediate link between Lessing and Kant. In his Morgenstunden (1785), Mendelssohn called attention to a feature of the Beautiful which Kant adopted, or to which he was at least much indebted, in the working out of his greater theory. " It is customary," he writes, " to distinguish the cognitive 56 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. faculty from the faculty of desire, and to include the feelings of pleasure under the latter. Between cognition and desire, however, it seems to me there lies that satisfaction of the soul which is widely separated from desire. We look upon the Beauty in Nature and Art with pure pleasure and satis- faction. This is a mark of the Beautiful that we contemplate it with quiet satisfaction. It pleases us though we do not possess it, and can never possibly make use of it. When we think of a beautiful thing in relation to ourselves, then desire to have it springs up, but not till then ; but this desire to possess is very different from the enjoyment of the Beautiful itself." In an earlier work On the Main Principles of the Fine Arts and Sciences, and On the Sublime and Naive in the Arts and Sciences (1761), Mendelssohn drew a fruitful dis- tinction between the symbols which the several Arts employ, and the aims they have in view. We come now to a greater name in German philosophy than any of the preceding. The general aim of the philo- sophy of Kant (1724-1804) was to establish the principles of knowledge on an a priori basis. The Kantian is the critical philosophy par excellence, inasmuch as it criticises experience with a view to show that it contains elements that are anterior to, and underived from, experience. In 1781 the Critic of the Pure Reason appeared ; seven years later, the Critic of the Practical Reason ; which was followed in 1790 by the Critic of Judgment. It is in this last work (the Kritik der Urteilskraff) that Kant discusses the nature of Beauty and Sublimity. Writing to his friend Reinhold he said : " I am at pre- sent engaged on a critique of Taste, and I have been in this way led to the discovery of another kind of a priori principles than I had formerly recognised. For the faculties of the mind are three the faculty of knowledge, the faculty of pleasure and pain, and the will. I have dis- covered the a pi iori principles for the first of these in the Critic of the Pure Reason, and for the third in the Critic of the Practical Reason ; but my search for such a similar prin- ciple for the second seemed at first fruitless. ... I now viii The Pliilosophy of Germany 57 recognise three parts of Philosophy, each of which has its own a priori principles." This recognition by Kant of three equivalent and equally important departments of philosophy is noteworthy ; and he seems to have regarded the third and last as a sort of con- necting link between the other two. In the intellectual sphere, reason is the faculty which traverses the ground to be explored ; within the moral sphere the will is the faculty ; but "we can feel what we can neither know nor will"; and by this mediating principle Kant thought that we get a link of connection between the phenomenal and the real. When we cannot penetrate to the world beyond phenomena by the exercise of reason, and while the energy of the will is of necessity quite subjective, we may be conscious of objects beyond us, which create a certain harmony within us. The aesthetic line of inquiry is therefore not only different from the intellectual and the moral, it is the only pathway that conducts us to the terra firma of objective and substantial reality. In his Critic of Jtcdgment Kant's first endeavour is to find out the a priori element or elements in our aesthetic consciousness. (i) When we say of an object that it is beautiful, we are, first of all, conscious of pleasure but it is a disinterested pleasure. We do not pronounce it to be beautiful because we wish to possess it. Our only desire is to be in its presence, and to know more about it. (2) Next, we recognise that others as well as ourselves should thus judge of it and feel regarding it. We universalise our own judgment and feelings toward it ; and we do this because we recognise the faculties of all men as radically or constitutionally the same. We can only say that others should agree with us, in our judgments and feelings as to beauty, if we possess a common nature. (3) Further, when we say a thing is beautiful, we express the relation in which it (the object) stands to us (the subject) ; but we do not pronounce as to any other relation, in which the object before us stands to other objects. We do not construe any- thing as beautiful because of the end or purpose it subserves (whether objective or subjective), although we may perceive 58 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. that it is always adapted to some end. We judge it to be beautiful because of what it is in relation to ourselves. It follows and here we come to an illogical inference that Beauty does not lie in the power which objects have to move us ; nor does it consist in any perfections we perceive to exist in them. We call them beautiful because our faculties work harmoniously in regard to them. The sublime is different from the beautiful. The objects which we recognise as sublime do not soothe or rest our faculties, but stir them. They excite the imagination in an indeterminate manner. The beauty in objects appeals to us directly by what it is, the sublime appeals to us indirectly by what it suggests. The great outlying and surrounding forces of Nature, which we cannot manipulate or resist (but which nevertheless cannot crush us under them), excite in us the feeling of the sublime. The sublime may be a quan- titative element of mere magnitude. We may go on adding element to element, and the more elements we take in, the greater the sublimity ; but at length we reach a limit, and can combine no more. The thought of the Infinite, as transcending the finite, brings in the sublime ; and the sublimity of the Infinite is an absolute sublimity. Another kind is relative. An object may be great, not intrinsically, but only relatively to us ; while we do not feel that we are altogether subdued before it. Finally, the recognition of a sublime power beyond us in Nature awakens in man a sense of corresponding power within him, and leads him to find the root of the sublime within his own nature. Kant's teaching as to the Beautiful and Sublime was an effort to unite what had been left broken up and divided in his two previous Kritiken. He saw in Nature something that resembled human reason and intelligence. The diffi- culty was to find the connecting link between them. He held that the only ground on which we can universalise our judgments as to the Beautiful, or regard them as valid for others, was that they were the outcome of the Universal Reason. We could not expect any one to agree with us in our judgments as to Beauty unless we ourselves discerned this universal reason in Nature, and saw in it, not a blank vin The Philosophy of Germany 59 pleasure-producing apparatus, but a mirror which reflects our f own nature at its highest point of development. It is in this act of universalising our experience that we transcend the subjective and phenomenal sphere. At first all is subjective and phenomenal. In the pure disinterested pleasure which comes to us ab extra, without the element of desire, we do not transcend the phenomenal sphere. But whenever we say that this Beauty, which gives us a pure dis- interested pleasure, ought to please others also, we bring in both a rational and an objective element. We could not universalise a pleasant thing merely because it was pleasant. Recognising something in us, however, that is common to the race, and something in each member of the race that is not his own, but is universal property, we are freed from our former confmedness and limitation. Kant's system of Esthetic is far from complete. Its defects were pointed out by contemporary critics (notably by Herder in his Kalligone), and by many subsequent ones. 1 Kant made the charm, or that which pleases us in beautiful things, diametrically distinct from the Beauty itself; and hence he said that Colour (which pleases the eye) is an unessential element in Beauty, whereas Form is of its essence. But surely form " pleases the eye," just as colour does ; and the sequences of sound in music, and its har- monies, please the ear, as the rhythmic cadence of words in poetry does. This sharp dualistic separation of provinces is faulty. Compare Friedlander's criticism of Kant in the Preussi "sche Jahrbilcher, xx. 2. 2 3. Herder to Humboldt The work of Herder (Johann Gottfried, 1744-1803) be- longs much more to Literature than to Philosophy, although five volumes of philosophical writings were published in his 1 Hegel has some most appreciative, and at the same time aptly critical remarks on Kant's theory. 2 Kant in seinem Verhdltniss zur Kunst und schonen Natur. See also a very appreciative estimate in Kant's Begriindung der Aesthetik, by Von Hermann Cohen, of Marburg (1889). 60 TJie Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. complete works. He was trained by Kant, but they diverged widely in their views of Nature. In his Kalligone (1800) this difference is explicit, although in his Metakritik zur Kritik (published in 1799) the antagonism, and even bitterness, was greater. He was one of three men, younger contemporaries of Kant (Harnann and Jacobi being the other two), who emphasised feeling rather than reason, as the organ by which we obtain a direct apprehension of reality. They were philosophical mystics, each in a different way Hamann, in his Aesthetica in mice ; Herder, in his Kalligone ; and Jacobi, in his David Hume, etc. Kant's great contemporary, Goethe (1749-1832), chief poet of Germany, wrote much that is suggestive on the subject of the Beautiful. Casual reflections in fugitive pieces, detached sayings in Wilhelm Meister and other works, stray remarks in his correspondence with Schiller, Reinhard, Woltmann, and others, and in the conversations which Eckermann, Riemer, and Luden have recorded, show that he sought to steer a wise middle course between the idealists and realists. The following are some of his almost aphoristic dicta on the subject, collected from many sources : " The Beautiful is an elementary pheno- menon, which is never incorporated, but whose reflex becomes visible in a thousand various revelations of creative genius, as various indeed as Nature herself. I am not of opinion that Nature is beautiful in all her creations." . . . " A creation is beautiful when it has reached the height of its natural development" (in that period of growth which perfectly expresses its peculiar character). " Oeser taught me that the ideal of Beauty is simplicity and tranquillity." "The spirit of the real is the true ideal, but the artist is higher than art, and higher than his object." " The greatest artists are boldest in the royal prerogative of ennobling the vulgar," and " in every artist there are germs of audacity." " ' Beauty ' is neither light nor darkness : it is twilight, the medium between truth and untruth. . . . " Beauty is inexplicable : it is a hovering, floating, and glittering shadow, whose outline eludes the grasp of defini- tion." Goethe did not believe in the possibility of a specula- vin The Philosophy of Germany 61 tive or scientific analysis of the Beautiful. He puts the /> case thus : " Mendelssohn and others tried to catch Beauty I as a butterfly, and pin it down for inspection. They have j succeeded in the same way as they are likely to succeed with a butterfly. The poor animal trembles and struggles, and its brightest colours are gone ; or, if you catch it without spoiling the colours, you have at best a stiff and awkward corpse. But a corpse wants the life which sheds beauty on everything." Again : " The Beautiful is the mani- festation of secret laws of Nature, which, but for this dis- closure, had been for ever concealed from us." One of Goethe's letters to Schiller contains the following reference to Diderot: "Jena, August 7, 1797. I have during these last days been looking into Diderot, Sur la Peinture, in order to strengthen myself in the in- spiriting company of his genius. It seems to me that it is the same with Diderot as with many others who hit the truth with their feelings, but often lose it again through their reasoning. In his aesthetic works, I think, he still j looks too much to foreign and moral aims ; he does not seek ! these sufficiently in the subject itself and in its representa- tions. To him the beautiful work of Art must always serve some other purpose. ... I believe it to be one of the advantages of our modern system of Philosophy that we have a simple formula for expressing the subjective effect of aesthetic without destroying its character." Goethe's contributions to philosophy were, however, only indirect and unsystematic. Those of his great compeer in poetry and criticism, Schiller (1759-1805), were more direct, and have been more fruitful. In his letters on aesthetic culture, Briefe iiber die asthetische Erziehung des Menschen (1793-95), he enriched the literature of his country with an admirable work. It should be noted that they were written after the political turmoil of the previous decade (1785-95), in a time that was to Germany like a great calm after storm. Schiller's letters are a Kantian development, and rest, as he tells us in the first of them, on Kantian principles ; yet Schiller was not a disciple of Kant. He had imbibed the spirit of the critical philosophy, but he had come 62 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. under the influence of Leibnitz and Rousseau, before he was influenced by Kant. He dissented on some points both from the experience and the a priori philosophy, from the doctrine that all our knowledge has its origin in sensation, and from the doctrine that we objectify our own understanding in the interpretation of Nature. Schiller held that we reach the realm of the objective by a direct a priori affirmation or judgment. A phrase of Kant's was the origin of his theory of the " play-impulse " (Spiel-trieb\ which is the centre of his aesthetic doctrine. He was influenced first by Lessing, next by Kant, and then by Aristotle ; but Kant remained his chief master to the end, even when he dissented, and left him behind. The saying of Kant's was as follows : " Art, compared with Labour, may be considered as play." Pondering this, Schiller found two impulses at work within us the first a sense-impulse, \ the second a form-impulse. The former, which arises from our physical nature, receives impressions from without, and always seeks change ; the latter, arising out of the activity j of the self or ego, acts from within, and seeks repose. The two are reciprocal, and act reciprocally ; but, when they work in harmony, a new impulse is generated out of them, which Schiller called the play-impulse. " The object of the sense-impulse is life ; the object of the form-impulse is shape ; that of the play-impulse is living shape, which, in its widest signification, is Beauty." * Thus Beauty results from the reciprocity of two opposite impulses, and we must seek its highest ideal in the most perfect possible alliance i of them. 2 The evolution of the play-impulse is not the evolution of a mere desire for pleasure, or of any desire whatsoever. It is the development of aesthetic appreciation in the apprehension of the Beautiful. The spiel-trieb, however, is no explanation of the rise of our appreciation of the beautiful. Schiller, in his theory, greatly widens the meaning of the word spiel. What he aims at, and describes, is really the harmonious evolution or development of human nature. " That only is play," says he, " which completes man, and evolves his double nature." 3 1 Briefe 10. 2 Briefe 16. 3 Briefe 15. viii The Philosophy of Germany 63 On the whole, it must be said that Schiller's aesthetic letters are very misty-margined indeed. Although his notion of the play-impulse has given rise to some subsequent, and quite recent, speculation in England, the outcome of his nebulous theory, in his own poems, is far better than the theory itself. In Der Pilgrim^ for example, a search for the Beautiful is made, and it is found, not in the phenomenal world, the world of the concrete, but beyond it. Das Ideal und das Leben carries us from the actual to the transcend- ental. Das Mddchen und der Freund and Der spielende Knabe are also similarly significant. Schiller's poetry resembled that of Wordsworth, in its finding within material things the symbols of the spiritual. Jean Paul Richter wrote an introduction to Esthetics, Vorschule der Aesthetik, which has no speculative value. His services to his country were literary, rather than philosophical. In 1794, Friedrich von Schlegel (1772- 1829), the youngest of five brothers who were all illustrious, published a work on the Limits of the Beautiful. He was influenced by Fichte and Jacobi against the Kantian position, but he broke away from them in an almost erratic individualism. The spiel-trieb of Schiller seems to have charmed him, and in it, and in giving free play to instinctive tendency, he found the way out of the fetters of dualism. In his book on the Limits of the Beautiful he laments that Beauty is presented to us in frag- ment ; and then tries to unfold its elements in Nature, in Love, and in Art, so as to show that it is in the union of the three that the highest Beauty resides. The Beautiful cannot, he thinks, be considered as distinct from the True, or from the fulness of life, the exhaustless fund of life, that is ever developing itself in Nature ; nor can it be severed from the good, or detached from her. The most character- istic feature of Nature is its perennial vitality, its ever-flowing exuberance of life ; while the fundamental features of Art are unity, harmony, and symmetry. To define Art as the/ mere imitation of Nature, strikes at its very root ; and as' Nature is inexhaustible, Art is illimitable. With all its sug- gestiveness, however, Schlegel's discussion is too rhetorical, and ends in rhapsody. 64 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835) held in the main to the Kantian doctrine, but he applied the critical philo- sophy popularly. In 1825 he founded the Union of the Friends of Art in Prussia, and he wrote an annual report for it. He was rather averse to abstract thinking, and avowed his aim to be the attainment of a " harmonious wholeness " (totalitat). In 1795 ne published two essays in Schiller's Horen (i) on the influence of a difference of sex in organic nature, and (2) on the male and female forms. In 1798 he wrote his Aesthetische Versuche. His opinions on the Beautiful, however, are to be gathered chiefly from his essay on Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea, from his yearly reports to the Society of the Friends of Art, and from the prefatory essay to his correspondence with Schiller in 1830. Humboldt starts from two tendencies in man the first to "totality," the second the tendency to refer everything to the thinking subject ; but he held that aesthetic character is formed in us by a knowledge of the great works of Art, while Art itself is " the faculty of making Imagination productive, according to law." The artist's function is to keep imagination alive and active within us. "Man belongs to a better world than that of reality, viz. the realm of ideas." The ideas set forth by the artist lead man into his own world, that which is his by right. Descending into the realm of actuality, we are led away from ourselves. He discusses the ideal of beauty, and then proceeds to his theory of the Arts, dealing (i) with their relations to each other, (2) with their differences. They all meet at a focus. " He who would receive Art into himself with all his senses, must place himself in the middle of them all ; must regard the work of the painter poetically, and that of the poet with the eye of a painter." Friedrich Bouterwek (1766-1828), a disciple of Kant, who allied to his teaching ideas gathered from Jacobi, wrote an ^Esthetic in 1806, and a Metaphysics of the Beautiful in 1 807. There is not much of permanent value in either work. A later writer, Friedrich Calker, tried, in a Theory of the original Law of the True, Good, and Beautiful, to combine the teaching of Kant and Jacobi still further ; while another vin The Philosophy of Germany t 65 of the minor Kantians, Bernhard Bolzano of Prague (1781- 1848), wrote a treatise on The Idea of the Beautiful in 1843, and one on The Division of the Fine Arts in 1847. These works, however, have no special value. 4. Schelling to Schleiermacher The German philosopher, after Kant, whose name is specially associated with the discussion of the Beautiful, is Schelling. We have already seen how Schiller broke with the Kantian subjectivity, but Schelling did so in a more philosophical manner ; and perhaps the influence of no writer in German philosophy has been equal to that of Schelling in throwing emphasis on the Beautiful as a distinct source, or sphere of knowledge. Like Kant's, Schelling's ' philosophy was tripartite ; dealing successively with the in- tellectual, the moral, and the aesthetic consciousness. The centre-point of his whole philosophy was the identity of subject and object, of self and the world, which are unified in the Absolute. The unconscious products of Nature re- semble the conscious ones of man. It is mind, not blind mechanism, that we see in Nature, and the products of art resemble those of unconscious Nature. But it is only in works of Art that human intelligence finds the contradictions between itself and the world removed, and mysteries re- solved. The chasm between self and not self, between man and nature, between the conscious and the unconscious, is done away with by Art, which bridges the gulf, and conducts us from the vestibule of knowledge, as it were, to the shrine. The Absolute reveals itself to the artist in his creative^ moods, and thus his Art which to him is higher than Philosophy is a sort of rending of the veil of Nature, or the opening of a door into her secrets. It is by aesthetic insight that we reach the transcendental, as an objective reality. Schelling's philosophy has both obscurities and incon- sistencies, and it underwent considerable development as his life advanced ; while in the application of his philosophy to the arts he was not successful. He had, however, a much F 66 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. wider and deeper knowledge of Art than his philosophical contemporaries, and than his great predecessors Kant and Fichte. He drew some philosophic inspiration from Kant, but his aesthetic insight came to him in part from Schiller, and still more from Winckelmann, "the unsurpassed and unsurpassable," and from the brothers Schlegel. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing in his Aesthetik (written in 1802) is its reaction from the subjective position to which Fichte had logically brought the doctrine of Kant. So far as his teaching united or bridged over the chasm between the object and the subject, the real and the ideal, it did good service ; and this was a service still further carried out by Solger (who, how- ever, fell back almost to the position of Plato). Each living unit, in developing its life, carried out the type of the species to which it belonged. The type was the standard ; but every individual, diverging somewhat from it, mediated between the essence, which underlay its deviation, and all the other individuals which also departed from it in various ways. Schelling's was a really comprehensive attempt to unite the Aristotelian with the Platonic view of the world. The fourteenth lecture, in his Method of University Studies (Methode des akademischen Studiums, 1803), is on " The Science of the Fine Arts." In it he teaches that Art is not a mere minister to the pleasures of sense, however refined. It is to the philosopher a mirror of what is divine, disclosing the absolute Beauty through a relative medium. Art is related to Philosophy as the real is to the ideal ; they are type and antitype. According to Schelling, the philosopher sees more in Art than the mere artist can, and the essential nature of Art cannot be known excepting through Philosophy. He held that the philosopher, and he alone, was able " to follow Art to its secret and primitive source, to the first workshops of its creation." And so, the genius of Art is self-derived. It is no slave to precedent, it originates new ideals ; and it sets authority aside, not because it is lawless, but because it is its own authority. Schelling goes on to ask, is the philosopher equally com- petent to deal with the relative, the historical, and the technical side of Art ? He may be able to rise to the viii TJie Philosophy of Germany 67 Absolute by the help of the relative ; but can he afterwards discern it, illumining the relative ? Schelling replies that if we get to a unity underlying the different phases which Art has historically assumed, this unity will abolish the antithesis between them. That which is common to all, cancelling the difference of the successive periods, will at the same time show how each particular form arose. It will at once transcend, and comprehend or explain them. A disciple of Schelling, Georg A. F. Ast (1778-1841), wrote a Handbook of ^Esthetics in 1805, but it has no special philosophical significance. One of the prominent names in German literature should be mentioned at this stage, viz. Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853), a romance-writer and poet of considerable fame. As one of the young enthusiasts who gathered round the brothers Schlegel, at Jena, he showed more originality than any of them. In 1799 he wrote : " It is a noble aim to create a work of art that transcends the utilities of life, a work of beauty which shines with its own splendour, and complete in itself. The instinct to produce such a work more directly points to a higher world than any other instinct of our nature." He defined Beauty as "a unique ray out of the celestial brightness " ; but he added, " in passing through the prism of the imagination of the people of different zones, it decomposes itself into a thousand colours, a thousand different degrees." In Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) we find the pioneer of a new realism. It was a reaction from the idealism of Fichte (whose pupil he had been) and the absolutism of Schelling and into his own realism he interwove elements derived from Plato and from Leibnitz. Herbart held the Chair of Philosophy at Konigsberg (Kant's Chair) from 1809 to 1833. The function of Philosophy, as unfolded by him, is "the elaboration of concepts." It lies behind, and yet is contained in, all the sciences. Logic is that part of Philosophy which dis- tinguishes and co-ordinates our concepts, making them clear. But our concepts have also to be corrected and transformed, with a view to the removal of contradictions ; 68 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. this is the work of Metaphysics. Other concepts do not call for revision or correction, but simply for reduction to principles ; this is the domain of Esthetic. Thus while Metaphysic doubles back upon our original ideas, so as to make them vindicate themselves, and bring them into harmony with the world and with one another, ./Esthetic simply asserts or affirms our judgments as to Beauty being involuntary ones. Herbart deals almost exclusively with the elemental and abstract intellectual relations of the Beautiful. He did not see the equal importance of sentiment or feeling. Two of Herbart's disciples may be mentioned at this stage, although somewhat out of their chronological place. Adolf Zeising, in his Aesthetische Forschungen (1855), develops Herbart's teaching as to the elemental relations of the Beautiful, although he does not directly borrow from him. The golden section of a line is that which cuts it so that the smaller section is to the larger as the larger is to the whole. It is thus that Ueberweg characterises Zeising. He "finds in the so-called 'golden section 5 the division of a line ( = i ) into two such parts (a and b) that a : b : : b : I, an aesthetic significance, in that it fur- nishes the most perfect means between absolute equality and absolute diversity, or between expressionless symmetry and proportionless expression, or between rigid regularity and unregulated freedom." Robert Zimmermann, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Prag, also followed Herbart, and endorsed his fundamental conception. He wrote an elaborate Geschichte der Aesthetik als philosoph- ischer Wissenschaft (1858). Two volumes of an Aesthetik followed in 1865, and Studien und Kiitiken zur Philosophic und Aesthetik in 1870. Zimmermann's history is, however, better than his system. It is a really comprehensive sur- vey of the course of philosophical thought on the subject from Plato to Lotze ; and discusses the Neoplatonists, the Dutch, French, and English theories of Beauty, as well as those of Germany. Some of his successors confine themselves exclusively to their own countrymen. In the posthumous Lectures on ^Esthetics (Vorlesungen tiber Aesthetik), by Professor U. W. F. Solger of Berlin vin The Philosophy of Germany 69 (1780-1819), we find the philosophy of Herbart developed along a special line. Solger had been a disciple of Schelling, and he was influenced by the Schlegels. His Erwin is a Platonic dialogue, somewhat heavy in con- struction, wanting all the grace and naivete of the Greek. There are four interlocutors Anselm, who takes up the position of Schelling ; Bernhard, who is Fichtean ; Adel- bert, who is Solger himself; and Erwin, a youth as yet unattached to any school. The first two dialogues are metaphysical, on the nature of Beauty ; the last two are on the nature of Art. Beauty is represented as an immediate revelation of God. " Only then is beauty discerned, when we see in it the living moving spirit of the all-compassing Deity." In keeping with this theosophic view of the Beautiful, Solger teaches that in the beauty of the body the soul appears. It is not, however, by any one special organ ] that we apprehend the Beautiful. It is by an intuitive gaze of the whole nature that the realm of pure being is entered, and one of the characteristics of pure being thus discovered is its beauty. In reference to Art, he affirms that it is all symbolical, ancient Art dealing for the most part with objective symbols, and modern Art with subjective ones. As a revelation of the divine Idea, he held that Beauty is on one side essence, and on the other appearance ; and the arts of poetry and music disclose the former more perfectly, those of painting, architecture, etc., realise the latter. Solger emphasises the fact that every apocalypse of the Beautiful is of necessity evanescent ; but his teaching is full of crotchets, e.g. the doctrine that the beautiful is doomed to extinction, because the ideal always transcends the actual, and that the essence of all true art is irony, " the self-destruction of the idea brought about by the appearance of prototypal beauty." Karl C. F. Krause (1781-1832), an absolutist who started from the position of Spinoza and Schelling, modi- fied their doctrine, both in its metaphysical and ethical aspects, and added some ideas derived from Kant and Fichte. The foundation science may be indifferently named ontology, theology, cosmology. It deals with the absolute yo The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and the essential. After it come Mathematics, Logic, ^Esthetics, Ethics. Esthetics is a formal science, because Beauty is an essential characteristic of the Infinite and Absolute ; and as realised in Art, it is the harmony of the manifold in the one. Its highest characteristic is self- sufficiency, and this marks it off from the useful and also from the symbolical. Krause differs here from Solger. A thing " is beautiful for what it is, not for what it symbol- ises." In the ascending stages of organic perfection in Nature we find a scale of natural beauty, which ends in the "beauty of God," in whom all things are united. To us the Beautiful is that which actively engages and satisfies our reason, understanding, and fancy, according to law, and which fills the mind with disinterested complacency. Kant's, Schiller's, and Solger's definitions are variously combined by Krause. Another of the modern German Platonists, who caught the inspiration of Schelling, must be mentioned at this stage ; although he was more distinctively an ethical writer, Schleiermacher (1768-1834). According to Schleiermacher, we know the Absolute, not by thought, but by feeling. Religious feeling is the highest channel of human know- ledge ; and while Art was to him the language of religion, it may be said that his ethics were aesthetic. Instead of beginning with the individual arts, he starts with the notion of Beauty, and defines aesthetics as "the science of the Beautiful in Art." In his description of the several arts seriatim there are some shrewd comments but no " open vision." He was more of an enthusiast than an expert. 5. Hegel to Carriere We now reach a greater than Schelling and his disciples, and the third illustrious name in German philosophy from Kant, viz. Hegel. Hegel's philosophy, like that of his two great predecessors, falls into three sections the first deal- ing with what he deemed the logical evolution and develop- ment of the Absolute, as pure thought (the philosophy of viii The PJiilosophy of Germany 71 Mind) ; the second, with the evolution and development of thought in the external world (the philosophy of Nature) ; and the third, with the return of thought from this objectivity to itself (the philosophy of Spirit). Hegel wrote a very elaborate treatise on Aesthetik, per- haps the most elaborate in German philosophical literature. It is divided into three sections. The first discusses the philosophy of the Beautiful, both in the abstract and in the concrete, the Ideal in Art and its realisation ; the second deals with the development of the art-impulse in its various types, symbolic, classic, romantic ; while the third treats of the several Arts in detail. Beauty, according to Hegel, is the disclosure of mind, or of the idea, through sensuous forms or media ; and as Mind is higher than Nature, by so much is the beauty of Art higher than the beauty of Nature. Natural beauty is but the reflection of beauty of mind. It appeals to all the powers, to the senses, to feeling, to perception, and to imagination ; . and "its forms are as manifold as its phenomena are omnipresent." We may generalise the forms which Beauty assumes, and we find that in all cases it is "the unity of the manifold " ; but while it is to be found in all Nature, and especially in vital Nature (organised living structures), it is most perfectly disclosed to us in and through Art. | The art -products of the world register the insight of the human race into Beauty, and the nations of the world have left their profoundest intuitions and ideas thus em- bodied. Art gives to phenomenal appearances "a reality that is born of mind " ; and through Art they become, not semblances, but higher realities. It is thus that Art breaks, as it were, through the shell, and gets out the kernel for us. It comes to this, that the great plastic power which works in Nature has evolved certain definite types, which (on the last analysis) are thoughts, notions, ideas, mind- forms, disclosing the mind's essence. And these are not merely a series of detached existences, but all that has been evolved has a certain fitness of relation and definite- ness of proportion. In this fitness and proportion there is Beauty. At the best, however, it is a lifeless type 72 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. of Beauty. It is only when life animates a perfectly developed form, that Beauty discloses itself to the full. Life, in the first instance, shapes the forms of Nature, moulding and evolving them. But they are not the life itself. It the formative, shaping power moves on, in manifold development, to animate other forms ; and it is in this evolving and protean life that the highest Beauty resides. Beauty is thus the Absolute realising itself in the relative. It is the Absolute passing out of latency into self- manifestation and self-realisation ; and in this process the lustre of the idea, breaking through the barrier of the material, illumines it. This is Beauty. In every work of Art possessing Beauty, we must dis- tinguish the external form from that which lies beneath it, viz. the inner spirit by which a soul is breathed into the body of the work. A work of art is not made up of, or exhausted in, a series of lines, curves, surface-forms, colours, sounds. It is nothing if it does not disclose feeling and thought (mind). Hegel criticises Plato's idealism, and finds it too abstract, and empty of content. The aim of his own philosophy was to reconcile the extremes of the universal and the particular. He wished to get hold of some fertile principle, which was able to do this, by showing how the particulars were contained within the universal, and how a universal was illustrated by the particulars. To this end he held that the artist had to impress the seal of his individual being upon external things, and to find represented in them what was most characteristic of himself. Hence, though a work of Art addresses itself first of all to sensuous apprehension (to sight and sound), it soon liberates itself from these trammels, and the whole region of sense is seen to be a sort of shadow-world. Art is no mere imitation or mirroring of nature. It is a transcendence of Nature, i.e. of the actual. Every great artistic work must have Nature for its basis and its starting-point ; but, in proportion to its great- ness, it rises from this foundation. It lives and moves, as it were amphibiously, in the two worlds of the actual and the ideal. vin The Philosophy of Germany 73 Hegel has many profound remarks on the different > types of Art the symbolical, classical, and romantic and their historical succession and development. At first, and specially in Egypt, the land of symbol, thought was sug- gested, not expressed. Next in Greece, it found expression in the fulness of finite form ; and as man rose in intelligence, his gods became more human. Next, when the higher spirit broke through the trammels of material form, the anthropomorphism of classical art gave place to the new ideal which we find in romantic art. Thus the stages in the development of mind are mirrored for us in the historic evolution of Art. In his classification of the separate Arts, Hegel rises from the groundwork of the natural toward the spiritual, and arranges them on somewhat parallel lines to the sym- bolic, classical, and romantic series, (i) Architecture, in which the sensuous element (the material) is necessarily present in excess, and in which symbol dominates. (2) Sculpture, in which the material is less forcibly present, as sculpture is a representation of life, a step towards ideality an art which attained its zenith in the classical period. (3) Painting, an art which deals with and represents Life, both in form and in colour. In this we reach the romantic sphere, which is still further attained (4) in Music, an art which dispenses with the material more than painting does, and is the most subjective of the arts ; and (5) in Poetry, the most universal and spiritual of them all. Music appeals more to the emotions, and Poetry more to the intellect. The medium of the latter is not sound, but speech, and speech as the vehicle of ideas. In his attempts, however, to find a historical evolution of aesthetic ideas running parallel to his three forms of the Symbolic, the Classical, and the Romantic, it must be confessed that Hegel often reads into history a meaning of his own. We find romantic elements both in the classical and the symbolic periods ; and we find symbolic ideas in the special eras of classicalism and of romance. Perhaps the supreme value of Hegel's Aesthetik which is one of his greatest works is not the residuum of propositions, or data 74 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. which he has proved, but the extraordinary wealth of his critical insight into the several Arts, and their various problems. Of all the disciples of Hegel no one developed his aesthetic teaching so well as F. Theodor Vischer (1807-1887). He made the discovery of a doctrine of the Beautiful almost the sole labour of his life. A short study, Ueber das Erhabene und Komische (the sublime and the humorous), J 837, was followed by his great book, Aesthetik oder Wissenschaft des Schonen (1846-51), and by several later works. He both elaborated Hegel's doctrine, and evolved it in many directions. The one disfigurement of his Aesthetik is his assumption that only a pantheistic theory of the universe can do full justice to the Beautiful. He too frequently tries to break a lance with the theistic * interpretation of the world. The artist, according to Vischer, does not find the Beautiful by any imitation of the actual. He does not indulge in the mere copy-work of the photographer, nor does he find it by imaginatively breaking with Nature, for that would only yield the fantastic. He does something very different. He pierces to the core of Nature. He finds its secret by getting to its centre, and apprehending its ideal. In all objects that seem to be beautiful, there is an actual form which approximates to the ideal ; but Vischer thus distinguishes the normal from the abnormal in Nature. The normal is that which conforms to law, and therefore to the type in Nature ; the abnormal is that which departs from law, and therefore from the type. I But if all the actual forms in Nature corresponded to the type, there would be monotony, and therefore ugliness. It is through partial, though very slight, departures from the type in each individual, along with a mirroring of the type by those very departures, that the Beautiful is known in other words, by a retention of the typical form by all, while at the same time each individual renounces it in part. Vischer tried even more than Schelling, or his imme- diate master Hegel to unite the Platonic and the Aristo- telian view of things, the ideal and the real. It is when the two are conjoined, then and then only, according to viii The Philosophy of Germany 75 Vischer, that we have Beauty. The absolute Beauty, of which the Platonists tell us, existed ab initio ; but it has mirrored itself to us in two streams of phenomena. It has disclosed itself in external Nature, and in the mind of man. When the germs of Beauty fructify in any individual, he immediately discerns, by contact with it, the beauty of the external world ; and thereafter the mind ascends (that is to say, it may or can ascend) to the primal source of Beauty in the archetypal world. No individual mind can ascend to it, or grasp it directly at first hand, as it were. Each individual must begin with the actual Beauty that is mirrored in individual things. Afterwards it can rise to the Source, and it is impelled to do so by the imperfec- tion which mingles with all the actual forms that manifest the Beautiful to it. As individual objects that possess it are beheld by us one after another, the successive experience heightens our general sense of Beauty. This is not due, however, to a process of mere idealisation of the objects, but simply to the fact that surrounding each single thing (which is itself imperfectly beautiful) there is a sort of halo, which connects it, in its isolation and particularity, with the entire sphere of the Beautiful. The ceaseless experience of imperfection, associated with what is fair, leads us to detach the features that are imperfect, and thus to reach, as it were, the type of the class, separate from those things that mar it. It is thus that we obtain a relative standard, or criterion of the Beautiful which is higher than any actual loveliness mirrored to us in outward things. As our ideal, however, is always expanding, it is equally evident that no final standard can be reached by us. In the first part of his Aesthetik, Vischer treats of the Metaphysics of the Beautiful ; in the second, of Beauty in Nature and in the mind of man ; and in the third, of Beauty in Art. The last is the amplest part of the treatise, and to it two volumes are devoted. Art in general is first discussed, and then the separate arts seriatim. He classifies the Arts very much as Hegel had classified them. There is (i) the objective class, which appeal to us through the 7 6 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. eye, viz. Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting ; (2) the subjective, that appeal to us through the ear, Music ; and (3) that which is both objective and subjective, viz. Poetry. A colleague of Vischer, Karl Kostlin, published an Aesthetik at Tubingen in 1863-69 which dealt chiefly with the constructive Arts and with music. He discussed the beautiful in Nature more fully than Hegel had done. Christian Hermann Weisse (1801-1866), at first a Hegelian, gradually broke with his master's doctrine and became an opponent, especially objecting to the rank assigned to Logic, and endeavouring to graft a mystic element on the purely rational one of Hegel. In 1830 he issued his System der Aesthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee des Schonen. In his doctrine of the Absolute Spirit, Hegel virtually made formal logic the crown of the edifice of knowledge, but subordinated both art and religion to science. Weisse opposes this. His Aesthetik treats of the Beautiful (i) as subjective and universal, (2) as objective and special in the several arts, and (3) as subjective-object- ive, existing in the mind and character of man ; whence the transition is made to religion and theology. In the first section he discusses the subject of the ugly more fully than it had been dealt with before, connecting it with the humorous. This was afterwards elaborated by J. Karl F. Rosenkrantz (1805-1879), the Konigsberg Hegelian, who held Kant's Chair after 1833, and who has been the repre- sentative of the centre of that school, in his aesthetics of the Ugly {Aesthetik des Hasslichen, 1853). He recognises Weisse's merits, but objects to the stress of the antithesis being laid between the humorous and the sublime. The Beautiful is a genus comprehending under it the agreeable and the sublime. The ugly is opposed to all of them, while the distasteful is opposed to the agreeable, and the ordinary to the sublime. The humorous can seize the ugly, and transform it into the pleasing, by the way it deals with it. The ugly is formless, incorrect, and inharmonious. E. Kuno B. Fischer ( 1 824 ), a partial Hegelian, revert- ing to Plato and to Kant, who in 1849 wrote Diotima, die Idee des Schonen, may be regarded as a successor of vin TJte Philosophy of Germany 77 Vischer. In addition to Diolima he has written aesthetic essays on various subjects on Schiller, on Lessing's Nathan der Weise, on Shakespeare, on Faust ', etc. but has done little to advance aesthetic theory. Another Hegelian, Moritz Carriere (1817 ), who taught philosophy both at Giessen and at Munich, and who followed on somewhat similar intellectual lines taking up a position resembling that of Weisse and K. Fischer has done much more for aesthetic. In 1854 he wrote Das Wesen imd die Formen der Poesie. His aim in this book was to show that we can only reach a true theory of Art when we transcend a commonplace Pantheism and a commonplace Deism, in the apprehension of a Divine Essence, which is everlastingly revealing itself in Nature and in History. In the first part of his Aesthetik (1859) he treats (i) of the Idea of the Beautiful, (2) of Beauty in Nature and in the mind of man, (3) of Beauty in Art. In the second part he deals with the Arts seriatim, under the heads of (i) Plastic Art, (2) Music, (3) Poetry. Throughout his book Carriere not only diverges from, but wages war with the doctrine of Hegel, and Hegel's chief disciple Vischer, which was pantheistic. Carriere maintains that the pantheistic view of the universe prevents an intellectual recognition of its Beauty, both in general and in detail. He held that the special function of Philosophy was to unite the opposite theories of transcendence and immanence, the dualistic and the pantheistic. The Beauti- ful consists in a certain unity of idea, underlying the mani- fold individual and concrete forms of sense ; its unity being evidenced by our very desire that others should agree with us in our judgments regarding it. But to evoke the sense of the Beautiful in us, we require the stimulus of novelty, and with this the return of the mind upon itself, and the perception of itself in all it sees. In a later work, Art in connection with the Development of Culture, and the Ideals of Humanity, in five elaborate volumes, Carriere traces the whole philosophy of History from the aesthetic side. He may be best described as an ideal realist, his chief aim being to escape from dualism, 78 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. without landing in a pantheistic theory. He held that if we adopt a theory of immanence, not only the Beauty of Nature but Beauty in itself is unintelligible. The influence both of Hegel and of Lessing may be traced in much that Carriere has written of the Arts and their historic stages, especially of Poetry. 6. Scliopenhaiier and Hartmann Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), founder of the most distinctive school of German philosophy since Hegel, pub- lished in 1819 Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, a work which excited little interest when it appeared. It was a recoil from, and a vigorous criticism of, the post- Kantian schools, especially of Hegel ; and it was sent forth as, on the one hand a return to Kant, and on the other a legitimate and normal development of his philosophy, as opposed to the illegitimate developments of other schools. Its two main positions were (i) that the world exists for us only as it subjectively appears to us. It is only the presentation of things that we know. We do not know ourselves (as subjects) and things beyond us (as objects) separately. The object does not create the subject, as materialism asserts ; nor does the subject create the object, as idealism affirms. The subject and the object are known together ; each is necessary to the other, and they imply each other ; but we have no knowledge of the essence of either the Ding-an-sich all that we know is the presenta- tion (vorstellung). (2) This, however, is only one half of the truth, that half which refers to our Knowledge. The second half refers to the second sphere, that of the Will, which is a conscious power, operating from within. It is only by it by volition, or the universal will that we reach the realm of reality, the Ding-an-sich. The essence of matter is force, and all force within the Universe is in essence will. Schopenhauer's philosophy has many aspects, but it is only as bearing on Aesthetik that it concerns us here. He holds that Will does not show itself in the Universe in vni The Philosophy of Germany 79 fleeting phenomenal changes, but in the enduring species, the persistent genera, which renew themselves after their kind. " The individual withers, but the race is more and more." The type survives, while the individuals only approximate to it. The generic will of the Universe, the only real Ding-an-sich, is an archetypal idea, behind all individua. In so far as individuals approximate to it, they are beautiful ; and in so far as the artist seizes it by intuition, he "sees into the life of things " ; and, his spirit "into the mighty vision passing," he is transfused with the object he contemplates, becoming one with it. Self, the narrow in- dividual self, is annihilated ; but he finds a larger self in the beauty of the cosmos. It is not by sense perception, nor by the scientific under-' standing, nor by any process of reasoning, that an object is \ discerned to be beautiful, but by intuition ; and this intui- tion apprehends its object, not as an isolated phenomenon, an individuum, but as a generic, typical, or ideal thing, which is not considered by us as regards its uses, but as regards itself, in its own distinctive self-sufficingness. In our intuition of the Beautiful the energy of the will is at rest, . desire ceases, the mind regards the object disinterestedly, ' out of all relation to the wish to possess ; and it is thus that we reach the sphere of the beautiful as the sphere of the permanent. It is through a kind of ecstasy, which from the very first annihilates self, that the artist attains his best , result ; the narrowness of his individual being is outstepped. Thus, in order to any great artistic result, the will must be detached from the intellect. Personal desire must be crushed under the energy of the impersonal reason. The obtrusion of his own personality mars the work of the artist. " A work of genius is not a thing of utility. To be useless is its very patent of nobility. It exists for itself alone." Schopenhauer has also dealt with the subject in others of his works, in his Metaphysik des Schonen und Aesthetik^ etc., but all the essential points of his teaching are given in Die Welt ah Wille und Vorstellung. None of the recent German writers on Aesthetik has discussed the subject more brightly or suggestively than 8o The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Eduard von Hartmann. In 1868, in his twenty-seventh year, he published his Philosophic des Unbewussten. Hart- mann's system is briefly an attempt to bring the Hegelian logic (or doctrine of "the idea") and Schopenhauer's doc- trine of " will " into harmony, as co-ordinate functions of a single (but unconscious) world-essence an ultimate cosmic principle, like that of the Eleatics, or Erigena, or Spinoza. He thinks that his doctrine of The Unconscious, and its development as a cosmic principle, casts light on all other problems, psychological, physiological, ethical, religious, and aesthetic. In the second section of his book there is a chapter (the fifth) on " The Unconscious in aesthetic judgment, and in artistic production." In it he refers to the two historical schools, which have given rise to opposite tend- encies the first (dating from Plato), which affirms that in Art we are able to transcend the beauty of Nature, and that we find in the soul a criterion of what is, and what is not, beautiful in Nature ; the second, which says that all we can do in Art is to collect and combine the Beauties which Nature exhibits. He holds that each of these is partly right and partly wrong. The empiricists are right in laying stress on the psychological and physiological elements in aesthetics ; but they only succeed in proving the " world- citizenship " of the beautiful. The idealists, again, are right in tracing the origin of aesthetic judgment to some- thing which lies beyond consciousness, antecedent, and a priori. The abstract ideal of the intuitionalists, as a vague ] unity, is untenable. The Beautiful must incarnate itself in the concrete, and can thus only be understood. Neverthe- less aesthetic carries with it, and in it, a formal principle ; and it is only when the ideal is unconsciously made real, when the abstract is embodied in the concrete, that the Beautiful is understood. Both "the discovery of the Beautiful, and the creation of the Beautiful by man, proceed from unconscious processes," the results of which become conscious. " The underlying unconscious process is en- . tirely withdrawn from introspection." Eighteen years after the publication of the first edition of viii The Philosophy of Germany 81 the Philosophic des Unbewussten, von Hartmann issued at Berlin Die deutsche Aesthetik seit Kant (1886). In this work he tells us that he considered Kant as the source of all subsequent aesthetic science in Germany ; and he goes on to discuss (i) the history of German Aesthetik, as an evolution of Kantian thought, and (2) the treatment of such questions as the ugly, the comic, the tragic, and the humorous, ending by a discussion of unsolved problems, such as the relation of Architecture to the other Arts, the different tendencies in Music, the classification of the Arts, and their unity. In the following year a much more elaborate contribu-- tion to the Philosophic des Schbnen was made by von Hartmann, in the " zweiter systematischer Theil " of his Aesthetik. In the first part of this volume he discusses the conception of the Beautiful, its contraries, its modifications, its place in Man and in Nature ; and in the second part he treats of Beauty as realised in Nature, in History, and in the Arts. He opposes the two extremes of the ultra-object- ive and ultra-subjective view of the nature of Beauty. A work of Art is objectively real, but only its subjective effect is beautiful. The Ding-an-sich is not beautiful. The artist deals with the thing in itself, which is not beautiful, and transforms it into beauty. Hartmann's theory of aesthetic beauty is expressed inf the word " Schein," to which he gives a peculiar meaning. The aesthetic " shine " is not either in outward objects (landscape, picture, air-vibrations, etc.) or in the mind. It is occasioned by outward objects, made by artists or other- wise, and is capable of summoning the " shine " before the mind of all normally constituted people. He talks of eye- shine, ear-shine, imagination -shine, and in this "shine" only is beauty present. The subjective phenomenon alone is beautiful. No external reality is essential to it, provided only this aesthetic shine is set up by whatever means. In natural beauty, however, the shine cannot be dissevered from the reality. A painter sees the "shine" at once, as some- thing different from the real objects ; so may we, if, for example, we look at a landscape with inverted head ! This _ 82 TJie Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. \ plan, however, does not answer in a room ! It is only the subjective phenomenon, however, absolved from reality, that makes an aesthetic relation possible. The " shine " does not pretend to be true, in any sense. We must avoid the expression "phenomenon," "appear- ance," in connection with it, as this suggests objective reality, which is quite irrelevant. The "shine" is not a mental perception, it does not deal with an idea, " the idea of the beautiful " ; and no supersensuous idea of the beautiful is at all necessary. In fact, the pretensions of transcendental aesthetic have brought the study into disrepute. " Shine " is not the same as a picture, unless picture be taken in a psychical or intellectual sense ; otherwise, a " picture " is a real thing, while " shine " is not. It is also to be distin- guished from "form." As a picture stands to the thing pictured, as form stands to substance, so does aesthetic shine stand to the subject. The subject disappears before it ; not only do the interests of self disappear, but the very ego itself. The subject disappears from the subjective side of consciousness, and it emerges again on the objective side. The aesthetic "shine" is thus a disintegration of the ego, yet it is not an illusion. It is a reality of consciousness. Beauty reveals itself to us in a series of steps, but at the last it remains a mystery, and without mystery there would be no beauty. There must be in every work of art, as well as in every material object that is beautiful, something that we feel but do not know, something that we apprehend but do not comprehend. 7. Lot ze to Jitngmann Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), before he wrote the work by which he is chiefly known, the Microcosmus, had issued two books on ^Esthetic the first On the Conception of Beauty, in 1846; and the second On the Conditions of Beauty in Art, in 1848. In 1868 he wrote the Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland, which was the part he was asked to take in the elaborate History of the Sciences in vin The Philosophy of Germany 83 Germany, prepared by several contributors, for the Royal Academy of Sciences. This work has three main divisions (i) the history of the standpoints from which the Beauti- ful has been discovered, (2) the history of the fundamental aesthetic ideas, and (3) the history of the theories of Art. It is a critical history throughout. In the Microcosmus there is a chapter (VIII. iii.) on "Beauty and Art." In it he treats somewhat rhetorically of Eastern vastness, Hebrew sublimity, Greek Beauty, Roman elegance and dignity, of the individuality and fantastic elements in Medievalism, and of Beauty and Art in modern life. Notes of the Lectures on ./Esthetic, which he delivered in 1856, were revised by M. Rehnisch, and published in 1884 ; but Lotze's specific teaching on the subject of the Beautiful is not nearly so valuable as his criticism of the philosophical theories of others. He held that the things we call beautiful do not please us as individuals only, they please the universal spirit in us. The beautiful in itself cannot be a character- istic common to all beautiful objects. Beauty, however, actualises itself, both in the types of individual beings, and in events. It is disclosed in their characteristics ; and in the agreement between the free activity of any single living being and the universal laws*- "df^ature it finds expression. To impress us as beautiful, Art must first please the senses (a physiological condition) ; it must secondly conform to general laws (a psychological condition). In other parts of his philosophy Lotze was much influenced by Herbart, but in his aesthetic he took a line of his own. Carl Schnasse (1798-1875) wrote a history of Art in seven volumes, which he finished in 1862. In the Intro- duction to this History, Schnasse discusses the nature of the Beautiful. He holds that there is no more mystery in! Beauty than there is in Religion and Morals ; but that per-; feet Beauty does not exist in the world of actual appearance. There is an approach toward it in Nature ; but Art gives us what Nature does not and cannot give. In the energy and manipulative freedom of the Ego, constructing aj harmony which is not found in Nature, Beauty is disclosed. It is thus the creation of man. The human phantasy, 84 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. however, if left to itself, would not conduct us to Beauty, but rather to vagary. We must therefore distinguish art from artifice and the artificial. We do not find the Beautiful, or pick it up, as it were ; we construct it ; but then, we do not elaborate it by artifice. We discover it by second sight. Were an artist deliberately to sit down and set himself to construct a beautiful thing, he would fail. The artist works spontaneously, and almost unconsciously, by a natural im- pulse which is freely creative. In the thirteenth and nineteenth chapters of H. L. F. von Helmholtz's great work, Die Lehre von der Tonempfin- dungen, als physiologische Grundlage fur die Theorie der Musik (1863), there is much that is valuable on the aesthetic relations of Music ; the rest of the work being devoted to its scientific relations. At the close of his book, with characteristic modesty Helmholtz says that while he could not avoid mixing up the aesthetic with the physical problem, it was with the latter alone that he felt at home. In the former he was too much of an amateur, and its problems were really more difficult. Nevertheless there is probably more in Helmholtz's volume bearing directly on the aesthetic of music than in any other German work, with the single exception of Wagner's Beethoven. Helmholtz saw that in discussing the principles of music from the physical side, we are simply investigating the laws of phenomenal sequence. - It is quite different in the aesthetic of music, when we ask what music expresses and discloses. The following is the proposition with which the third part of his treatise begins : " The system of scales, etc., does not rest solely upon unalterable natural laws, but is at least partly also the result of aesthetical principles which have already changed, and will still further change, with the progressive development of humanity." It does not follow from this that the determination of these principles is arbitrary. The rules of Art are the result of the free effort of artists to shape forms of Beauty for themselves, but they all conform to law, even when new types are evolved. Comparing the development of Music with that of Archi- tecture, as the horizontal line of roof, the circular arch, and viii TJie Philosophy of Germany 85 the pointed arch have successively evolved themselves ; so, from the simple melody of the ancients, through the " poly- phonic" music of the middle age, we reach the richer harmony of the modern world. In his fourteenth chapter Helmholtz points out that the motion of tone surpasses all other motions, in the delicacy and ease with which it can receive and imitate the most varied kinds of expression. Music can thus represent states of mind which the other arts can only indirectly touch. We have no means of expressing what Vischer calls the "mechanics of mental emotion" so exactly or delicately as by music ; although different listeners may describe the impressions produced on them by the same music in different ways. The construction of scales is not arbitrary, although it is the product of artistic invention. The physiological structure of the ear has something to do with the result. Thus physiological laws are the building- stones with which the edifice of the musical system is set up. But just as people of diverse taste in architecture can erect very different buildings with the same stones, so by means of the same physiological apparatus of the ear very different musical structures can be built. In working out the system of scales, keys, chords (of all that is known as thorough-bass), from the days of Terpander and Pythagoras, men have been dealing with laws, and conforming to law ; and yet it has all been the result of artistic invention. The creation of beauty, in every kind of musical composition, is invariably wrought out in obedience to laws ; but these laws are not consciously present in the mind of the artist who creates the result. "Art creates," says Helmholtz,' "as imagination pictures, regularly without conscious law, designedly without conscious aim." One who is aesthetic- ally educated recognises the Beautiful instinctively andr directly, without consciously referring it to any law. But the judgment that one thus passes is no individual judgment. It is universal and impersonal, in the sense that the indivi- dual passing it demands, and rightly demands, the assent of every other educated nature. There is room for indivi-^ dual and sectional peculiarities of taste, but the limits within ' 86 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 'which they are confined are narrow ones. We see in each individual work of musical Art "the picture of a similar arrangement of the universe, governed by law and reason in all its parts." There follows, however, an important addendum. "It is an essential condition that the whole extent and design of a work of Art should not be apprehended consciously. It is precisely from that part of it which escapes our con- scious apprehension that a work of Art exalts and delights us, and that the chief effects of the artistically beautiful proceed ; not from the part we are able fully to analyse." Gustav Theodor Fechner (1834-1887) was more a physicist than a metaphysician, a naturalist, and a brilliant literary essayist. In his Elemente der Psycho -physik he worked out a philosophy of Nature almost on the principles of Positivism. He starts from an idealistic root, not very different from the Cartesian self-consciousness ; but through this he reaches an objective Ding-an-sick, which gives rise to consciousness, and becomes dualistic. In 1871 he wrote an essay on ^-Esthetic, which excited a good deal of atten- tion in Germany. It was limited to an exposition and test of Zeising's aurea sectio. In his Vorschule der Aesthetik (1876) he treats of the laws or principles according to which our sense-perception of objects pleases us, and leads us to call the objects which give rise to it beautiful. His method is inductive and psychological, in contrast to the deductive and metaphysical treatment so much in vogue in Germany. There is an obviously close link of connection between his psycho-physics and his aesthetic doctrine, while the latter is at the outset based upon a hedonistic doctrine fof life. First, a sensation must "cross the threshold" of consciousness ; second, several sensations must combine to support each other, and they give more pleasure in union than each and all of them can give separately ; third, there must be " manifoldness " ; fourth, "reality" or "truth"; fifth, there must be " clearness " in the object perceived ; and sixth, the principle of " association " must come in to intensify the feeling of the beautiful. We have thus six principles, which may be regarded as Fechner's laws of viii The Philosophy of Germany 87 aesthetic. The first amounts to this, that aesthetic feeling, ! like all sensation, must have a certain intensity or quantity before we are conscious of it, must come up to that " thresh- old." But if itself originally " below the threshold," it may, by combining with other pleasurable feelings, produced by other stimuli, get above it. This is his second principle ; and the two are indeed one. They involve each other, and neither of them is a discovery beyond the commonplace. The third is the old principle of the one in the manifold ; and in this familiar ground Fechner tries to determine the extent to which each element may exist with a minimum of the other. His fourth and fifth principles are elementary ones, scarcely deserving of the rank he gives them ; and in his last he adopts the principle of association as a solvent of the problems of Beauty almost as fully as Alison had done. His discussion, however, of the " associations- princip," in his ninth chapter, is extremely able, some- what novel, and varied. He afterwards deals with the relations of Poetry and Painting, the subject of Taste, its phases, and the laws which govern it. Several art-problems are then discussed by him in the light of the principles he has laid down, e.g. the relations of Art to Nature, and of Beauty to Art, the relation of form to matter in a work of Art, and the rival tendencies of the idealists and realists. Both of the latter are recognised as good. Fidelity to Nature (its imitation) and departure from it (its idealisation) are each necessary ; but, on the whole, Fechner more than inclines to the Aristotelian imitation and realism. He also discusses other principles, which he considers important in aesthetic, viz. those of contrast, of sequence, and of recon- ciliation. Die Entstehung der neueren Aesthetik, by Heinrich von Stein (1886). This sketch of modern ^Esthetic starts with those writers whom its author regards as the French classi- cists of the seventeenth century, especially Boileau ; and, after dealing with them, passes to what he calls the " English classicism" of Shaftesbury, returns to Diderot, Rousseau, the Swiss and Italian writers, and thence to Baumgarten and Winckelmann. The evolution of modern European 88 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. thought on the subject of Aesthetik has thus been, accord- ing to von Stein, from a realistic starting-point through the imitative naturalism of Diderot, to the romantic naturalism of Rousseau, and thence to the classic idealism of Winckel- mann and others. Julius Bergmann, Professor of Philosophy in the Univer- sity of Marburg, published in 1887 Ueber das Schbne. It is (as the author says) an analytic and a critico- historical work, in the course of which he discusses Kant, Herbart, and others. The determination of the objective nature of Beauty he considers a quite hopeless task. The subjectivity of Beauty he regards as a conclusion demonstrated by science, but he considers Herbart's doctrine quite consistent with this. It is impossible to say what Beauty is in itself; but we may arrive at strictly scientific conclusions as to what pleases the individual, and therefore as to what is beautiful to him. Aesthetik) by J. Jungmann, Professor of Philosophy and Theology in the University at Innsbruck (who died in 1885), deals both with the fundamental ideas of Aesthetik, and with the several Arts in detail. His doctrine is a development of the Aristotelic-Thomistic view, and in the first half of his first volume ( i.-iii.) he discusses the essential char- acteristics of Beauty. The following is a summary of his 'teaching: (i) Beauty as such is a suprasensible quality of things (p. 23). It is apprehended by the rational faculty, and although it is common to corporeal and incorporeal things, it is more perfect in the latter, and has its proper sphere in the ethical life of beings endowed with knowledge and freedom. (2) Beauty can generate pleasure in us by our merely contemplating it. In this it differs from the good, which is the object of desire. (3) Beauty is the foundation of love. It is " the inner goodness of things in so far as they give pleasure to the rational spirit." " Beauty (p. 150) is the actual agreement or harmony of things with the rational mind, in so far as they give it pleasure." It is therefore a relative attribute of things, not an absolute one, and yet it is not purely subjective. Jungmann deals next with the sublime, the ludicrous, and with the subject VIII The Philosophy of Germany 89 of grace, etc., and gives a criticism of hostile views. In his second volume he deals with the Fine Arts, both generally (pp. 3-173) and in detail, which he takes up thus Architecture (pp. 173-213), the Drama (pp. 223- 254), Sculpture and Painting (pp. 254-380), Oratory (pp. 380-402), Poetry (pp. 402-486), Music (pp. 484-566), with a final section on Taste. 8. The Literature of Denmark There is only one writer of importance on ^Esthetic in the literature of Denmark. He may be placed at the close of the German list. Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851), Professor of Physics in the University of Copenhagen from 1806 onwards, and the discoverer of electro-magnetism, was as much interested in the imaginative as in the scientific aspects of Nature. While yet a student at Copenhagen, he obtained the University gold medal on " the limits of prose and poetry." His chief fame is as a physicist, but his essays and addresses to various societies, with his speeches and papers on the philosophy of Nature, were collected into a volume, and translated from German into English in 1852 by L. and J. B. Horner. These papers deal with the relations of science and poetry, science and religion, the spiritual and the material, and of the philosophy of Beauty. There are three sections in Oersted's book in which Beauty is discussed (i) two dialogues, on the fundamental principles of Beauty, and on the physical effects of Tones ; (2) two chapters on the Natural Philosophy of the Beauti- ful ; and (3) a section on the unbeautiful in Nature, in its relation to the harmony of Beauty in the whole. The outcome of the first of these dialogues is that the pleasure we derive from Beauty depends both on reason and on the senses. Musical tones, for example, contain a hidden reason within them. Symmetrical figures, which delight us, do so because of the reason that is in the symmetry. They are conformable to rule, i.e. to reason. The circle is a perfect figure, because it unites so many 90 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CH. vm characteristics in its unity. It is not a mere abstract con- ception. It is an entity that is in itself beautiful, because of its essential idea. We find in the circle symmetry, com- pletion, wholeness, unity in variety. The external image reaches us through the senses, and delights us, without our being conscious of the ideas which it contains, and which lie within it. In the whole realm of inorganic Nature we find geometrical forms which are beautiful ; and, when we pass to organic Nature, the lines and angles of crystalline beauty are exchanged for the curves and sinuosities of life and organisation. As symmetry lies hid in crystals and organisms, reason lies hid in tones. It lies there, on a firm foundation within our nature, not in sense only but in reason. This is the outcome of the dialogue, originally printed in the Transactions of the Scandinavian Society in 1808. Twenty-five years later, in 1833, Oersted wrote a second dialogue, on "The Physical Effects of Tones." The two chapters on the Natural Philosophy of the Beautiful were written later still. In them he discusses the laws of sound and of colour, in minute detail. We find that Nature pro- duces the same forms as are created by human thought, and that what are thoughts within us are also laws of Nature without us. We thus discover that the laws of Nature are the laws of Reason, and that all Nature reveals the eternal living Reason. " Soul and Nature are one, seen from two different sides." Harold Hoffding, at present professor at the University of Copenhagen, has published Outlines of Psychology ^ in the 6th section of which he discusses the subject of aesthetic feeling. In the main he follows Schiller and Fechner. He thinks the aesthetic instincts had their origin in the tendencies which lead to the preservation of the individual and the race. Art arose out of the struggle for existence, and the love of art preceded an appreciation of the beauty of Nature. Art is nearer man than Nature is. We owe the modern feeling for Nature chiefly to Rousseau. In a later section, Hoffding's remarks on the Sublime, which are partly based on those of Kant, are noteworthy. CHAPTER IX THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRANCE i. Descartes No better evidence of the close inter-relation of all specu- lative problems can be found than is to be seen in the beginnings of Philosophy in France. Descartes the founder of modern Philosophy wrote nothing on the sub- ject of the Beautiful, but the influence of Cartesianism is visible in the earliest efforts of French Art, and its root- principle is still more apparent in the literature of ^Esthetics, as soon as it took definite shape in France. The earliest French writers on the Beautiful drew their inspiration from St. Augustine, but the ideal tendency the intellectual parentage of which may always be traced back to Plato had a metaphysical embodiment in Des- cartes ; and so soon as idealism began to ripen and bear fruit in France, its influence was seen both in art-theory and art-production. In the seventeenth century, French art was more ideal and constructive, than real and imitative ; and it is noteworthy that while Pere Andre looked to St. Augustine as his guide, he really embodied and wrought out the teaching of Plato. Descartes was a voluminous correspondent : 1 1 6 of his letters were published in 1683, but only three of them refer to Literature as distinct from Philosophy. In the first of these Descartes praises his friend Balzac for certain qualities which he thought characterised his work. The first of them is purity of diction. This, says Descartes, is to literary 92 The Pliilosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. style, what health is to the body. " Quand on la possede, on n'y pense plus." This purity of diction is a sign of unity between thought and style the style being the body, and the thought being the soul. A perfect style resembles a geometrical figure, of which the beauty lies in symmetry. A mingling of contraries is monstrous. Inequality, irregu- larity, and complexity in literary work are to be condemned ; and those in whose writings they occur are (i) those who have too many words and too few ideas, felicitous language but ignoble thought ; (2) those who have lofty or sublime thought, but who express it in an obscure manner, or who have too much thought and too little experience ; (3) those who have abundance of words, yet who clothe their thoughts badly ; (4) those who indulge in bons mots, jeux d'esprit, equivoques, poetic fiction, sophistry, or super- subtilty. Descartes believed that his correspondent Balzac avoided these four faults. In his second letter Descartes vindicates the function of imagination. He wrote to Balzac that "sleep led him to the woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces, where he enjoyed all the pleasure imagined in fables." Baillet, in his Vie de M. Descartes, tells us that he believed in dreams, analysing and interpreting them with a semi-scientific and half-superstitious curiosity. In the third letter Descartes's feeling towards Nature comes out picturesque Nature, the country loved of artists and poets. He urged Balzac to come to Amsterdam, be- cause it would be quite as pleasant to see the products of Nature arriving from distant countries, in the form of mer- chandise, as to watch them growing in the fields. He would almost have agreed with Samuel Johnson, that it was better to walk down Cheapside than to take a stroll in the green fields of Surrey. In this we see a tendency which was developed in the next generation, and was dominant in Rabelais and Montaigne. There was no appreciation of Nature for its own sake in Descartes, and very little of it even in the French literature of the seventeenth century. It was human nature alone that was interesting. Never- theless Cartesianism sought to unite the best things in ix The Philosophy of France 93 ancient literature with the inheritances of Catholicism, a certain freedom of spirit in investigation with a deference to authority. It is in Boileau that we see the literary reflection of the' philosophy of Descartes. Beauty was supposed to lie in reasonableness, good sense, literary proportion, there being no room allowed for fresh imaginative departures. It was expressed in the formula "rien n'est beau que le vrai." As' Descartes sought for the True in a universal principle valid for all intelligence, Boileau sought for the Beautiful in a universal element, vouched for by an intellectual criterion. To the test of the " clare et distincte " in Descartes corre- sponds the "clarte'" or luminousness of Boileau. And just as Pascal differed somewhat from Descartes in his test, admitting within the range of his vision things that are not perceived " clare et distincte " ; so Corneille and others, in Poetry and Art, to a certain extent broke away from classic rules, the intellectual canons and unities of the past. Cartesianism was, after all, a realistic movement as compared with the schools to which it gave rise. Its insist- ence on truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, was somewhat alien to high art ; but its motto, " rien n'est beau que le vrai," might really be taken as equivalent to " rien n'est beau, s'il n'est pas vrai." Thus interpreted, the dictum of Boileau is not opposed to idealism, it is only its sober realistic base ; and adopting it, it is easy to see how he should prefer the Homeric simplicity and the Horatian directness to the mystic fancies and the vague idealisations of other writers. It was perhaps due to the fact that Descartes was a trained mathematician, and that he had tried, in elaborating his " method," to follow in the footsteps of the geometricians, that he wished to bring the department of aesthetics (so far as he recognised it) under the control of metaphysical or even mathematical formulae, and make it an "exact science." It will be seen that some of the points which are most prominent in Pere Andrews theory of Beauty find their intellectual parentage in Descartes ; and we may perhaps 94 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. even trace the saying of Buffon, " le style c'est 1'homme," to the Cartesian doctrine that truth is independent of the individual, not invented by him, and that the function of each is the right ordering of his own thought. There is no doubt that the ideal realism of Descartes coloured the literature of France in the period of its greatest glory in the seventeenth century, and that its decadence was due to its abandonment in aesthetic (as in metaphysic and ethic) of the principles which guided its first essays. Excessive subjectivity and imitation, instead of objectivity and idealisa- tion, gave rise, as a necessary consequence, to mannerisms, to tricks of cleverness, to artifice instead of art, to mimicry and dilettantism instead of simplicity, nature, and truth. 2. Crousaz to Buffier It was not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that an attempt was made in France to discuss the question of the Beautiful philosophically ; but influences were at work in the seventeenth century preparing the way for it. The Port-Royalists were occupied with other problems, but a phrase of Pierre Nicole's (1625-95), " Pulchritudinis fontem in veritate esse," may be noted as having perhaps indirectly given rise to Boileau's dictum, "rien n'est beau que le vrai." The indirect work of Boileau (1636-1711) who was dictator of letters to France for many years, and a better critic than an original writer should also be noted. It was a sort of literary seed-sowing, of which the harvest was afterwards reaped in other than literary fields. Sub- sequently the work of such men as Rousseau who wrote nothing directly on Beauty, but whose name is specially iden- tified with a return to Nature, and who introduced a new way of looking on many problems must be taken into account in any estimate of the philosophical tendencies of France. While French literature has not been so constructive as that of Germany, either in the department of Esthetics, or in that of intellectual or Moral Philosophy, it has the merit of greater clearness. If not in literary criticism generally, ix The Philosophy of France 95 in art-criticism at any rate, the French writers, until recently, moved on a higher level of insight than the Germans. With the exception of Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art, Schiller's Letters, and Hegel's Aesthetik, Germany has produced nothing so admirable in this direction as much that has proceeded from its political rival. The literature of France, however, includes that of Switzerland, and the earliest contribution to ^Esthetics in the French language was by a Swiss, who held a philo- sophical chair, first in his own country, and afterwards in Holland. Passing over the Lettres sur le bon Gout, by the Abbe Bellegarde (1708), and the Discours sur le bon Goiit, by J. F. du Tremblay (1713), the first book of any value was the Traite du Beau, by J. P. de Crousaz (1663-1748), first Professor of Philosophy and of Mathematics in the Academy of Lausanne, and afterwards at Groningen. It was published at Amsterdam in 1712. Crousaz was also the author of a Logic, which appeared at Amsterdam in the same year. This little treatise has thus a historical im- portance in excess of its speculative merits. Crousaz held that Beauty is not known by us as absolute, but that the word expresses the relation in which the objects we call beautiful stand to our intellect and to our feelings. The word belongs, in this respect, to the same class as the word " Truth " or " Honesty." Every one who rises above ! mere custom, when he says a thing is beautiful means that he perceives something which he approves, and which gives him pleasure. (He distinguishes objects which please the mind, from those which please the heart.) It is not neces- sary, however, that in order to be beautiful an object must' give pleasure. We may recognise beauty in that which gives pain. The characteristics of Beauty, according to Crousaz, are variety, unity, regularity, order, and proportion. But in a subsequent chapter he seems to lay chief stress on the three- fold characteristic of unity in variety, proportion, and fitness. An object is beautiful ( i ) when it includes within it diversities reduced to unity, which occupy the mind without fatiguing it ; (2) when it has proportion well sustained ; and (3) when it is well fitted to its place. One does not require, however, 96 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 'to postpone his judgment as to the beauty of an object until he recognises these three things as present, because Beauty forces itself upon us spontaneously. It triumphs over us, and our heart responds to it without the aid of reason. The question then is, has it a basis in the nature of things, or is its basis caprice ? To determine this we must go to the root of human nature, and to the radical principle of the universe, which is harmony. The harmony between Man and Nature, however, is not perfect. There is a chaotic element in human nature, and evils of all sorts exist around it and within. Derangements of body and mind, due to inheritance and to education, have artificialised human taste. Nevertheless an object in which many diver- sities are brought together and united in harmony, and which is well proportioned and fitted to its end, is beautiful. This is a summary of the teaching of Crousaz. The Latin poem of Dufresnoy, De Arte Graphica, deserves a passing notice. When Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy (1611-1658), who had studied Painting and the conventional Art of Poetry both in France and in Italy, returned to his native country, he appeared both as artist and verse-writer. His poem on the Art of Painting is chiefly interesting from the fact that it was translated into English prose by Dryden, who prefixed to it an Introduction of his own, much more interesting than the book itself, in which he traces a parallel between poetry and painting. It was also trans- lated into English verse by W. Mason. So far as poetry goes, Dufresnoy's work is as dull as ditch-water. Even Fusseli says of it (Introduction to Lectures on Painting, Part II. p. xv.) : " From his text no one ever rose practically wiser than when he sat down to the study of it." Like much of the conventional sculptured monuments at Westminster Abbey, it has only a historical interest, as a mirror of the taste of the age that thought it worthy of reproduction in two English editions. Its perusal by the Abbe Du Bos, member and " per- petual secretary " of the French Academy, gave rise to his Reflexions critiques sur la Poe'sie et la Peinture (1719). If Dufresnoy's poem was chiefly interesting from the fact that ix The Philosophy of France 97 Dryden translated it, Dubos's Reflexions are worthy of note mainly because Lessing refers to them, and seems to have made some use of them in his Laocoon, In France, however, they went through many editions ; and the fifth, enlarged by the author, was translated into Eng- lish by Thomas Nugent, and published in London in three volumes in 1748. When Dubos wrote, the term "Fine Art " was not in current use. From a reluctance to drag down the vocation of the poet and the painter to that of a technical workman, Poetry was regarded as a branch of Literature far above "Art." Dubos's discussion gave rise to the term " les Beaux-Arts," and indeed nationalised it. In the Traite de la Peinture, by Daudre Bardon (1760), the phrase is used as current coin. To trace in detail the history of the ideas as to Fine Art entertained in France as to what it should include, and what it should exclude would be an interesting chapter in the history of Esthetics. Only a single remark can here be made. In the seventeenth century certain schools of Painting and of Sculpture were instituted. A school of Architecture followed. In 1793 these were united in one, an Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When, subsequently, an Academic des Beaux-Arts was established, Music was added. Poetry was left out, partly because it could not be taught, and partly from an idea that it belonged to a loftier sphere. In the Dictionnaire des Sciences, des Lettres, et des Arts, the arts of Design only are included Painting, Sculpture, Engraving, Architecture, Music, and Drawing. (This sub- ject, however, belongs to the history of the Fine Arts, rather than to that of the philosophy of the Beautiful.) Towards the close of the first quarter of the eighteenth century we find the subject of the Beautiful discussed by the Pere Buffier in his Traite des Ve'rites premieres, 1724, a work which did not, at the time of its appearance, receive the attention it deserved. In the thirteenth chapter of the first part .of this Treatise, he proposes to " apply the rule of common-sense, in order to discover in what true Beauty consists." On reading this sentence, we may imagine we are going to tread, in the company of H 98 The Philosophy of the Beaut if 2 tl CHAP. Pere Buffier, those steps afterwards made so familiar to Scotsmen by Dr. Thomas Reid. But it is not so. " What is called Beauty," he writes, " seems to me to consist in that which is at one and the same time the most common and the most rare in things of the same species ; or, to put it otherwise, it is that particular form the most common of all the forms that are to be found in the same species of things " (c'est la disposition particuliere la plus commune, parmi les autres dispositions particulieres qui se rencontrent dans une meme espece des choses. Traite des Verites premieres, I. ch. xiii. 94). After giving this definition, he sees that it has a paradoxical look on the surface, and that it requires some explanation. He therefore selects the human face as an illustration of his principle ; and, with the view of showing how Beauty is both rare and common, he remarks that out of the almost infinite variety of particular forms which the human face assumes, one only is perfectly beautiful, while the rest fall beneath that standard of per- fection ; but that none of the departures from this perfect beauty have so many human faces formed after their model as are formed after the model of the perfectly beautiful. In 50 faces there may be only one amongst them that is really beautiful this makes beauty rare ; but then this one beautiful face will have many of the remaining 49 formed after its model ; while no single one of the 49 will have many of the remaining 48 formed on its model. Buffier thought the same principle is seen, even more clearly, when we examine the different parts of the face in detail. Take the same 50 persons, and examine their foreheads, eyes, mouths, or any feature. You may find, say, 10 well- proportioned ones, formed as if after the same model. Of the remaining 40, not more than one or two will seem to be formed after the same model, but all, or nearly all, after different ones. It will be found, Buffier thought, that the individual parts which constitute deformity occur rarely in the human face, and that the parts which constitute beauty are much more common. It might be supposed to follow from this that all beautiful faces must resemble each other. This of course is not the case, and Buffier remarks that ix The Philosophy of France 99 " however beautiful a face may be, its parts are never equally or perfectly beautiful." If they were so, then all beautiful faces would resemble each other. He makes two additional remarks which are noteworthy ' viz. ( i ) that those persons whom we are most apt to mis- take, the one for the other, are those who approach toward the beautiful. We can easily distinguish between ugly faces, or at least much more easily than between beautiful ones. (2) It is to be observed that painters find it com- paratively easy to depict ugly faces ; it is more difficult for them to paint the handsome or the young. Those that are either wrinkled with age, or have assumed some characteristic departure from the mean of beauty, or are positively ugly, are much more easily dealt with by the artist. It comes to this, that relatively perfect forms of Beauty (if distinct in type) have always a much closer resemblance or affinity with each other, than any one of them has resemblance or . affinity with departures from the Beautiful. In further endeavouring to prove his thesis that Beauty consists in that which is most common amongst individuals of the same species, Buffier comments on the doctrine that Beauty consists in " proportion." He at once asks for a standard of proportion, and says that what is ugly is so, simply because it is a departure from the common form that a monster is monstrous only because it has nothing in common with that form from which it is an aberration. He thus justifies his seeming paradox, that Beauty is both ( the most common and the most rare form of those things which meet the eye, and to which we are accustomed in experience. It is a curious thing that, after stating a doctrine which really implies an essential principle of Beauty, Buffier should sink, at the close of this chapter, to so low an intellectual level as to admit the arbitrariness of the Beautiful, and its relativity. Not only in reference to beauty of colour and of figure, but in reference to the standard of every kind of Beauty, he falls back upon the bare suffrage of the masses, mere count of heads. His theory had no speculative root. It was not based (as Plato's was) on the essential and the ioo The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. absolute, but it recognised a kind of typical form, a sort of Aristotelic mean between extremes. Beauty consisted not in anything that individuals become, but in the type after which they aim, and to which they approximate ; and although each one fails to reach it, the points in which each most nearly approaches to the type are its most beautiful points. I think it curious that Buffier did not see the affinity of his own theory with that of Plato, with which at starting it had really more in common than with the' Aristotelian doctrine. If the variations and departures from the medial line of Beauty all resemble it more than they resemble each other, they surely do homage to it, as at once more universal than themselves, and as ideal in contrast with their actuality. In 1736, M. Cartand de la Vilete published an Essai historique et philosophique, sur le Gout, but it has no greater significance than Rollin's Reflexions generates sur le Gout, published about the same time. Rollin was Principal of the University of Paris, and wrote on History and Belles- Lettres, but he was not a philosopher. He defined Taste as a "kind of natural reason brought to perfection by study." It is innate in all, but only in some are its seeds ever brought to perfection. Several works of interest to the student of art (though merely as links in the evolving chain of criticism) were written by French travellers in Italy during the first half of the eighteenth century, e.g. in 1739-40. The President de Brosses sent home to his friends a series of Lettres familieres on Italian life. They are full of prejudice. What could be more deplorable than the following judgment passed on St. Mark's, Venice : " C'est un vilain -monument, s'il en fut jamais, massif, sombre, et gothique, du plus mediant gout !(!. 174). 3. Andre to Diderot In 1741, Pere Andre wrote an Essai sur le Beau, which was in some respects an advance on the discussion of Crousaz and Buffier. Andre's is not a profound analysis, ix The Philosophy of France 101 but it drew its inspiration from the idealism of Male- branche, reverting to that of Plato, through the connecting link of St. Augustine. He finds Beauty in Nature, in Art, in Mind and Morals ; but he asks what Beauty is in itself. Is it absolute or relative ? Is it fixed so as to please barbarian and civilised alike, and to be independent of individual fluctuating taste ? He does not need to ask what things are beautiful ; the great question is, what is Beauty ? In answer he classifies the kinds or types of Beauty thus : (i) There is an essential and divine Beauty. (2) There is a natural Beauty, quite distinct from this, which exists in the world, and is independent of human taste or opinion about it. It is seen both in colour and in form, both in external things and in man. (3) There is a Beauty that is an arbitrary and artificial product, due to association, custom, and the creation of individual or national taste. The recognition of these three orders the essential, the natural, and the artificial is supposed to go to the root of the difficulty as to a standard of taste. The variations in judgment and feeling which exist in reference to it apply only to the third of the three kinds of Beauty. Pere Andre subdivides the kinds of Beauty in his three classes, without adding much that is of value. The third class (artificial Beauty) he trifurcates thus (i) the beauty of Taste, (2) the beauty of Genius, (3) the beauty of Caprice ; and the two first, he maintains, are founded on a sentiment of natural Beauty. Pere Andre influenced Victor Cousin a good deal, who edited his works, with copious notes, in 1843. Five years after the publication of the Essai du Beau the Abbe Batteux (1713-1780) issued a volume which he called Les Beaux- Arts reduits a im m$me Principe (1746). This was followed in 1765 by a Cours de Belles Lettres. In these works Batteux tried to reduce all the arts to one principle, and then to classify them. For principle he falls back on the imitation of Nature, and in his classification he tries to bring the Arts within the categories of space and time, those belonging to each category being able to unite and produce complex effects. Thus he thinks that Archi- 102 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. tecture, Sculpture, and Painting all appealing to the sense of sight, and being illustrated in the field of space may combine together to form a complex whole ; while music and poetry may similarly combine in time. His division of the Arts is altogether arbitrary. In 1759 the Essaisur le Beau of Pere Andre was edited at Amsterdam, with a Discours preliminaire et des Re- flexions sur le Gout, by J. H. B. Formey. It is a vindica- tion of a power in man to rise above the impressions of sense, and reach universal and axiomatic ideas. He explains the diversity which exists both in matters of taste and of conduct, as due to climate, education, and pre- judice, but affirms that this does not weaken the force of universal ideas, which are demonstrable as principles. He eulogises Andre's Essai, criticises Crousaz's distinction of absolute and relative Beauty, and combats the position of the Encyclopedists. He then gives it as his own opinion that Beauty consists in the perception of rapports : " La perception des rapports est done le fondement du Beau " ; and continues " il semble que nous considdrons alors les etres non seulement en eux-memes, mais encore relativement aux lieux qu'ils occupent dans la Nature, dans le Tout." The experiential rather than the ideal philosophy was, however, at this time in the ascendant in France. In 1759) D'Alembert read to the French Academy some Reflexions sur Vusage et sur fabus de la Philosophic dans les matieres de gout. It was a string of rhetorical common- places. He did not affirm the complete arbitrariness of taste. There were certain kinds of Beauty which appealed to all ; others which only appealed to the connoisseur ; but taste was founded on fixed principles within ourselves. We can- not attain to any first principles regarding it, but we can reach, and may do very well with, certain secondary ones. That was the outcome of D'Alembert's " reflections." Taste, he affirmed, is widespread though not universal. There are beauties so sublime and striking that all minds feel them equally, in all centuries and in all countries. But besides this kind of beauty there is a species of a second order, which requires even more sagacity to discern and more delicacy to ix The Philosophy of France 1 03 feel. This beauty is found most in nations where social intercourse has perfected the arts, and it is this beauty that is properly the object of Taste. D'Alembert defines Taste then as " le talent de demeler dans les ouvrages de 1'art ce qui doit plaire aux ames sensibles, et ce qui doit les blesser." Taste is not arbitrary, but is founded on fixed principles. The source of our pleasure or our ennui lies only and solely in ourselves ; and in ourselves we find the invariable rules of taste, which serve as a touchstone to test all productions of art submitted to us. Pursuing our investigation in a philo- sophical spirit, however, we find a limit which we cannot pass. To first principles we cannot ascend ; these are for ever hidden behind a cloud. To seek to understand the metaphysical cause of our pleasure would be a quest as hopeless as to seek to explain the action of objects on our senses. But, as the origin of our knowledge can be reduced to a small number of sensations, so the source of our pleasure in matters of taste can be traced to the way in which we feel. In the same year as Batteux's Cours de Belles-Letlres appeared (176 5), Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary was pub- lished. It contained a brief article on the Beautiful, stating the ordinary conventional arguments against a standard of taste, founded simply on the diverse verdicts of individuals and races. It has no philosophical value. The curious thing, however, is that Voltaire also contributed the article " Gout " to the French Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers of Diderot and D'Alembert (1751-1772); and in it he admits a standard, which in his own Philosophical Dictionary he denies. He says that by a metaphor drawn from the physical world Taste is the sense by which we discern beauty and its opposite in all the arts ; and this metaphoric taste follows the same laws as physical taste does. Like that of the tongue and palate, it even anticipates reflection, is sensitive to what is good, and rejects the bad with indignation. It is often, however, uncertain and roving. It is not sufficient for Taste to see and to know the beauty of a work, it must feel it, be touched by it, distinguish its "nuances." Depraved taste in art selects revolting subjects, or prefers 104 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. the burlesque to the noble, the affected to the natural and simple, and is a malady of the spirit. As with the individual, so, little by little, taste forms in nations, as the spirit of the great artists is apprehended. The saying that one cannot dispute about matters of taste applies only on the physical side. It is not so in Art. There is a good taste that discerns, and a bad taste that ignores. " II y a aussi des ames froides et des esprits faux, qu'on ne peut ni ^chauffer ni redresser ; c'est avec eux qu'il ne faut point disputer parce qu'ils n'en ont aucun." Taste, however, may b lost to a nation. This most frequently occurs after a period of perfection. Artists, fearing to imitate, go too far afield, and lose the beauty of Nature that their predecessors seized. There are whole countries which a genuine taste has never entered. It is also seen that where some of the Arts are wanting, the rest can rarely flourish, because all adhere, and depend the one upon the other. This is the substance of the teaching of Voltaire. During the greater part of the eighteenth century both French criticism and French Art were altogether conven- tional. Much of the former appeared in the Notes of travel in Italy, which were taken down by the artists in the course of their wanderings, but which were written without any insight. This conventionality is well put by Mr. Morley a writer certainly not biassed against the dominant note of the century in his Diderot : " Of course the artists went to Rome, but they changed sky and not spirit. The pupils of the Academy came back with their port- folios filled with sketches, in which we see nothing of the ' true mother of dead empires, ' nothing of the vast ruins, and the great sombre desolate Campagna, but only Rome turned into a decora- tion for the scenes of a theatre, or the panels of a boudoir. " * The mention of Diderot's name brings us to one who had perhaps the most powerful brain amongst the French Encyclopedists. Diderot wrote the encyclopedia article on the Beautiful. Though his theory was a very incomplete 1 Diderot, vol. ii. p. 71. ix The Philosophy of France 105 one, his criticisms were admirably incisive. His papers on the successive Salons, though desultory and unsystematic and they could not help being so were scientifically far in advance of their time ; now and then they rose to a rank which makes them even models of art-criticism. Diderot was much more successful as an art-critic than as a specu- lative philosopher. His essay on Painting was written in 1765, though not published till 1796. Goethe, writing to Schiller, called it " a magnificent work," and he translated part of it. In intellectual philosophy he was a necessi- tarian ; and, discarding the ideal, his one recipe for good art was simply "go back to Nature" the /xi^cris of Aristotle. He could not understand the Platonic idealisa- tion, but would cure the conventionality and mannerisms of bad Art by faithful imitation, by copying the real. And what we would not expect in this connection, he con- demned the practice of painting from models as artificial. He saw that the stiff attitudinising model, the posing figure, was not a piece of living, breathing, changing Nature, and condemned it accordingly. But Diderot forgot (i) that the most perfect products of Art cannot possibly be reproductions of movement, but only of that which once moved, and which has therefore the latent capabilities of movement ; (2) that the study of moving objects, as they are seen in Nature, and not as they would be isolated for the purpose of copying, would only result in blurred effects, confusion of detail, with no harmony either of form or of colour ; (3) that Art cannot imitate Nature exactly, simply because Nature is always changing. We may fix some one single shape or group of shapes, some one assemblage of colours or groups of colours ; but, in all high Art, these are meant to suggest much more than they can express or record. In his essay on the Beautiful in the Encycloptdie[ Diderot searches for an explanation of the origin of the; Beautiful, and in the course of it he deals with Hutcheson's theory. His solution that Beauty lies " in relation " is very inadequate. " Beau est un terme que nous appliquons a une infinitd d'etres . . . dans tous ces etres une qualite dont io6 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. le terme beau soit le signe." T It is too abstract, bare, and therefore too sterile a conception. The relations which make certain objects beautiful, and others not and which make the same object beautiful and ugly at different times have still to be examined. Diderot is more successful in his attempt to map out the sections and sub-sections of Art, than he is in his theory of Beauty. When we raise the question, How do the poet, painter, sculptor, and musician co-operate ? and how do they differ, in dealing with their common element, Beauty ? in this scientific quest we may find Diderot suggestive, if not directly helpful. Another thing may be noted. He was more indebted than he knew to the philosophy which he discarded. Here is one idealistic hint which, had he followed it out, might have led him a certain distance towards the theory opposite to that which he espoused, or at least out of the ruts of his own literalism. "True taste," he said, "fastens on one or two characteristics, and leaves the rest to the imagination. ... If an artist shows us everything, and leaves us nothing to do, he leaves us weary and impatient." So much for Diderot. 4. Montesquieu to Cousin A fragment on "Taste," by Montesquieu (1689-1755), the author of L'Esprit des Lois, was discovered amongst his papers after his death, and inserted in the French Encyclopedic by Diderot. He held that the arguments of Plato are no longer tenable, founded as they are on a false philosophy. These arguments treat of the good, beautiful, perfect, wise, as positive things. The sources of the beautiful are in ourselves, and in seeking the reason of them we seek the sources of pleasure. Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Music, Architecture, all give pleasure ; let us discover why, how, and when. This will aid us to form Taste, which is nothing but the power of discerning with delicacy (finesse), and with promptitude, the amount of 1 See also his Lettre sur les Sourds et Muets : " Le goftt en ge"ne"ral consiste dans la perception des rapports." ix The Philosophy of France 107 pleasure they can give to mankind. The soul, inde- pendently of the pleasures that come through the senses, has those which are proper to it. It is immaterial to con- sider whether our soul has these pleasures as a substance united with a body, or as separate from the body ; the soul has them always, and these are the objects of Taste. The manner of our seeing is entirely arbitrary ; we might have been made differently, in which case we should have felt differently. It follows that were we different, art would have been different. After referring to the love both of order and variety, he pauses to criticise Gothic buildings, the ornamentation of which he thinks too varied. " Gothic buildings are an enigma, confusing the eye, and em- barrassing the mind." He compares them with the Greek, of which he praises the simplicity few diversions, and those dignified and grand. He then lays down the law that what- ever we see at one moment should have symmetry ; what we see in succession, variety. " Les choses que nous voyons successivement doivent avoir de la varidte ; car notre ame n'a aucune difficulte a les voir ; celles au con- traire que nous apercevons d'un coup d'ceil doivent avoir de la symetrie." He then emphasises the necessity of contrast (all things fatigue us in the long-run, even great pleasures) of sensibility, delicacy ; and so comes to the " je ne sais quoi." This, he says, is founded on a feeling of surprise. " A source of great beauty is when a theory in- spires us at first with a slight feeling of surprise ; this feeling is sustained and augmented ; it is finally followed by admiration." Many painters seize our imagination at once, with an extraordinary expression, bizarre attitude, or gor- geous colour. In the case of others, as Raphael, the beauty intensifies after a time. Similarly, the exact proportion of St. Peter's at Rome is such that at first we do not appre- hend its greatness. Were it less wide, we should feel its length ; were it shorter, we should perceive its breadth. But, after a while, the more one gazes, the more its great- ness seems to grow. Many of the shorter articles in the Encyclopedic were written by Jean Francois Marmontel (1723-1799), drama- io8 The Philosophy of tJie Beautiful CHAP. tist, member of the French Academy and its secretary, editor of the Mercure, Historiographer of France, etc. ; and in those which dealt with the principles of literary art he himself published a work, Elements de Litterature (1787) he followed in the footsteps of his chief. He was a slavish disciple of Racine, Boileau, etc. Tied to the literary precedents of the French orthodoxy of the eighteenth cen- tury, and having no sympathetic vision beyond it, Marmontel, ( with La Harpe and all his collaborateurs, was a very clear and very clever but a singularly dry writer, and to those who could see other horizons a very dull critic. " Les trois qualites distinctives du beau," said he, " sont la force, la richesse, et 1'intelligence " a statement which Topffer calls " une definition manquee." There was no profound discussion of the subject of Beauty, either in France or in England, throughout the whole of the eighteenth century ; and the explanation is not difficult to find. The experience-philosophy, then domi- nant in Europe, discredited the beautiful, both by subordi- nating it to utilitarian interests, and by explaining its origin as sense-born. It is impossible, and in this work it is quite unnecessary, to explain the causes or rather the many co-operating causes which led to the rise of the opposite philosophy in the nineteenth century. Suffice it to say that the great literary renaissance helped the philosophical one, and the philosophical revival in Germany the speculative move- ment of which Kant was the earliest representative reacted both on French philosophy and French aesthetic. In the year 1801 the Institute of France offered a prize for the best solution of the problem, What are the causes of the perfection of Ancient Sculpture, and what would be the best means of attaining it ? The prize was gained by T. B. Emeric-David (1755-1825). The full title of his memoir the prize for which was awarded in 1801, and the book itself published (in 544 pages) in 1805 was Recherches sur Part statuaire, considere chez les antiens et chez les modernes^ ou memoire stir cette question proposee par PInstitut Na- tional de France; quelles ont ete les causes de la proportion ix The Philosophy of France 109 de la Sculpture antique, et quelles seraient les moyens tfy attaindre? His thesis was a defence of the Aristotelian dogma that the imitation of Nature, the careful study of fact, of real beauty existing in Greece, brought the art of the age of Pericles to its rare perfection. A contemporary of his, A. C. Quatremere de Quincey, (1755-1849), took the opposite, or the Platonic view, viz. that the ancient artists did not copy Nature, but an ideal of perfection, which the actual world did not supply. He was perpetual secretary of the Academic Royale des Beaux-Arts, architect, sculptor, and member of the French Institute, was a voluminous writer on art, chiefly in the form of papers read to the Academic, and published under the title Discours, The following is a resume of one of these essays, " De Funi- versalite du Beau, et de la maniere de F entendre" bound in a volume of Discours prononces a FInstitut : Certain truths are invariable and universal. Such are the ideas of the true and the good, of which Beauty is one of the tangible forms. But taste and opinions on the beautiful differ in different nations and times. How then can it be universal ? Either there is a standard of Beauty that can be recog- nised as such, and therefore it is absurd to extend it to all works alike ; or there is not such a standard, and no one has the right to praise or blame anything. The test, how- ever, is to be found in the knowledge or the ignorance of the individual, or the nation. Even the True and the Good are not recognised as such by all ; so with the Beauti- ful. It is a false argument that because a number of people do not admit the truth of an experience or a calculation, therefore it is not true. Moral truths are obscured by ignorance, and brutal passion ; yet are they none the less universal, or have the inherent power of becoming so. The ] least analysis shows that the Beautiful is composed of a principle of unity allied to variety, a principle of order and harmony, truth and utility qualities which can be appre- ciated in theory, and applied in practice only by the union of reason, intelligence, imagination, and feeling ; faculties existing in all men, but which are in the greater number inert. In vegetable life, do not all agree that a well- no The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. developed tree is more beautiful than a stunted one ? So with regard to certain races of men, forms of bodies, etc. The universality of the Beautiful then is to be under- stood, not in a material or arithmetical sense, but in a moral and intellectual one. We call human reason, not what one particular individual thinks, but the opinion of the aggregate intelligence. Undeveloped faculties cannot distinguish between the good and the bad, the true and the false, nor can they apprehend the idea of the Beautiful or discern its principles. We find that people, arrived at the same degree of civilisation, are in accord in their opinions, sentiments, and judgments on the Beautiful, its idea and principle. Thus it is universal, not because it is seen and known of all, but because those who have eyes to see, see it ; not because it exists in all works, but because wherever it exists, and we recognise it, it has the power of pleasing all cultivated minds, who are able to understand the laws of nature. Not that it accords with the taste of each particular man, but because it accords with the nature of man in general. If instead of this we uphold the com- plaisant doctrine, that that which pleases, at any time and place, is beautiful ! one sees that each artist may form rules for himself. One would find artists revolving in endless circles of variation, embracing sometimes the evil and sometimes the good, abjuring truths once apprehended, and returning to errors once rejected by themselves. Elsewhere, Quatremere de Quincey puts the root-prin- )ciple of idealism thus: "In every Art, that which comes within the range of the understanding, sentiment, and genius does not really exist anywhere. It has neither substance nor place. It is subject to none of the senses, and he ) who has found it cannot tell where he has seen its model." Perhaps the most noteworthy fact to be mentioned at this stage, as bearing on the future course of opinion in France, is the avidity with which the younger race of Frenchmen, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, read the works of the German metaphysicians, and imbibed the best parts of their teaching. Out of sheer despair at the philosophical " slough of despond," or the pit of nescience ix The Philosophy of France 1 1 1 into which their countrymen had been swept by the wave of the "enlightenment," they turned to the literature of other lands ; and by the help of the works of German and of Scottish philosophers, they essayed a new reading of the facts of external Nature and of the human consciousness. It is certain that most of the yoimg French students of Philosophy at the beginning of the century looked for help, not to their own Encyclopedists the clever scientific thinkers of the brilliant era of Voltaire but to the meta- physicians of Germany. It is also to be noted that very many of them wrote essays or papers on the subject of the Beautiful. Leveque tells us * that, in the half-century from 1 8 10 to 1864, thirty of the docteurs es lettres in France selected the question of ./Esthetic as the subject of their graduation thesis. This was due not merely to the interest which Cousin and Jouffroy had stirred up, but also to a study of Kant and Schelling, of Winckelmann and Schiller. It is somewhat curious that in the voluminous work of Comte the Bacon of France we have almost no discussion of this subject. In the fifth volume of the Philosophic Positive, pp. 47-49 and pp. 104-161, and in the sixth volume, p. 158, some indirect discussion of it will be found. Comte thought that the personification of Nature in the early polytheism was favourable to Art ; while the monotheistic conception of the universe was at first unfavourable to it. In 1813, Victor Cousin, then a pupil of Royer-Collard at the Sorbonne, caught the spirit of the anti-sensationalist doctrine which that pioneer had the courage to unfold. In 1815, as his successor in the Chair of Philosophy, Cousin led the van of the new idealistic movement in France. As soon as it took definite shape, that movement was carica- tured, and its advocates were lampooned as eclectics. Its noblest moral feature, and its most characteristic outcome, were made its intellectual pivot by its opponents, and as such ridiculed. It was an easy but a foolish task. It is true that in Cousin a single philosophical thought is sometimes hammered on the anvil so long, that it is beaten too thin and fine ; and now and then (though not so often 1 La Science du Beau (preface, p. ix. ). ii2 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. as his detractors allege) the thought is lost in rhetoric ; but the sterling merits of the philosophical revival, in which he bore a distinguished part, will be increasingly appreciated as the history of opinion on this subject is better known. , In his first course of Lectures at the Sorbonne from 11815 to 1820 Cousin contented himself with showing that the Beautiful could not be the merely agreeable or pleasant, either in a lower or a more refined sense ; and that the dicta of the masses could determine nothing as to what Beauty intrinsically is. When he passed', however, from the mere criticism of inadequate and partial theories, to announce another of his own, he fell back on the old and equally one-sided doctrine that Beauty consists in unity and variety. The unsatisfactory vagueness of this old August- inian doctrine is apparent. It is quite true that variety with no unity is not only distracting, but unintelligible, just as unity without variety is not only monotonous, but unmeaning. But the mere statement that these two things, unity and variety, are equally important elements in Beauty, solves nothing. We see unity and variety in almost every- thing, but what the better are we for the sight of them, so far as a theory of aesthetic is concerned ? Cousin's is a very partial key to the mystery of the problem. He is much less successful in philosophical construction, than in the literary criticism of inadequate theories. With incisive force he shows the inadequacy of the Aristotelian doctrine that Art lies in the imitation of Nature ; but he falls back somewhat helplessly on the solution of St. Augustine in the De Apto et Pulchro^ and his reduction of all physical and intellectual to moral beauty is very one- sided. It is surely not even in keeping with the funda- mental rule of the Eclectic that physical Beauty is attractive only because it is a mirror of the spiritual that underlies it. Cousin's was a useful protest against current theories that faced the other way and to glorify Art as one of the means that (as Browning puts it) " bring the invisible full into play," is always serviceable but it was really little more than a revival of the Neoplatonic doctrine. In 1816, M. Guizot (1787-1874) wrote an Essai sur les ix The Philosophy of France 113 limites qui separent^ et les liens qui unissent les beaux Arts. Reference to this essay will be made, in a subsequent volume, in the section which deals with Sculpture. It contains no profound analysis of the nature of the Beautiful, and a good deal of that vain repetition of truisms in a lucid style, of which many French writers are masters. Never- theless there is wisdom in many of Guizot's incidental remarks, e.g. sculpture, by reason of the material in which it works, can only deal with states of mind or of body, both of which states must be beautiful ; whereas painting, with the help it receives from colour, and the rapidity with which it can embody an inspiration, may represent emotion and action, whether simple or complicated, without any sacrifice of beauty. 5. Lamennais to Jouffroy A work of great, though subsidiary, value, as bearing on ^-Esthetics, was first published in Paris in the year 1835, viz. The Principles of Harmony and Contrast in Colours^ and their application to the Arts, by M. E. Chevreul. This was the result, as its author tells us, of researches on the simultaneous contrast of colours, pursued for many years, and especially since 1828. He professes to have demonstrated the law of colours, by experiment, a posteriori. It is a standard treatise on the subject of colour, but it falls rather within the literature of Fine Art than the history of Esthetics. The Esquisse d'une Philosophic of F. R. de Lamennais (1782-1854) was published in 1841. In this book (so far as there is any philosophy in it) mysticism excludes both reason and experience. It is of no philosophical signifi- cance, but it contains some interesting reflections on the historical progress of the Arts. Lamennais was of an erratic and somewhat eccentric temperament. He began as a liberal catholic, and ended as an almost agnostic democrat. His literary work was vague and incomplete, unsystematic to the last degree, though with occasional insight, and abounding in detached felicities of phrase. Just as Cousin drank inspiration from Royer-Collard, a I ii4 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. young auditor of Cousin's lectures caught the spirit of his idealism and developed it further. Emile Saisset 1 gives us an interesting account of this youth from the Jura mountains, with " mild and melancholy face " poet as well as thinker listening to the teaching of Cousin. He was one of those who took for the subject of his Doctor's thesis " the emotion of the Beautiful." This youth, Theodore Jouffroy (i 796-1 842), succeeded Cousin in the Chair of Philo- sophy at the Sorbonne, but was dismissed from it in 1822 (the school being suppressed). He then gathered round him about a score of friends in a private house, where he lectured to them. " This little chamber of the Rue du Four," says Saisset, " has a place in history." One of the audience, Sainte-Beuve, gives a brilliant picture of the weekly lectures. 2 To a small but appreciative audience Jouffroy delivered forty lectures, which, however, he did not write out. Notes of them were taken by M. de Lorme. These were revised by Jouffroy, and after his death they were edited by M. Damiron. This Cours d'Esthetique (1843) is an admirable work, not facile, with no surface platitude, or showy epigram, (which is the occasional bane of French philosophy), but with real merit of a solid kind, perhaps with just a trifle too much confidence that it is invariably carrying us along the right lines. One great merit in the work is the dis- tinction drawn between the science and the philosophy of the Beautiful. Jouffroy begins with the science, i.e. with the discussion of the psychological question of Beauty as a fact or phenomenon in the mind of man and in Nature, in order that he may the more successfully pass thence to the philosophical or metaphysical problem of the essence of Beauty. When the question was raised, What is it that makes an object beautiful ? the metaphysical method of dealing with it was to bring together a number of things, each separately beautiful, and to try to take from them their common characteristic. If this could be withdrawn (removed by analysis), it was thought that in and by the 1 In his L'Ame et la Vie, suivi d'un examen critique de I' Esthttique franfaise (pp. 98-100). 2 In his Portraits Litttraires (vol. i. p. 320). ix The Philosophy of France 115 separation we might find the ultimate principle, the inner secret, or speculative kernel of Beauty. A much surer method of procedure is to start psychologically. Jouffroy thought we should begin by asking what it is in each separate thing that leads us to call it beautiful ; and in what relation does each separately beautiful thing stand to us who perceive and know it ? First of all he notes the elementary fact that all objects that are regarded by us as beautiful, or that awaken the emotion of beauty, give pleasure. Therefore, he says, we may start by assuming that the emotion of pleasure is inseparable from our recog- nition of beauty. That fact, however, will not prove that the beautiful and the agreeable are one. A psychological fact of some importance is signalised at this stage of the discussion. It is that in proportion as objects, recognised as beautiful, resemble man, or in so far as they mirror our humanity, they are to that extent deemed more beautiful by us. It is the grace of the lily, the tenderness of the colour of the rose, the peace of the sky at sunset, that are the source of their charm; but grace, tenderness, and peace are human characteristics. ' Jouffroy next shows fully and very clearly the difference between the beautiful and the useful. Much that is beau- tiful is not useful, and much that is useful is not beautiful. Further, in realising the beauty of any object, we ignore its { utility for the time being ; and vice versd, in appreciating its utility, we miss its beauty. Another psychological fact of importance mentioned by Jouffroy is that, whenever we i experience an emotion of the beautiful, we desire nearness, or contact with the object ; but that, as soon as we possess it, part of its charm begins to fade. The craving for possession, however, is no part of the original feeling we' have for any object that we recognise as beautiful. If our admiration is genuine, it is disinterested. It is respectful, even reverential. It is otherwise when we desire any object for its use. In Jouffroy's Cours d> Esthetique there is an ampler criticism than in Cousin's Du Vrai^ du JSeau, et du Bien of the inadequate theories that find the origin of Beauty in unity and variety, in utility or novelty, in organised experience (or custom), and in association. n6 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In passing from the psychology to the metaphysics of the question, and trying to solve the problem of the essence of Beauty, he first deals critically with other defective theories, such as those which find its essence in order, proportion, perfection, harmony, adjustment, arrangement. What do all these theories mean ? Simply that certain phenomena are related to one another, as means to ends. But all phenomena are thus adjusted or correlated, and the fact of their adjustment and correlation has nothing to do either with the beauty or the ugliness of the phenomena that are correlated. What makes each correlated thing beautiful has yet to be found. Is it not, he goes on to say and here we reach the speciality of his theory is it not that each phenomenon speaks to us, as by symbol or allegory, that it shadows forth what it does not fully dis close, and what it cannot reveal entirely ? In proportion as the visible hints to us of the invisible, the corporeal of the incorporeal, it is suffused or covered over with the raiment of the beautiful ; and we now reach his definition of Beauty, " the expression of the Invisible by the natural signs which manifest it" ; the visible world is the " garment we see it by." In this doctrine Jouffroy gives us a synthesis of the realistic and idealistic theories. Starting from the visible and material, it transcends them, and at the same time keeps close to nature in the very act of transcending it. It keeps close to it because it recognises that if we lose our hold of the actual in the process of idealisation, we will probably pass into a region of haze or mere cloudland. If, on the other hand, we never transcend the actual, we become prosaic literalists, the mere slaves of fact. Reference should here be made to the French transla- tions and commentaries on Kant's Kritik der Urteilskraft. In 1796, six years after it appeared at Konigsberg, there was published at Paris Critique du Jugement (observations sur le sentiment du beau et du sublime), translated by Payer Imhoff. In 1823 a second translation by M. Keratry was preceded by a long introductory commentary, Examen philosophique des considerations sur le sentiment du sublime et du beau de Kant. In the same year M. Weyland published ix The Philosophy of France 117 another translation under the title Essai sur le sentiment du beau et du sublime ; and in 1846 Professor Jules Barni pub- lished Critique du Jugement, suivie d^tn Essai sur le eau, with a brief introduction. 6. Swiss writers; Topffer to Cherbuliez At this stage in the evolution of French ^Esthetic four Swiss writers should be referred to. They are all interest- ing in different ways Topffer, Pictet, Amiel, and Vinet. Rodolphe Topffer, a philosophic litterateur, was born in Geneva in 1790, and died there in 1846. His work on ^Esthetic was published posthumously in 1848, with a short biographical notice. Topffer was a sentimental thinker, and somewhat fantastic, deficient in logical precision ; but his book is full of insight and suggestiveness. It is called Reflexions et Me?ius-Propos d^un Peintre Genevois ou Essai sur le Beau dans les arts. Topffer wages war against the doctrine that imitation of nature is the artist's sole mission. If imitation were the end of art, then the highest end art could attain would be the " trompe 1'ceil." This logical deduction, which carries absurdity with it, shows the falsity of the principle. The slightest sketch of a clever painter may possess more artistic merit than any " trompe 1'ceil." A Claude Lorrain is worth all the dioramas and panoramas in the world. The true artist must transform^ not imitate. From this Topffer proceeds to lay down certain laws of Art. He passes from design, colour, etc., and asks to what all these must tend ? what must be the aim of the artist ? " Ce but," he replies, " c'est le beau." " The Beauty of Art proceeds absolutely and solely from human thought, freed from every fetter, save that of mani- festing itself by the representation of natural objects " (Book vi. chap. 30). He then discusses the theistic side of Beauty, as St. Augustine, Pere Andre, and others had done. Beauty proceeds from our thought, but it is im- planted in us by the Infinite, in whom all Beauty resides. Further, he says, God is beauty, and ideas of beauty in us are divine attributes there. Topffer held that beauty in n8 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. art was wholly different from beauty in nature, being inde- pendent and superior. The beauty we conceive is absolute beauty. This being admitted, Art has two things it must do. It must conceive the beautiful, and embody it. To conceive it, one must be endowed with the faculty for it, must clear the mind of prejudice, give free play to thought, and restrain the critical instinct. Then, from the union of the creative genius which conceives, with the talent which executes, art will arise in its most perfect form. Topffer at the same time affirms that the hand of man will never raise the veil from behind which the " generating principle " of the Beautiful radiates ; and in reference to this, mystery is better than knowledge, and search more fruitful than possession. He affirms that the Beautiful which is the splendour of the True is the absolute essence of God. Adolphe Pictet, born in Geneva in 1799, was a soldier as well as a litterateur. He devoted himself chiefly to the study of language and of art. In his Du Beau, dans la Nature, VArt et la Poesie (1856) he takes exception to the term aesthetics as limited in meaning, preferring the phrase Philosophy of the Beautiful. What alone interests us, he says, is to know what is beauti- ful in itself, and what are the laws of its development in Art and Nature. Without concerning himself with defini- tions or philosophical authorities, Pictet tries to read the book of Nature which lies open, and that other book, Humanity, of which we are both authors and readers ; the great difference between these two books being that whereas one Nature has remained unchanged from the beginning of Time, the other Humanity has added, from century to century, new ideas and new expressions. The one presents itself as an invariable manifestation of invari- able principles ; the other as the " revelation reflechie," " comme la libre creation d'un pouvoir qui se sent, qui se possede, et qui se developpe par le progres." These two books cannot be considered independently of each other. Still, Humanity is the more recent document ; and there- fore we must first read the book of Nature, and then in our search for the beautiful we must find our point of ix The Philosophy of France 119 departure in its simplest and most elementary form. Pictet considers both the subjective and objective theories of Beauty as defective, but he would unite them from a higher point of view, rather than sacrifice the one to the other. He dismisses the doctrine of utility. On that theory the interior parts of all organised structures would be as beautiful as the exterior ; and to prove how little the idea of Beauty is allied to that of utility, causality, and " convenance," or the relation of means to ends, he says that our aesthetic sense is shocked by some organisms which, from a utilitarian point of view, are nevertheless admirable. Beauty, then, before all things "vent paraitre, se montrer, briller, etre vu " ; it is essentially phenomenon. Pictet contests the notion that the beauty of animals serves any purpose to the animal world. // M, he says, for man that their beauty exists. For man alone beauty manifests itself in external nature. His recognition of it is allied to a power of reproducing it, and thus a world arises, of which beauty is the unique element. This world is Art. But how does the idea manifest itself in the phenomena of natural beauty ? If it lies in the manifestation of the idea in some perceptible form, " il faut ensuite que cette forme n'exprime absolument autre chose que la simple presence de 1'idde, sans aucun accessoire de causalite finale." Complete fusion between the idea and the form is required, ', or the highest beauty is not attained. When the harmony is incomplete, we have lesser degrees of beauty. Plants, for example, do not fulfil the highest idea of beauty, nor do the lower animals ; but when the soul shows itself! through a form, and renders that form in some sort trans- parent, then it is that the idea is triumphant, and beauty appears in its glory. Thus Beauty is a manifestation, " im-; mediate et libre," of the divine idea, revealing itself in v " formes sensibles." Its source is above Nature. It belongs essentially to the ideal world ; and, if Nature contains it, she does not possess it. It has no direct relation to the material world. It is to man that it appeals, its true mission being, to rouse our aesthetic faculties, and thus become the founda-' tion of a new world of ideal creation. Beauty, in itself, is a 120 The PJiilosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 'primordial idea, of which natural beauty is a partial reflection. To demand a reason for the existence of that idea is to seek a condition for that which is unconditioned and absolute. The primary condition of our discernment of the Beautiful is a perception of the object endowed with beauty. Sight and hearing alone put us in " rapport " with the beautiful. These are our most intellectual senses. The impression of the beautiful through them is accompanied with pleasure, not because our senses are satisfied, but because our inward I being is penetrated. A characteristic of all aesthetic feeling jis that it remains free of personal interest in every form. The beautiful pleases us, not because it appeals to our sen- suous nature, nor because it is useful or moral, nor even \ because it is true, but simply because it is in itself beautiful. It is at last defined as the immediate intuitive revelation of an invisible principle, and Pictet concludes by laying stress on the universality of the idea. " Emanating," he says, "as a pure ray from the supreme Intelligence, this idea reveals itself in Nature ; thence reflected by Art, it shines under a thousand different forms in the heart of humanity." Henri -Frederic Amiel (1821-1881) caught inspiration as a youth from the lectures of M. Pictet at Geneva in 1840, and two years later, after spending a year in Italy and Sicily, he made his first contribution to literature by sending three articles on M. Rio's book, LlArt Chretien, to the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve. After several years of study in Germany, he was appointed in 1849 Professor of ^Esthetics in Geneva, which four years later he exchanged for the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy. Amiel was an idealist and a mystic of the Alexandrian type. " There is no repose except in the absolute, the infinite, and the divine." " What I desire is the sum of all desires, what I seek to know is the sum of all kinds of knowledge." The real disgusted and even terrified him, but he could not find the ideal. Hence the sad undertones of his Journal Interne, in which we have a prolonged introspective analysis of the inner life. There are some passages in the Journal Intime which are probably more relevant to the subject of Beauty than all his lectures on ^Esthetics, e.g. December 26, 1852 ix The Philosophy of France 121 "Look twice, if you want a just conception ; look once, if j 1 what you want is a sense of beauty." April 3, 1865 "To ! the materialist philosopher the beautiful is a mere accident, and therefore rare. To the spiritualist philosopher the beautiful is the rule, the law, the universal foundation of things, to which every form returns, as soon as the force of accident is withdrawn. Why are we ugly ? Because we are - evil, morose, and unhappy. Heroism, ecstasy, love, en- thusiasm, wear a halo round the brow, for they are a setting free of the soul, which through them gains force to make its envelope transparent, and shine through upon all around it. Beauty is thus a phenomenon belonging to the spiritual- isation of matter. It is a momentary transfiguration of the privileged object, to remind us of the ideal. To study it is to' Platonise almost inevitably. As a powerful electric current can render metals luminous, and reveal their essence by the colour of their flame, so intense life and supreme joy can make the most simple mortal dazzlingly beautiful. . . . The ideal is, after all, truer than the real ; for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things, it is their type, their sum, their raison d^etre^ and the most exact and the most condensed expression of them." April 9, 1868 "I have been spending three hours over Lotze's Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland. It begins attractively, but the attraction wanes, and by the end I was very tired of it. Why ? Because the noise of a mill-wheel sends one to sleep, and these pages without paragraphs, these inter- minable chapters and their incessant dialectical clatter, affect me as though I were listening to a windmill. I end by yawning, like any simple non-philosophical mortal, in the face of all this heaviness and pedantry. . . . Do these pedantic books leave a single image or formula, a single view or striking fact behind them in the memory, when one puts them down ? No ; nothing but confusion and fatigue. Oh for clearness, terseness, brevity. . . . The Germans gather fuel for the pile ; it is the French who kindle it." A somewhat popular Swiss writer, Alexandre Vinet (i 797- 1847), has some suggestive remarks on the feeling for Nature being peculiar to certain epochs. An age that is artificially 122 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. civilised turns from itself to Nature, but it is "only the social man who is in a condition to feel Nature. . . . The more we have cultivated social intercourse, and suffered from it, the more rich and profound Nature becomes. . . . All its parts are mysteriously allied to our inner being. This unity and universal harmony is instinctively revealed to all minds." He adds that "at a certain depth the good and the beautiful are one." Vinet's remarks on Poetry and Philosophy are excellent. " Once arrived in the region of science, oppressed beneath the whole burden of acquired knowledge, but having always the same need of air and space, the human mind seeks both in another region, that of metaphysical speculation. If poetry was the philosophy of early ages, philosophy is perhaps the poetry of our era ; it is a new method of recovering liberty." 1 The earliest work of C. V. Cherbuliez, novelist, and after- wards one of the writers in the Revue des Deux Mondes, was A propos d'un cheval, Causeries atheniennes (Geneve, 1 860). It is an animated discussion, in the form of a tale, on one of the metopes of the Parthenon, in which an attempt is made to discover where the unique power and beauty of this work of Phidias lies. The horse, carved in marble, seems endowed with life ; and every one who sees it admires it rather as a work of nature than of art. How then has the artist robbed Nature of her inmost secrets, and been able to produce an illusion which affects even the coldest and most critical ? The various individuals the doctor, the abbe, and the chevalier advance different theories. The first theory is that Phidias selected points of beauty from the race of horses, which he united to form a whole, more beautiful than any one horse that ever existed. The second theory the abbe's is that Phidias, the divine sculptor, knew by intuition that in art, as in nature, all parts must be connected. The Infinite is the supreme logician, and the artist used this logic as Prometheus stole fire from heaven. Nothing can be beautiful that is not individual ; the form of a thing is its limit. Through its 1 Cf. Esprit d' Alexandre Vinet, Penstes et Reflexions, etc., par J. F. Asti6, 1 86 1. ix The Philosophy of France 123 limits it must manifest itself; its soul must penetrate through its body. In this Phidian sculptured horse there is something human, and more than human ; and in the contemplation of it, some of that force and beauty is communicated to us. Insignificant as we are, we are bound to admire and to say, " Tu es la force qui se connait et se possede, tu es la beaute qui joint d'elles memes, tu es ce qu'il y a de meilleur et de plus precieux dans I'humanite." This is disputed by the chevalier, who proposes to demon- strate that the beautiful steed is a natural phenomenon. 7. Leveque to Thore The next important work, and one of the most significant in the history of French esthe'tique, is LeVeque's La Science du Beau, published in 1862. Its original form was that of a prize essay on the subject, prescribed by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. It was afterwards expanded into a treatise in two volumes, extending to 1000 pages. The ground -plan of the book was prearranged for Leveque by the terms laid down for competition ; and both the essay and the treatise are admirably arranged. The effect of the appreciation of the beautiful on human nature, not only on the intellect and feelings, but also on the practical tendencies of the race, is first discussed. The essential nature of Beauty is next considered ; whether it is an ultimate fact in the universe, and if so, what it is in itself. Then the outcome of Beauty in Nature, both organic and inorganic, is dealt with ; and lastly the appli- cation of Beauty in the various Arts is examined. The historical excursus dealing with previous theory from Plato to Hegel is excellent, although the author at times applies his a priori views to the interpretation of the history, which detracts from his impartiality. Leveque caught the spirit of Schelling and Hegel, as well as of Goethe and Schiller, and of his own master Jouffroy. This is seen in his recognition of Beauty as the expression or manifestation of something invisible behind 124 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Nature, a force, or spirit, thus adumbrated to us. Whether in the realm of the organic or of the inorganic, all outward Beauty is the expression of an immaterial principle behind it. Take some of its manifestations. The law of gravitation, for example, is the disclosure of an immaterial force in the material world. If we select a vital product of Nature, such as a flower, all its phases colour, grace of form, unity in variety manifest to us the workings of an unseen power which is making for order. In every realm it is the same. We discern in Beauty the outcome of an ordered energy, which consciously or unconsciously, or both together is working towards completion. In the fourth section of the Treatise there are many happy bits of criticism. He acutely shows how the beauty of Architecture, for example, is the expression of latent ideas. Its primary aim was not use, or convenience, or fit- ness for anything. It was meant to express thought. Take a church, or a temple, a palace, a chateau, a villa, a theatre, a cloister, a bridge, or a tomb, they all express, and were meant to express, something beyond the material structure that is raised. Leveque is a consistent intellectualist through- out. In his classification of the Arts he follows Hegel. When we reach the work of M. Taine, who was Professor of ^Esthetics and of the History of Art in the Iicole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, we find an interpretation of the Beauti- ful in marked contrast to that of Leveque. Taine has added to our ever-accumulating criticism a somewhat remarkable work on the literature of England ; and both in that work, and in his aesthetic, he has applied the method and the prin- ciples of Comte to his study of the subject. The lectures on aesthetics, which form his little book on the Philosophy of Art, were delivered to the students in the winter of 1 864. It is his aim to explain the evolution of art by social, racial, and climatic causes; his sole purpose "being to mark the characteristics, and to seek the causes " that is to say, the phenomenal antecedents of this or that particu- lar aspect which the Beautiful has for a time assumed. His work is not only a meagre and surface one, but it contains a misreading of history. When he is not stating ix The Philosophy of France 125 commonplaces, he is off the line of philosophic construction. It is surely no great discovery for a savant to make, that a work of Art is not an isolated product ; and to affirm that we must study what gave rise to it the intellectual and social conditions of its age before we can understand it, is to state a proposition which nobody can deny. Every one knows that the artist is one of a group greater than himself, and that all artists are in part created by their time. M. Taine writes " as one having authority " ; but his walk, his intellectual gait, is just a trifle too majestic. His essays are all in the grand manner, and they often end in platitude. But he begins his discussion as every evolutionist is scientifically bound to begin with the pro- mise of great catholicity. He avows his sympathy with every form of Art, and with every school, as each and all phases of human activity ; and therefore the more numer- ous they are, the richer the tribute they offer to us, nay, the more contradictory they are, the fuller the witness they bear to the wealth of human nature. But this delightful aesthetic preamble ends in a mere catalogue of theories, a series of dead phenomenal facts strung on a thread of a positivist chronicle. Taine says : " ^Esthetic science is like Botany, in which the orange, the laurel, the pine, and the birch are of equal interest. It is a kind of botanical method applied, not to plants, but to the works of man." Good ; but we want the miscellaneous assortment of facts, not merely inventoried for us, and even scientifically catalogued, but also interpreted, and this M. Taine does not attempt. Walt- Whitman-like, he contents himself with a mere //, of which it may with truth be said that there is no reason why it should begin at any particular place, or end at any other, or why, having once begun, it should not go on for ever. Taine falls back, of necessity, on Imitation as the object of Art, though the imitation is not to be " exact." We must closely imitate some things, but not everything in Nature. The Artist has to select, and to reproduce, the relationships of parts, each to each ; and he has to reproduce objects, so as to re-embody their essential characteristics. But in making the concession that " it is the object of all 126 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Art to manifest some essential character, and" with that end in view " to make use of a group of associated parts, the relationship of which the artist combines and modifies" (Pt. I. ch. vi.), Taine really abandons his original theory. " The end of a work of Art," he elsewhere says, " is to manifest some ultimate -characteristic, and therefore some idea, more clearly than real objects do." So far well. But in conceding this principle of idealism, it is to be noted that Taine entirely ignores feeling, as a cause co-operating with thought, in the production of a work of Art. He recog- nises intellectual causes only ; while his positivist method of reading History allows him to take note only of antecedents and sequents. He therefore chronicles the various elements that co-operated in the age of Pericles to make Greek art so brilliant, and those at the modern renaissance which made the Florentine school so great ; but as to the creative force, the vital formative power lying latent in these two periods, and efflorescing in them, the power which rises toward the ideal, and approximately touches it, of that he knows nothing. Perhaps the best recent study of English ^Esthetics by a French writer is J. Milsand's critical examination of Ruskin Uesthetique anglaise, etude sur M. John Ruskin, par J. Milsand (1864). It is for the most part drawn from two articles which he had previously contributed, in 1860 and 1 86 1, to the Revue des Deux Mondes. M. Milsand con- siders Ruskin's theories and appreciations typically English. They reflect at once the excellences and the defects of the national character. Springing from Protestant tradition, religion, conviction, and intense love of nature, they present a remarkable mixture of imagination and realism, a union in which much sentiment predominates over clear intelli- gence. Ruskin's ideas are as remote as the antipodes from French thought. At the end of the eighteenth century, France broke with tradition a revolution shared by all Europe. England alone resented this upheaval and con- tented herself with gradual reform. True, certain spirits in England took arms in the cause of revolution. England works by evolution, France by revolution. England was slow to perceive that the new spirit of the age was a life, ix The Philosophy of France 127 and a creative force ; and it was long before she trans- formed this force into a doctrine. England remains true to her Protestant traditions. English aesthetics are an exami- nation of the conscience, a moral practice. The most impassioned expounder of this artistic movement is Ruskin. A great painter in words, a poet in descriptive power and enthusiasm, his thoughts are often hallucinations, even contradictions. He confounds the beautiful and the real. By his antipathy to the subjective theory, he makes Beauty consist of a pure idea; every kind of Beauty is but a reflexion of the Divine Perfection. Launched into this Platonism, his imagination becomes intoxicated. What Ruskin has done is to present us with the ethics of Art. Now the French make knowledge the principle of good, and ignorance the principle of evil, because they have lost the instinct of unity. They have tried to find by sheer clever- ness the knack of putting into artistic work a dignity, an emotion, and beauty that is not in them. Ruskin has taught us that the secret either of triumph or of defeat lies in the moral being, in the good or the evil that lives in the depth of the heart ; and he has put his finger on the true principle of all genius and power. " Be Mussulman, be Christian," he says, "but believe in something outside of yourself." Theophile Thore (1807-1869), a distinguished French publicist and critic, has written many articles on Beauty and the Arts, in the Artiste, the Siecle, and the Constitu- tionnel. He was the editor of L>Art Moderne, and wrote critical notices of the French Salons from 1844 to 1847. He wrote also under the nom-de-plume of W. Burger. 1 In the Salon of 1847 he wrote : " Nature is the supreme artist, who, in her universal gallery, offers to a favoured few the principles of all proportion ; the object is to develop some sort of individuality, a second creation, with its own distinct and original signification. But Art is the human interpreta- tion of Nature. The more the artist has transformed external reality, the more of himself he has put into his 1 Salons de T. Thort, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848, avec une preface par W. Burger (1868). Salons de W. Burger, 1861 a 1868, avec une preface par T. Thort (2 vols. 1870). 128 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. work, the nearer has he approached to the ideal." A work written by M. There in 1857, Nouvelles Tendances de I' Art, contains a review of the progress of the Arts from the days of Phidias onwards. He complained that most of it had been too symbolic, till we come down to the Dutch school in the sixteenth century, and to the French in the seventeenth ; and he held that the worship of the past, of classic models precedents and attainments, was fatal to the rise of new Art. It is only when it breaks through the fetters of the past, and defies precedent, that Art is truly great. Why, he asks, should we not, or at least should the future not, excel Raphael and Angelo, as they excelled the Greeks ? It can be done, if we give up the imitation of classic types, and create afresh. In his Grammaire des Arts du Dessin (1867), Charles Blanc, member of the French Institute, discusses Archi- tecture, Sculpture, and Painting, as well as engraving of all sorts. (In an earlier work which he undertook in 1849, along with M. Arsene Houssaye and M. Theophile Gautier he sketched the Histoire des peintres de toutes les ecoles. It begins with a discussion on the sublime and the beautiful.) In the earliest ages Nature may have presented the spectacle of the sublime, but not of the beautiful. The sublime may be found in chaos, or in the horrible; but beauty requires order, proportion, and harmony. The beautiful is always human ; but the sublime partakes of the \ divine and opens before us a vista to the Infinite. As we ' have an innate feeling of the just, we bring with us into the world an intuition of the beautiful, which is the ideal. To learn this is simply, as Plato teaches, to recollect it. " Apprendre c'est se ressouvenir." All the germs of beauty are in Nature, but it is the mind of man alone that can disengage them. That Nature is beautiful, man knows ; but Nature herself does not ! Thus Beauty exists only in the mind of man ; and the artist who understands the beautiful is greater than Nature which shows it. The artist purifies reality from the accidents that dis- figure it, and from the alloy that debases it. He re-finds the idea, which his art interprets, idealises, and transfigures. This is the mission of the artist not only to give enjoy- ix The Philosophy of France 129 ment or ornament to life, but to reawake in us the ideal, to reveal to us the Beauty inherent in things, to discover the imperishable essence ; and the ideas which Nature presents under an obscure or perplexed form, Art makes plain. Beauty in Nature is liable to destruction ; Art raises itself above time and death. Take, for instance, the Niobe. A living woman passes her life in becoming beautiful and in losing beauty ; she has not one moment of perfect beauty, but the artist comes, and he renders an invisible beauty visible. He passes over all that is not essential in time, and makes the essence live for ever. Speaking of the sublime in architecture, Blanc says it has three essentials greatness of dimension, simplicity of surface, and continuity of line. The sacrifice of one of these three dimensions of space, however, is sometimes an element of grandeur. St. Peter's at Rome, for example, disappoints us, because there is a too perfect concordance of the three dimensions. Its height, its width, and its depth neutralise each other. Some small buildings (especially some Gothic ones) impress one more than this vast cathedral, because, with less material, they appeal more to the mind. They deceive the eye, for the good of the soul. Art in Sculpture, he says, consists in raising an individual truth to the height of the type, and the type itself to beauty ; seeking in real life for the features of the ideal. To idealise a lion, for instance, the sculptor would take whatever points were common to all lions, and were characteristic of the lion- nature, such as majesty, force, ferocity. He defines Painting as the art of expressing the conceptions of the soul through the realities of nature ; representing on a single surface, unity, form, and colour. He goes minutely into the means of doing this, treating of the laws of colour, etc., with elaborate descriptions and illustrations of many world-famous pictures. In a work entitled L'optique et les Arts, in the Bibliothtque de Philosophic Contemporame ( 1 869), the author, M. Auguste Laugel, emphasises the principle of order and harmonious proportions, not in opposition to the views of Thord, but as a supplement. He says: "The Beautiful cannot have its origin in tumult, in the echo of a set of sounds in which no K 130 The PhilosopJiy of the Beautiful CHAP. measure or harmony can be discerned ; nor can it be found, amongst the plastic arts, in a miscellaneous medley of colours and of lines. The ideas which the arts express must be made intelligible through forms and figures, light and shade, etc. ... If there is no common measure, if contrasts are not managed with skill, if the small and the large, if light and shade, if the simple and the rich jostle with each other, and are intermingled without judgment, and without rule, all pleasure is lost, because the idea and the thought which underlie the material envelope do not exist." 8. Veron, Coster, Vallet, etc. In 1878, Eugene Vdron, publicist and journalist in Paris, who edited the journal LArt, published L? Esthetique. It was the fourth volume of the Bibliotheque des Sciences Contemporaines. He had previously published La Mythologie dans VArt (1878), and has since written Histoire naturelle des Religions (1884) and La Morale (1884). The aim of his work will be seen from the following sentence : "Art is nothing but a natural result of man's organisation, which is of such a nature that he derives particular pleasure from certain combinations of forms, lines, colours, movements, sounds, rhythms, and images ; but these combinations only give him plea- sure when they express the sentiments of the soul, struggling with the accidents of life, and in presence of natural scenes. " True Art is not imitation, or slavish devotion to the pre- cedents of the past, nor is it a realistic imitation of nature. "Man puts something of his own nature into everything he does. . . . He always adds something not actually before his eyes which comes from within himself, his own personal emotions and impressions. . . . Of the three forms of Art the conventional, the realistic, and the personal, the last alone deserves the name. . . . The essential constituent of Art is the personality of the artist. . . . The source of all poetry is the soul of the poet." With the exception of some foolish sneers at a priori xi TJie Philosophy of France 131 theorists and at Philosophy and Metaphysics generally, e.g. his assertion that Plato's idealism is "refuted by its mere recital"! there is much that is excellent in this book. In a chapter on the origin and grouping of the Arts, he shows that Art is a spontaneous and necessary outcome of human activity ; and he arranges the several arts, as those which appeal respectively to the eye and to the ear Poetry, Music, and Dancing appealing to the sense of hearing ; while Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture appeal to the sense of sight. He shows that the primitive Art of prehistoric times, as seen in drawings on the walls of cave- dwellings, was not merely imitative. Nevertheless all art is essentially subjective, or the expression of man's personality. Esthetic pleasure differs from the pleasures of sense, which are self-centred and self-confined. Art extracts admiration from us, because the personality of the artist shines through it. All "aesthetic pleasure is essentially admiration." After the analysis of Taste and Genius, Veron raises the question, What is Art ? the art that is born with man, and is found in nearly all his thoughts and acts, which is natural and necessary to him, and which rules the formation of all his ideas ? In answering the question, he first glances at the historic growth and development of the several Arts. In the oldest Vedic hymns we find the natural, the spontaneous, the unsophisticated outpourings of emotion before the forms of Nature. They are con- strued as living beings, hostile or friendly to man. To this succeeded self-conscious art, in which the personality of the artist, a subjective element, dominates over the objectivity of earlier art. Art became analytic, after its early crude synthesis. He deals similarly with the other arts music, sculpture, painting, and architecture. He affirms that, far from being its late blossom, or only the fruit of civilisation, art is rather its germ. It arose in the search for, and in the effort to reach, the best of things. Art, in general, is the manifestation of emotion, which is externally construed" or interpreted by form, colour, sound, etc. ; and the special merit of any work of Art is its power of manifesting and of interpreting emotion. 132 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In his definition of ^Esthetics, Veron is far less successful, his anti-metaphysical bias incapacitating him for the task. Beauty as an entity, is dismissed at once into the limbo of the unintelligible. Because art can deal with the horrible and the repulsive, as well as with the beautiful, the realisa- tion of Beauty is not the aim of art. Beauty cannot be the result of perfection because, he says, Art can make us enjoy the sight of objects which would naturally repel us ! Veron rejects the imitative theory, as taught by Aristotle, Boileau, and Pascal. On that theory, Photo- graphy would be the most perfect art, and if we could photograph colour, it would supersede landscape painting. Realistic portraiture may be all in all to the historian, but the Artist desires the reproduction of life and movement. v The frescoes in the Sistine Chapel are not realistic. The beautiful in Art is always due to the intervention of the genius of the artist, who throws his own individuality into his work, when stirred by emotion. He creates the beauti- ful ; and the object and aim of the science of aesthetics is the study of this outcome of artistic genius. Art is either decorative or expressive. The two run together ; because all decorative art may be also expressive, and expressive art may be decorative. Nevertheless the two are broadly contrasted. Decorative Art is addressed to the eye and the ear, and it achieves its result by certain arrange- ments of lines, forms, colours, sounds, rhythms, movements, light and shade, without any intervening idea or sentiment. It arises out of the desire for beauty, and in beauty it rests. It is found not only in architecture, sculpture, and painting, but also in music, poetry, rhetoric, and the dance. Express- ive Art, on the other hand, discloses ideas and sentiments. It is the manifestation of thought and feeling, by forms and attitudes, by colours, sounds, and the rhythm of language. Decorative art deals with and reflects the beautiful. Expressive art deals with character, purpose, tendency. The former suited the ancient world, attaining perfection amongst the Greeks ; but it does not suffice for the modern world. We now need that kind of Art which expresses character, which goes beneath appearances, and ix The Philosophy of France 133 discloses to us the personality of the artist, showing the range of his faculty and the extent of his insight. In the chapter on Style the aphorism of Buffon, " Le style c'est Phomme," is endorsed, so far as it is the style of each, or his characteristic way of looking on Nature, and reproducing it, that differentiates him from other men. It is the " reflection of the artist's personality." Thore, in his Salon of 1863, agrees with the teaching of Ve'ron on this subject : " In works which instruct us, the authors in a way substitute themselves for nature." It is always the individuality of the artist that produces Art. That is the key to Veron's book. Then, and then only, have we (as Thore put it) "Tart pour Phomine." But the pendulum sways incessantly to and fro between the opposite poles of philosophic thought. The idealistic flood succeeds the materialistic ebb with the constancy of the tides and the seasons. In 1 880, two years after Veron's book appeared, a Belgian writer, Guillaume Herbert de Coster, issued one, which he called Elements de V Esthetique generate ; and three years later, P. Vallet published his I^Ictee du Beau, dans la philosophic de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. According to M. de Coster, the science of Esthetics must not be confounded with the history of Art, nor even with the power of discriminating between the art of different masters, races, or epochs. It is easy to see, for instance, the difference between a Greek and a Gothic statue. Each is equally beautiful, if the name of the artist be remembered ; the ideal of the Greek being the perfection of the body, that of the Gothic the perfection of spirit. But to recognise this even is not the science of ^Esthetics. " Pour nous, 1'esthetique est et ne peut etre que la philosophic de Part." Art does not consist in reproducing or exactly imitating Nature. It must grasp and embody the ideal. " Le premier but de Part est done Pexpression de la pensee par la forme ou la manifestation de Pideal." The artist must first con- ceive his ideal ; then he must find in nature an object that corresponds to his ideal, or even surpasses it. " L'ide'al artistique comprend done deux Elements divers ; Pideal de la pensee et celui de la forme." The power of the imagin- 134 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. ation here asserts itself, to determine and complete the ideal thought, and to give it expressive form. Imagination is thus an intermediary between the ideal, the feeling, and the form. The true artist, even when his work is finished in all its beauty, is not satisfied. "Son ideal etait encore plus beau." Neither thought nor expression must be sacrificed the one to the other. 1 Ideas of the beautiful, the good, and the true are innate in us. "II faut de nouveau absolument admettre que ces meTne idees existent identiquement en nous et dans tous les hommes" (p. 151). "Ces ide"es supe"rieures a notre esprit qu'elles eclairent, independantes de nous et de toute chose creee, universelles et absolues, s'identifient avec Dieu, qui est le beau, le vrai, le bien infinis " (p. 152). The idea of Beauty includes unity of essence, variety of constitutive elements, and order which gives unity to variety and mani- festation of life. De Coster has a curious theory as to the difference be- tween Beauty and Sublimity. The sublime is not to be con- founded with the beautiful. Beauty is a quality in the object, while the sublime manifests itself in our thought. What then is the sublime ? " Lorsque Phomme est devant un des grands phenomenes de la nature, devant un acte d'heroisme, de devoir accompli, de sacrifice ou d'abnegation, devant une haute conception de 1'intelligence, il se produit dans son ame une emotion puissante qui la transporte dans le monde superieur de la pensee, qui eveille a la fois une foule d'idees opposees, dont Tune disparait devant 1'autre infiniment differ- ente ou plus grande, pour clever Fesprit, a travers tous ces contraires, jusqu'a 1'infini absolu lui-meme, Dieu" (p. 163). " Le sublime est done une ardente aspiration de la pensee et 1 " L'homme percoit 1'iddal ; 1'artiste le determine dans un objet con9u par 1' intelligence, saisi par le sentiment. Get objet doit recevoir une forme qu'il faut r^aliser a 1'exte'rieur. L'imagination aidde de la me'moire fournit la forme ; le gout la choisit ; le faire la realise au moyen du precede", en imprimant a tous les elements de la pensee et de la forme un cachet purement personnel. Mais dans toutes les operations de 1'esprit et du corps, n^cessaires depuis la conception de 1' ideal jusqu'a la realisation complete de 1'oeuvre, toutes les faculties operent ensemble, s'aident, se soutiennent, au flambeau de la science et de la raison " (&Uments, i ere partie, p. 149). ix The Philosophy of France 135 du sentiment vers 1'infini," In the beautiful there are many shades of difference agreeable, pretty, eloquent, grand, majestic, delicate, suave, sweet ; in the sublime there are no "nuances." The sublime takes us to the heights. " Le sublime est une sur-elevation de notre ame transported d'une ardente aspiration vers I'infini" (p. 173). " Le senti- ment du sublime n'est done ni expansif, ni calme ; c'est une vive agitation, une sorte de vertige de Tame devant 1'abime du neant de toute chose en face de Dieu " (p. 173). While there is but one idea of the beautiful, there are divers kinds of beauty. They all conform to the general idea, but they are distinct the one from the other. The beauty of the Greek statues is due to the realisation of the ideal by the artist, not, as some pretend, to the study of beautiful models. To its realisation the study of models contributed, but it was in virtue of their ideas, and their intelligence in embodying them, that these artists were able to draw from imperfect Nature that which she never offered, viz. absolute perfection of form. Two orders of beauty result from this realisation of the ideal "la beaute spirituelle appartenant a 1'etre pensant, et la beaute sensible, propre aux etres corporels." In the third part of his book, De Coster discusses the sub- ject of the Beautiful in Art, and affirms that in Art, beauty of form is of paramount importance. Without this the idea itself will have lost its value. But he goes on to distinguish between a lower and a higher kind of truth in Art, material truth, and " une verite superieure a celle que 1'on trouve dans la realite." If we only imitate the real, we do not reproduce the whole of the truth. In 1883, a year or two after Coster's book appeared, the Abbe P. Vallet, Professor of Philosophy in the Seminaire d'lvry, and author of several speculative works, Praelectiones Philosophiae^ a History of Philosophy, and a work on Kantism and Positivism, published Uldee du Beau^ dans la philosophic de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Vallet selects the few sentences of Aquinas on Beauty, all of which he con- siders golden ones ; and, while interpreting them, he dis- cusses the whole subject of the Beautiful in the light of subsequent theory. 136 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In his preface he says that although Aquinas has not developed his doctrine of the Beautiful in the same profound way as that in which he has dealt with Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics, each word that he has let fall on the subject contains the germ of a theory, and opens up immense horizons of thought. Esthetic ought to deal with three questions (i) the nature of Beauty in itself, independent of the subject who perceives it ; (2) the faculties in us to which it addresses itself, and the subjective effect it produces ; and (3) the chief manifestations of the Beautiful. In discussing the first problem the principles of Beauty, and what it is in itself Vallet at once quotes his master, Aquinas " Resplendentia formae super partes materiae proportionatas vel super diversas vires, vel actiones " (Opusc. de Pulchro) ; which he paraphrases thus. The good and the true do not need the intermediary of the senses in the same way that the Beautiful does. The highest beauty, however, includes the idea of the true and good ; but its characteristic is splendour. Human beauty does not consist in that of the body only, or in that of the soul alone ; but in the intimate union of both. Art must not imitate nature exactly, but , also interpret and transfigure. After discussing the forms of art with copious illustration, Vallet concludes that the highest expression of beauty has been evolved by the Christian religion. " Voilk bien le corps illumine de toutes les splendeurs de 1'ame, la chair transfiguree par Tesprit, en un mot 1'ideal de la beaut e morale realise et vivant." " Le beau, c'est 1'eclat communique par la forme aux diverses parties de la matiere, ou bien a plusieurs principes, a plusieurs actions, harmonieusement unis en un meme tout." If one weighs each word of this definition, one finds that five elements constitute the beautiful " la variete, 1'integrite, la proportion, Tunite', et la splendeur ou 1'eclat." He proposes first to establish the objective reality of the beautiful, and then to show, with what precision he can, " la nature, le role et la place " of each of the principles that enter into its composition. In discussing its objectivity he quotes Kant's view that Beauty is nothing in itself inde- pendent of the relation which it bears to the subject who ix The Philosophy of France 137 perceives it. There is therefore no science of the Beautiful. He quotes Schiller and Hutcheson as agreeing with Kant. Strange words, says Vallet we believe that, in a lovely rose, a flowing symphony, an elegant discourse, an act of sublime devotion, there exists some secret virtue that allures us and elevates us, and that these things would still preserve their beauty, even did we not rejoice in them. He admits, how- ever, that the subjective element may be greater in the sphere of the beautiful, than in that of the true and the good. To perceive, and above all to taste the beautiful, there must be the concurrent action of several faculties sense, imagination, and reason. He next analyses the five elements of beauty. (i)| Variety is necessary, because unity alone would weary us. He gives an instance from literature. A great master such as Shakespeare will introduce comedy into tragedy whereby tragedy becomes more tragic. (2) Completeness, whole- ness, or integrity is indispensable ; and he mentions two kinds of it, the one original, and the other acquired. (3) So is Proportion. Whatever adds to the order and harmony of anything perfects its raison d'etre. (4) Unity must be found underneath variety, as that which animates the whole. But everything must not be sacrificed to this unity. If the unity is absolute, Beauty is destroyed. It must be possible to disentangle the principal idea from the innumerable details which surround it, but it must not be presented naked and solitary; we must still retain "Pintegrite, la mesure, 1'harmonie, le mouvement, la vie" (p. 79). In addition, there is (5) perhaps the most difficult, but certainly the most important element in beauty, viz. the eclat, communi- cated by the form to the material substance. What is this ? In a word it is the essence of the thing itself. " L'ide'e d'un etre n'est pas autre chose que le type ou 1'ideal de cet etre, ideal qu'il ne realisera jamais entierement, mais dont il doit s'approcher le plus possible, afin d'acquerir la plus grande somme de beaute possible" (p. 82). " Le caractre propre, la note distinctive, ou la difference specifique du beau, c'est la splendeur de la forme" (p. 93). In the second section of his book Vallet discusses sub- 138 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. jective Beauty, beauty in the mind of man. In this we quit the sphere of pure being (essence) for the more accessible region of phenomena. Beauty exists independent of us, and of every subject. It would be the same, it would pre- serve its characteristic features and its lustre, even should there be no spectator capable of apprehending it. But, as a fact, the spectator exists, longing to see and to rejoice in the sight. This spectator is man. Beauty is first appre- hended by the senses ; but intelligence, following after, dis- covers a beauty still more profound. We do not credit the senses with a knowledge of ideal beauty, but they are the door by which ideal beauty can enter. The voice of Nature and of man, music, poetry, light, colour, etc., pene- trate to the soul through the eye and the ear ; and there must be " concours des sens et de la raison dans la percep- tion de la beaute sensible," and again " 1'intelligence, pour concevoir le beau, a besoin d'une image sensible." In 1882, E. Krantz wrote an Essai sur VEsthetique de Descartes. The aim of this book is to show that the classical literature of France in the seventeenth century was the aesthetic outcome or expression of Cartesian doctrine ; and that, although Descartes said nothing of the Beautiful, he nevertheless impressed on the intellectual spirit of his time a certain type of beauty that was original and authoritative ; and further, that the indirect influence of the founder of French philosophy was really more fertile of result than that of the direct teachers of ^Esthetic who succeeded him, and who formulated theories of art which were never consecrated by success. It is an extremely able treatise, though some- what diffuse in its details. 9. Guyau, etc. A remarkably brilliant and suggestive writer, Jean Marie Guyau (1854-1888), whose recent death was a great loss to the philosophical literature of France, was appointed in his twentieth year lecturer on Philosophy in the Lycee Con- dorcet at Paris. In 1884 he published a somewhat remarkable work on the Beautiful, which he called Les ix The Philosophy of France 139 Problemes de VEsthetique Contemporaine. It is to a large extent a reply to Schiller's doctrine of the spiel-treib, as developed by Mr. Spencer. He contends that Beauty has its source in what is both natural and essential in the development of the function of living beings. His book is a protest (perhaps at times too emphatic) against the materialistic and evolutionary solution of the problem. A very sympathetic and interesting account of Guyau was written in 1889 by his step-father, M. Alfred Fouillee, La Morale^ VArt et la Religion d'apres M. Guyau. The following is an outline of Guyau's teaching on aesthetics. He regards the notion of the evolutionists that beauty can be explained by the mechanical laws of motion, and is due to them, as superficial. Some motor must be recog- nised, as well as the movement which results ; and to find an adequate explanation of this we must rise to the sphere of the will and the emotions. The beautiful may be defined either as a perception, or an action, that stimulates our life, whether through the senses, the intellect, or the will, at one and the same time, and produces pleasure by the rapid consciousness of such stimulation. According to Mr. Spencer and his school, the idea of beauty excludes (i) that which is necessary to life, (2) that which is useful to life, and (3) that which is an object of desire and possession. But, according to M. Guyau, beauty restoring to us the full consciousness of life cannot exclude that which is necessary to it. On the contrary, the first manifestation of aesthetic feeling is need satisfied, life regaining its equilibrium, and the consequent renewal (renaissance) of inward harmony. Again, instead of excluding the idea of utility, beauty presupposes the idea of a will spontaneously adjusting means to ends, an activity that seeks to attain its end with the least expenditure of force. Yet again, Beauty, instead of being something exterior to the thing in which we see it, as a sort of parasitic plant, is the very blossoming of the being in which it is seen, the very flower of life. In a subsequent chapter (Book II. ch. i.) on the antag- onism between the scientific spirit and the imagination, Guyau discusses the question whether the progress of 140 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. science and the development of the scientific spirit will end in destroying the faculty essential to the artist, viz. the imagination. He refers to the opinion of such writers as Schelling and Wagner that there can be no poetry without mystery, or even superstition, as he thinks Goethe held. As mist enhances the beauty of a landscape and if the mist be removed, the beauty vanishes so it is with Poetry and Nature. Not so, says Guyau. The opposition between poetry and science is more apparent than real. " La poesie aura toujours sa raison d'etre a cote de la science." The savant may desire to abstract his own personality from the objects of his research, but the human heart is part mistress of the world. A necessary harmony therefore exists between man and the things of the world. The poet takes cognisance of the harmony. It is no more possible to take our heart from the world than it is possible to drive out the world from our heart. All the theories of astronomy cannot prevent the sight of the infinite heavens from filling us with a vague restlessness, a desire that is not satisfied by knowledge. There is always an eternal sug- gestion, consequently an eternal poetry. The higher we rise, and enlarge our view, we lose some of the poetry of detail ; small things vanish from our sight, but what breadth there is around us ! Still girdled by shadows, we enlarge our horizons, and the need grows within us to see farther, and to know more. But beyond us there is ever a mystery which science cannot destroy, a mystery that will remain as the theme of poetry. " C'est le mystere metaphysique." This mystery rests, not on known laws, but on the unknowable. Guyau has also written a volume on the ethics of Epicurus, and one on English contemporary ethics. At his death he left three other books behind him for pos- thumous publication, one of which he called LlArt au Point de vue sociologique. In an earlier work which he called Ulrreligion de VAvenir he expounded the socio- logical idea which he thought underlay religion. In the later he desired to prove that the same idea is to be found at the root of Art ; and that through it Art is allied to religion, metaphysics, and morals. The recognition ix The Philosophy of France 141 of this social idea as a fundamental truth is, according to Guyau, the keynote of the nineteenth century. It is not enough that thought, action, and will converge toward one end, in what he calls " la synergic sociale." To this must be added " la sympathie sociale," to produce which is the function of Art. Art has to raise the individual from his ' own life to the life universal, not only by a participation in the same ideas and beliefs, but also by community of feel- ing and sentiment. All hearts should vibrate to the same music. To think alike is much ; but to enable us to feel alike is the miracle which Art accomplishes. Art must realise two conditions. The sensations and sentiments it awakens must have a character both of intensity and of expansiveness. Consequently they must be social. "La solidarite sociale est le principe de Pemotion esthetique la plus haute et la plus complexe." Great art- exercises its power over a great area. By its simplicity and sincerity it can move all intelligent beings ; by its depth it can stir the elect. The great artist, filled himselt with extraordinary intensity of life, can only satisfy himself by creating a new world of living beings ; and in the life- likeness of the artist's work we find the force that makes it sympathetic. Life, if it is even that of an inferior being, interests us from the sole fact that it is life ; even the anti- pathetic may become to a certain extent sympathetic in becoming a reality that seems to say to us, " Je suis ce que je suis, et, telle que je suis, telle j'apparais " (p. 67). Replying to Victor Hugo, who had said that emotion is always new, Guyau asserted that emotion is not new, but that it has an eternal spring ; its freshness is like that of the morning, like the dawn. "Life," says Guyau, "morality, science,' art, religion, there is, as I believe, an absolute unity between these things. Great and serious art is that which maintains and manifests this unity." Such is a bare outline of the philosophic thought of a very suggestive writer on aesthetics. La Critique Scientifique, by E. Hennequin, appeared in 1888, and is an extreme application of the principles of M. Taine to criticism. Throughout his literary analysis 142 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP, ix the author is in search of aesthetic, psychological, and socio- logical data, and he regards his method as purely scientific, since causes are sought behind facts, and laws traced be- neath phenomena. Works of Art are " les indices de Tame des artistes et de 1'ame des peuples." After explaining his method he applies it to Victor Hugo, finding in him a synthesis of the aesthetic, psychologic, and sociological tendencies of the nineteenth century. One-third of the volume deals with aesthetics, the remainder with the psychological and sociological aspects of Literature. In 1889, Charles Benard, Professor of Philosophy in a Lycee, etc., of Paris, who about a quarter of a century earlier translated Hegel's Aesthetik into French, published L Esthetique d*Aristote, et de ses Successeurs. He thinks that Aristotle was the wisest writer on ./Esthetic amongst the Greeks. Although Plato had a deeper vision as to the nature of Beauty, Aristotle had a wider grasp of its relations, and consequently of its place amongst the sciences. M. Benard' s book contains much information as to the history of ^Esthetics in the Aristotelian and post- Aristotelian schools, down to the Neoplatonists. Le Realisme et le Naturalisme, by David Sauvagart (1890), is an original work of merit ; and -there are many articles of great interest on the subject of the Beautiful in the French Revue Philosophique, which was started in 1876, and has done much the same service to Philosophy in France, as Mind has done in England, and the Journal of Specula- tive Philosophy in America. Amongst them the following may be noted : Descours di Tournoy (Giuseppe) Del Vero, del Bella, e del Bene ; La Physiologie du Beau, a review of S. A. Byck's (of Leipzig) Die Physiologie des Schbnen ; La Science, et la Beaute, a criticism of Eugene Veron's LEsthetique, by G. Seailles ; Le probleme du Beau, by B. Carneri. The last arose out of a German translation, by J. Kirkmann, of a condensation of part of Comte's Cours de philosophie positive, by M. Jules Rig. CHAPTER X THE PHILOSOPHY OF ITALY I. Leon Battista Alberti to J. P. Bettor i THE course of philosophic thought on the subject of the Beautiful has been more mixed up with the progress of the Arts in Italy, than in any other European country. Through- out the modern period beginning with the Cinquecento Renaissance the artistic has been the dominant Italian im- pulse ; Philosophy and Science have been quite secondary. There were reflections, and casual discussions, on the theory of the Arts ; but there was no philosophic speculation on the subject of Beauty till the present century. The earliest Italian writers on the subject did not use the term "estetica." As we have already seen, the word was introduced into Europe with a new meaning, when Baum- garten naturalised it in Germany ; but in describing the methods and aims of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, many writers discussed the principles of Art. For example, Leon Battista Alberti's (i4oo?-i485) tracts, De pictura and De re cedificatoria, were written in 1435. They were the first, and are perhaps the most important writings of the early Italian renaissance. Although they do not cast much light on art-theory, they have gone through many editions, and have been translated into Italian, English, French, and German. Alberti's tracts are to be found in Eitelberger von Edelburg's Quellenschriften,vQ\. xi. (Wien, 1877). In vol. ix. of the same series is Francesco Bocchi's tract, of 1571, on the St. George of Donatello ; an extremely interesting work 144 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. on Art-theory, considering its date. In Leonardo da Vinci's (1452-1519) Trattato della Pittura there is a discussion especially interesting as his on beauty of Form and beauty of Colour, also as to what gradation or shade in a colour is most beautiful. Unfortunately, however, his treatise con- tains nothing as to the principles of Beauty itself. An interesting version of Da Vinci's book has been given in German, by H. Ludwig, from a late MS. copy of the Trattato, now in the Vatican. It was published in the Vienna Quellenschriften by Von Edelburg in 1877. In his Traite du Beau (ch. vii. p. 190) Crousaz refers to Augustin Niphus, who wrote a work under the same title. He was born at Jopoli about 1453, and died at Jena in 1538, and seems to have been Professor of Philosophy at Naples, Parma, and Rome, also at Pisa and Bologna. He wrote a work on Auguries. In his book on Beauty he distinguished three different types and consequent tastes for it (i) Intellectual Beauty, (2) Sensational Beauty, and (3) an intermediate type between the intellectual and sensational. In the Graeco-Roman chapter reference has already been made to Vitruvius (see p. 40). Leon Battista Alberti looked to him as his master ; and so, though less explicitly, did Peruzzi and Palladio. But perhaps the most important link between the De Architectura of Vitruvius and the modern books of Mr. Hay (who reverted to him explicitly) is the Harmonices Mundi of the astronomer Kepler. This book (which was dedicated to James I. of England) was published in 1619, and is divided into five chapters, entitled respect- ively (i) Geometricus, (2) Architectonicus, (3) Harmonicus, (4) Metaphysicus, and (5) Astronomicus and Metaphysicus. In it the principle of symmetry or proportion is recognised as running through all things, and resulting in " the music of the spheres." The relations of musical and figure har- mony are discussed, and this is a strict development of the principle of Vitruvius, by whom the principles of music were applied to architecture. The work of an Italian writer, J. P. Bellori (1616-1691), must not be overlooked at this stage. Bellori was a Roman x The Philosophy of Italy 145 antiquary, an authority on coins, inscriptions on ancient monuments, icones, etc., who wrote a book Le vite di Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti moderni (1672). In it he deals with the lives and works of such men as the Carracci, Michael Angelo, Rubens, Vandyke, etc. ; but in a preface he discourses on "the Idea in Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, etc." Bellori was a modern Platonist, an extreme idealist, with crotchets of his own. He held that Nature always strove after perfect or ideal Beauty, but never realised it, because of the imperfection of the material through which it worked ; and that therefore all the highest artists formed an ideal of their own. He glorifies this idea in language which, if too rhetorical, is in substance Platonic. "The idea, which we may call the goddess of Painting and of Sculpture, descends upon the marble and the canvas, and becomes the original of these arts. Being measured by the compass of the intellect, it . is itself the measure of the performing hand ; and, being assimilated by the imagination, it infuses life into the image." He affirms that in Nature no individual thing is perfect, and! therefore that the true artist frames a Beauty which we cannot' find in any single object. Nature is thus " inferior to Art." The higher artist does not paint men as they are, but as they ought to be. He " advances Art above Nature itself." Bellori quotes Phidias, Apollonius Tyaneus, Leon Battista Alberti, Da Vinci, and Raphael, as all on his side. He cites Raphael's letter to Castiglione about his Galatea : " To paint the fair, it is not necessary that I see many fair ones ; but, because there is so great a scarcity of beautiful women, I am bound to make use of an idea which I have formed to myself of my own fancy." Similarly, Guido Reni writing to M. Massano, steward of Pope Urban VIII., when sending him his picture of St. Michael for the church of the Capuchins at Rome said : " Not being able to mount so high as to behold my Archangel, I was forced to make an introspection of my own mind, and that idea of Beauty, which I have formed in my own imagination." It is to be noted that Bellori recognised the various types of Beauty, and their compatibility with one standard of the Beautiful. L 146 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 2. Rosmini to Mamiani Italy was but slightly influenced by the stream of modern thought which, originating with Bacon and Descartes, so powerfully affected England, Germany, France, and Hol- land. It was natural that mediaeval tradition should rule the centre of Catholicism, much longer than it controlled the rest of Europe. Galileo represented a scientific move- ment, and Vico a philosophical one. The latter shed a new light on the first half of the eighteenth century in Italy; but, like Erigena in his age, he stood alone. The French " enlightenment " passed over the Italian soil without taking root, although for some years it dazzled the imagination of a few. Condillac had spent ten years in Italy while tutor to Prince Ferdinand of Parma, and did something to give it temporary favour. Even in the earlier decades of the 'nineteenth century a doctrine of experience a modification of Locke's, somewhat resembling that of Reid, and what used to be known as the Scotch school was taught by Pasquale Galuppi (1770-1846) in his Saggio Filosofico and Sulla Critica della Conoscenza (1819). Starting from a psychological basis, he was a realist, but yet a spiritualist. He did not deal, however, with the problems of the Beauti- ful, and the four Italian writers on the subject in the earlier years of the present century M. Delfico, in his Nuove Ricerche sul Bello (1818), Talia in his Principii di Estetica (1827), G. Venanzio in his Callafilia (1830), G. Longhi in his Callagraphia (1830), and Ermes Visconti in his Saggi sul Bello (1835) all give an empirical solution of the problem. None of them were authors of any import- ance, and they did not really influence their time. The chief philosophers of modern Italy have been Ros- mini, Gioberti, and Mamiani, and it is noteworthy that they were not merely recluse speculative thinkers, but were men of affairs as well, intensely interested in the progress of their country, and in sympathy with the political aspirations of the Italian race ; while they saw in the development of Philosophy one of the most important elements in the x The Philosophy of Italy 147 national life. They did not, however, break with the Church. Their chief studies were at patristic and mediaeval sources, but to the philosophical theology of scholasticism they added some ideas that were more ancient, and others that were more modern. The nineteenth-century philosophy of Italy dates from Antonio Rosmini-Serbati of Rovereto (1797-1855) and begins about 1830. It was fundamentally an attempt to bring the Platonic view of the universe, as transmitted through the later mediaeval Idealism, into harmony with the modern philosophy of Europe. Rosmini was a Kantian, but the ideal indeterminate existence, the Di?ig-an-sich> was to him a divine element which mediated between our minds and particular determined phenomenal objects. He brought into his philosophy a quasi-Malebranchian doctrine of seeing all things in God. He wrote no treatise on the Beautiful, but his detached speculations on the subject were collected and published in two volumes in 1870 (Letteratura e Arti Belle), and his theory on the subject is worked out in his Teosofia (1859), Book III. 4, ch. x. To him ^Esthetics was a subsection of a wider science of the Beautiful, and was the doctrine of the Beautiful as seen in the sensible world, Beauty is an objective fact, the attribute of an object beyond r us, as Truth is beyond us ; while Goodness is rather con-i trasted with it, as an attribute within us an attribute, not of the object but of the subject. The beautiful is also con-i trasted with the true in this respect that it implies four elements in addition, viz. " unity, multiplicity, totality," and (what Rosmini most illogically introduces along with them) " mental approval," or the subjective delight experienced by us in recognising the other three elements. It is the objective element of Beauty that determines its approval or recognition by us. Rosmini held that what is beautiful to us subjectively is created by the action upon us of what is objectively beautiful ; and we realise Beauty chiefly in the objective world of sense, because we are ourselves both body and spirit. It is in the world of the real that we discern it ; but we at the same time aspire after the ideal, after what transcends the actual. In doing so, a new feeling 148 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. is evoked, and a new aspect of the universe is discerned. We recognise the sublime ; and, instead of the tranquil pleasure which the beautiful yields, we have the enthusiasm which the sublime evokes. A few years after Rosmini published his book on the Origin of Ideas, the influence of the idealistic movement which he championed was seen in two minor books on the Beautiful, viz. G. Zuccala's Principii di Estetica (1835) and P. Lichtental's Estetica (1836). These writers find the essence of the Beautiful, not in anything conventional, accidental, or associated, but in a reality within the ideal sphere ; the real being known adequately only through the ideal. Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-1852) is the second in the triumvirate of the modern philosophers of Italy. He is the typical ontologist of Italian philosophy. He wrote his principal works when in exile, and when he was under the influence both of Hegel and of Schelling amongst the Germans. (Some have thought of him as a sort of Italian Schelling, but this is an exaggeration.) He was an ontolo- gist pure and simple. He abjured equally the psychological method of Descartes, the individualistic appeal to self- consciousness, and the abstract ideality of Rosmini. He held that we cannot reach the realm of real existence, either through the contingent facts of consciousness (as Descartes attempted), or through the idealistic assumptions with which Rosmini started, but that we must begin with the object as comprehending within it all existence. The radical proposition of Gioberti's philosophy was therefore Ens creat existentias (Being creates existences) ; and there- fore Science, instead of being, as Bacon and Descartes and all their successors had maintained, a process of inductive study by experiment a posteriori, is a sort of a priori reading of the facts of the universe, given ontologically in our know- ledge of the Absolute. In 1841, Gioberti wrote an article on the Beautiful for an Italian encyclopaedia, which was in the same year published by itself as Trattato del Bello. In this work he proclaims himself a disciple of Plato, and he follows Plato in the way x The Philosophy of Italy 149 in which he discusses the subject (seeking in the Beautiful and the Good types of the moral and the political), as well as in the conclusions he reaches. He examines the radical idea of the Beautiful, and seeks its origin. He discusses the function of the imagination, and distinguishes the Beautiful from the Sublime, the Sublime being merely the superior principle of Beauty. He traces its manifestations in the sphere of Nature and of Art, and takes a rapid review of the history of the doctrine of Beauty. Gioberti makes ontology, not psychology, the basis of his doctrine of Beauty. Thinking that the modern psycho- logical movement had injured philosophy, he reverted to the Greek and the mediaeval ontology. The starting-point of his method and the first principle of his system was, as already mentioned, not the Cogito ergo sum of Descartes, but his own Ens creat existentias. He thought he could thus unite the real and the ideal, and deduce all the sciences from his primary maxim, the three terms of which were the roots of all knowledge. The " ens " gave him Ontology and Theology ; the " creat " yielded him Logic, Ethics, ^Esthetics, and Mathematics ; and the " existentias " sup- plied him with Psychology, Cosmology, and the Physical Sciences. It is a wholly chimerical scheme. To Gioberti, Beauty is neither the agreeable nor the \ useful. It is not a purely subjective phenomenon, de-[ pendent on the idiosyncrasy of individuals. It is an object- ive, though an ideal, reality, and is in its essence absolute. In Nature we must distinguish form from matter. In Art it is even more necessary to distinguish that which belongs to imagination from that which depends on reason, as the one furnishes us with a sensible, and the other with an intellectual element. In the products of Art, Beauty shows itself most clearly when an ideal type dominates over the sensible element. But the radical idea of Beauty is to be found in the idea of Being considered in itself, in its unity, and in its manifestations en rapport with existence. To know both the principle and the development of Beauty, and the highest rules of aesthetics, we must seek them in the universal laws of ontology. There is uninterrupted continuity in the . 150 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. chain of existence, from the impenetrable essence of unity to the last ramifications of multiplicity. The elementary ideas of aesthetic are contained in the postulates of ontology. These ideas are those of the sublime, the beautiful, and the marvellous. "The idea of creation," says Gioberti, "furnishes us with the three simultaneous conceptions of Time, Space, and Force, which, together or separate, form the different species of the sublime. The sublime is creation, so far as it is represented to the imagination ; as creation is the sublime, in so far as it is realised by God and perceived by the reason. That premised, it will not be difficult to find the relation of the sublime to the beautiful. What is creation if not the realisation of the intelligible types of things in finite substance ; and what does the creative act do, if not to adjust matter in its substantiality, and form according to its ideal ? Beauty is the union of form and matter. . . . It is derived from the creative force in which the sublime principally resides." In the second place, intelligible types, in so far as they are realised in finite ;' substances, exist in time and space ; whence it follows that these two forms of the Universe (which constitute another aspect of the sublime) are also the seat of Beauty. Thus f creative force produces beauty, space and time contain it. ) Towards Beauty the one has a relation of causality, the ' other a relation of containedness, whence the formula, "The sublime creates and contains the Beautiful," which is equivalent to this other, "The sublime dynamic creates the Beautiful, the sublime mathematic contains it." But, as the creative force is only the all-powerful activity of Being, and since Time and Space are its conditions and effects, it follows that the formulas of aesthetics can spread themselves out as formulas of ontology thus : " Being, by means of the dynamic sublime creates the Beautiful, and by means of the mathematic sublime contains it." Such is the relation between aesthetics and ontology, as to the ideas of the beautiful and sublime. Similarly with the relation of the beautiful to the wonder- ful. The wonderful is of two kinds, the mysterious and the x The Philosophy of Italy 151 supernatural. The latter is the unknown, which, mingling itself with the known under a sensible form, allies itself with the beautiful and the sublime, and adds to its own eclat. Entering the realm of the imagination, it brings in a floating indefinable something, which expresses itself in the ideal world of art and poetry. Mystery is necessary to beauty, because the Beautiful is inseparable from the objects which transcend experience, and which open up, beyond the real world, an infinite perspective to the mind. Mystery is also found in science, where the light of truth burns with keener brilliance by contrast with the shadows which attend it. The supernatural in aesthetics is not less important. It is not the extraordinary, it is rather the superior condition, which, within the world or beyond it, begins, continues, and transforms the order of things. . . . The incomprehensible, in passing from the domain of reason to that of imagination, and clothing itself with the raiment of appearance, gives rise to the notion of the mysterious. It follows that every partial disclosure of the incomprehensible essence must be mysterious, and must possess beauty. The indeterminate determines itself in forms, colours, sounds, motions, words, which are to us points of light on a field of darkness. It will be seen from the foregoing summary of his views, that although the root-principle of Gioberti's philosophy of Aesthetik may be quite erroneous, there is a great deal of suggestive thinking in his discussion of the subject. The third in the modern Italian triumvirate, Count Terenzio Mamiani perhaps the most remarkable of the three has not specially discussed the Beautiful ; but it is worthy of note that, although Mamiani began his philoso- phical career by defending the experience doctrine, while an exile in France in 1834, he worked himself gradually clear of it, into an idealism that is both catholic and cosmopolitan. He was a poet as well as a philosopher, and his mind has received vivid impress from his art studies, and from the movement of which Alfieri is perhaps the chief representa- tive. Mamiani is a Platonist, but he has tried to unite Platonism with the Aristotelian doctrine, in his recognition 152 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP, x of the Absolute as within the relative, and is thus able to endorse the ontological position of St. Anselm. It is easy to see that his doctrine of the Beautiful was a Platonic one ; and his name is introduced into this historic essay chiefly because one of his disciples Luigi Ferri, of Naples has written an Essai sur Vhistoire de la philosophic en Italic au dix-neuvieme siecle (1869), in which a good deal of information will be found as to the evolution of the philo- sophical thought of Italy on this and kindred problems. Two Italian works issued in 1882 need only be men- tioned. The first is Sul Bello, by Sac. Salvatore di Pietro, published at Palermo. It treats (i) of natural Beauty, (2) of moral Beauty, and (3) of artificial Beauty. The second is a note Sul Bello, by G. S. Ferrari, published at Verona and also at Padua. CHAPTER XI THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOLLAND FRANZ HEMSTERHUIS (1720-1790), the earliest Dutch philosopher who discussed the subject of the Beautiful, was, to a certain extent, a follower of Baumgarten. The aim of his whole philosophy was to mediate between the intellectual and the emotive in Human Nature, and to reconcile them ; and his " internal sense " was the recon- ciler. He held that through the aesthetic sense we attain to a real knowledge of things, but that, in comparison with the clear knowledge which science yields, it is dim and confused information (verworrene Vorstellungen). The mind desires the fullest possible knowledge of all things, but it is fettered by sense, and by the interrupted action of the several senses. As all its knowledge comes primarily through sense, the mind tries to overcome the barrier, and to reach the largest number of ideas open to it in the; shortest possible time. This it reaches most of all by means of Beauty, which may therefore be denned as " that element in an object which affords the largest number of ideas in the shortest time." But the senses can act simultaneously, and it certainly is not necessary to the idea of Beauty that, many separate ideas should coalesce. Their union mayi enhance the beauty of an object, but it does not create it. A single idea may give rise to the feeling of Beauty, and con- stitute it ; while rapidity of perception has really nothing to do with it. To affirm that the more numerous the elements in a beautiful object are, the greater is its beauty, is manifestly not to solve the problem of the nature of Beauty in itself. i54 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In 1778, Hieronymus van Alphen (1746-1803) freely translated from the German of F. J. Riedel, and issued in two volumes, with additions, notes, and an introduction for the use of Dutch readers, a Theorie vari Schoone Kunsten en Wetenschappen. He was a statesman and a poet, and ! published several volumes of verse. Van Alphen classified 'human desires as follows (i) those that strive after the possession of an object; (2) those that are satisfied with the pleasure occasioned by the perception or sight of an object. The former strive after Goodness, the latter after the Beautiful. Therefore we call all that can please our senses (inward and outward), our imagination and passions, without any prospect of self-interest, even if we do not possess it, beautiful. We call that ugly which displeases, \ even though there be no likelihood of its coming into our possession. He affirmed (i) that Beauty is no natural and inseparable quality of the things which we call beautiful ; (2) that Beauty is not inherent in the objects themselves, like Perfection, without regard to a percipient being ; and (3) that Beauty is of a relative nature, and the relation in which it stands to us is that it pleases us. The object which is to please, must be sensuous ; it must not show, in relation to the whole, any obvious im- perfection. It must also occupy us sufficiently, and cause our attention to be concentrated upon it ; while it must not ]be represented too plainly and in detail. Beauty is sensuous / unity in sensuous variety. The impressions of the lower senses, Taste, Smell, etc., ;are only pleasant ; but through Sight and Hearing, in their simplest forms (colour and tone), the elements of beauty are brought in, and are pronounced beautiful. The former lack beauty, because they are destitute both of perfect measure and of precision, which, together with a pleasant impression of the senses, produce beauty. Side by side with the beauty of which the elements are Colour and Tone, we have the beauty of Form and Motion. We must distinguish, however, between real Beauty in Nature, and our ideal of the highest possible Beauty. Nature not only produces Beauty, it also yields Perfection ; xi The Philosophy of Holland 155 and these two are often opposed to each other. When- they are so, Beauty must give way to Perfection. It is for this reason that the beauties of Nature do not reach the ideal, of which they are, nevertheless, the foundation ; and for this reason, too, they are often surpassed by the pro- ductions of Art. Our artists take Beauty as their sole aim, and when they follow Nature they are able to give us beauty ; but when Nature (at the cost of beauty) gives us Perfection, the Fine Arts must produce works which surpass the beauties of Nature, and approach the ideal of the highest possible beauty. Immediately after the publication of this book, W. E. de Perponcher wrote some letters to Van Alphen in criticism of his theory of Beauty, and to these Van Alphen replied. It was the Aristotelian and Platonist controversy renewed on a small scale. Perponcher was a follower of Charles Batteux (see p. 101), who held that all good art is mimetic. He affirmed that the copying or free imitation of the beauties of Nature lay at the root of all the Fine Arts. In reply, Van Alphen maintained that this cannot be taken as our general and first principle, because we cannot deduce from it the rules and precepts for all artists in every branch of Art. He thought Batteux right in many of his views ; but he was also of opinion that the beauties of Nature (la belle nature) were too vague, too indistinct to be a foundation for aesthetic reasoning. Even when this idea is taken in the sense generally given to it, and stretched to the utmost, it is still too limited for Poetry. De Perponcher maintained that in taking Batteux's generalisation as the first principle of Art, we do not exclude all original invention or original feeling. Even the poet, who gives us his own thoughts and feelings, is following or copying Nature, since he must continually compare his own thoughts and feelings with those of other men. All Art-products have their root in a close study of Nature, and nothing has been produced which may not be found there. Van Alphen, on the contrary, is of opinion that when a poet expresses his own emotions in verse, there is no copying or following of Nature, but 156 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Nature itself is at work. De Perponcher objects to the theory that an artist must search for beauty without regard to Perfection. In that case, he argues, a wrong and per- nicious taste will develop itself without check. Van Alphen answers that this is true, but says that we cannot blame the artist for it, although as a citizen it may not be always desirable for him to make use of the freedom which he undoubtedly possesses as an artist. The work of an anonymous writer in 1788, De Geest der Nederlandsche dichters met Verhandeling over het Bevallige het naive en de romancen (The Spirit of the Dutch poets, with a Treatise about the Graceful, the Naive, and the Romantic), is of slight value. More important is the following, written in 1802 by J. F. van Beeck Calkoen (1772-1811), Professor of Philosophy in Leiden 1800-1805, and in Utrecht 1805-1811, Euryalus over het Schoone. His conclusions on the subject of the Beautiful are as follows : (i) What is perceived by the senses is beautiful, if its parts are arranged and combined after an intellectual order or law. (2) When we feel that anything is beautiful, that feeling is awakened by our discernment of the relation between the intellectual and the material. Intellectual unity is always the foundation of the beautiful. From this he infers, among other things, that in Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, Beauty lies in a mathematical order, by which the relation and position of lines and planes are fixed. The artist perceives this equation of lines and planes at once by sight, feeling, and inspiration through a mathematical tact. In 1827, Humbert de Superville wrote at Leiden an essay on Les Signes Inconditionnels de VArt. Though the work is written in French, the author, a Dutchman, was Director of the Museum of Plaster Casts in Leiden. It is a somewhat remarkable book ; and in it he demonstrates that lines, placed in a certain direction on both sides of an axis, give the same definite assthetical impression to every one, ! quite apart from their mathematical character. Taking the human face as the basis of his demonstration, he shows that the lines of the different organs may have three distinct positions with respect to the axis one converging, the xi The Philosophy of Holland 157 second horizontal, and the third expanding. The first will I always give the impression of a weeping, the second of an unexpressive, and the third of a laughing face. These three directions of the lines of the face are seen in the three typical heads of Venus, Pallas, and Juno, indicating respect- ively voluptuousness, wisdom, and egoism. We may deduce from these three schemata of lines, which respectively indicate (i) passion, agitation, inconstancy; (2) order, equilibrium, dignity, durability ; (3) reflection, depth of thought, solemnity, sublimity. To these lines correspond the colours red (seen in blood and fire, and symbolic of movement), white (symbolic of peace), and black (symbolic of silence, sorrow, death), making part of the same "signes inconditionnels." He thinks that these principles hold good in the animal and vegetable kingdoms as well, and are borne witness to in the Aesthetic impressions of beauty we receive from the forms and outlines both of animals and trees. In Art these same lines produce impressions everywhere analogous to the lines of the three types of face already referred to. Thus a Doric temple, with its horizontal lines, has for us a totally different character from a Gothic cathedral, with its pointed lines. The first is an image of equilibrium, and calmness, or greatness of soul ; the second is the symbol of the religious spirit, casting its looks and thoughts upwards. The Gothic and the Grecian architectural lines show us two of the " signes inconditionnels." In the Chinese buildings, with their upturned curves, we find the third, showing the absence alike of dignity, stability, and rest. De Socratische School, by Ph. W. van Hensde, Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht, was published in 1834. He takes the theory of Plato as his basis, and says that the Socratic method of philosophical study is the one which should be adopted and followed in the nineteenth century. He comes to the following conclusions : The love of Beauty springs in reality from want. If man found entire satisfaction in himself, he would not strive after Beauty, or even Goodness. Feeling the need of Beauty, and loving- it ardently, he tries to create things as like his ideal of 158 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. ' it as possible. The love of the Beautiful is the origin of the Arts, as the love of Truth is the origin of Science. This love gives scope to all the faculties of the mind, which in their turn give birth to the sciences. The Arts and their productions come from the same root, viz. a sense of harmony and measure, of taste and imagination. The end ' of Art with the Greeks was the stimulus of the religious sense ; their study and culture were designed for the moral and religious education of man. So it ought to be with us. The Arts should not be cultivated solely for use or pleasure. Their highest aim is to produce the highest moral beauty, which is the only true beauty. The Beauti- ful exists in all ideals, and it is this that charms us most in the masterpieces of art. The highest, or moral beauty, however, does not exist in all ideals, although certainly all artists should look to it as their highest aim. Nothing is beautiful that is not true ; and as truth is the aim of science, we here find the relation which makes of Art and Science one great harmonious whole. Professor C. W. Opzoomer, the successor of P. W. van Hensde in the Chair of Philosophy at Utrecht, is the author of Het Wezen der Kennis. Opzoomer gives a somewhat elaborate classification of knowledge, the first section of which he calls Psychical Anthropology or Psychology, and he subdivides it thus (i) Logic; (2) ^Esthetics, taken in its most general sense as the knowledge of man as a sentient being, of which the doctrine of the Beautiful is a part ; (3) Ethology. It would be impossible for us to estimate Beauty or to enjoy Art if we had no inborn sense or feeling of Beauty. The objects which we observe by our senses, the operations of which we learn to know, we do not judge merely from the view-point of sensuous feeling, but also from that of our feeling of Beauty. We do not merely ask whether the objects are agreeable and useful to us, we also ask whether they, are beautiful. It is not unusual that what our sensuous nature considers desirable, and even necessary, awakens at the same time our aversion, as being ugly ; whereas what affects us painfully and what we strenuously oppose, often claims our admiration. If we xi The Philosophy of Holland 159 had no innate feeling of beauty, we would never be able to understand its definitions as given by others, and the nature of Beauty would remain for ever hidden from us. But having this feeling, and being led by it to reject some things as ugly, and to praise others as beautiful, it is possible for us to discover by strict analysis the characteristics which give beauty to objects. If we doubt our own judgment, the verdict of the Ages will serve us as a touchstone. By continued analysis and comparison we find the nature of the Beautiful. It is not symmetry, but rather the ' harmony of the whole of an object with its different parts, so that all the parts help to produce the impression which results. There must also be harmony between the form of a work of Beauty and the thought to which it gives ex- : pression. But harmony alone is not enough. A beautiful form is much, but its contents, the thoughts within it, must ' not be neglected ; and the artist and his work will take a higher place according to the height to which the artist's mind has reached. His ideas, however, must be artistic, that is to say, they must be ideas fit to bear the sensuous forms of Art. This is true even of the most spiritual of arts, viz. Poetry. Not all thoughts or ideas are artistic. The aim of the artist is to create Beauty. It has been said that his aim must be to follow, and to copy Nature ; but by so doing the Ideal, which is the inmost soul of Art, vanishes. It is untrue that Art must be made subservient to morality or religion. Art and Beauty are sure to help Virtue, but only as her free allies, not as her slaves. Our innate sense of Beauty may be considered as the connecting link between the imperfect world and the perfect, because it shows us divine beauty in actual things, and teaches us to form ideals, and artistic creations, which not only copy Nature but surpass it. Populaire Aesthetische Beschouwingen over de Symmetric of de Bevallige Proportien (Popular ^sthetical Remarks about Symmetry or the Graceful Proportions), by H. G. A. L. Fock (1875). The author thinks that in its original] sense, as used by the Greeks, Symmetry indicated not our ' modern idea of it, but a graceful, pleasing proportion of) 160 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Fthe different parts of an object ; this pleasing effect being only obtained when the proportion could be expressed by small numbers. Thus, if a line of 130 possible sections be divided into parts of 30, 40, and 60, it is divided symmetrically ; its proportions being expressed in the numbers 3, 4, and 6. If the same supposed line were divided into parts of 22, 79, and 29 respectively, there would be no symmetry, because the proportion can only be given in the larger numbers. He is of opinion that the lost theory of Polycleitus, which he explained by a model figure, and by which he taught what the respective lengths of the different parts of the human body must be in order to give a graceful well-formed whole, was based upon this symmetry of proportion. He then proceeds to explain how this same symmetry is found in the dimensions of the Pyramids, the Greek Temples, the Gothic Cathedrals, in ceramic objects, gold and silver work, etc., in short, in all true works of art, in endless variety ; also in the con- struction of the human body, and that of different animals. He believes this Symmetry, in its new meaning, to be a condemnation of Zeising's aurea sectio (see p. 68). The most elaborate work of recent years in Dutch Esthetics is the Nederlandsche Aesthetik, by J. van Vloten (1881), the editor of Spinoza's works. His work begins with a general analysis of the human faculties, from sensa- tion to thought and will. In reference to Beauty he says all beauty is life in a harmonious form, life showing itself in time and space. Therefore all art must be true to life. Everything that buys its originality at the expense of truth that is to say, universal human truth, as well as truth to Nature is unnatural, and repugnant to our taste. The principal rules to which all works of art must conform s ( are method, unity in diversity, symmetry, and proportion. i Diversity and motion must be there, if our eye would not ] be fatigued by too much sameness ; but this diversity must be controlled by order, which combines differences in one harmonious whole. Symmetry is another very important rule. An object is symmetrical when the parts on each , side of the diameter are equal, which, however, does not xi The Philosophy of Holland 161 hinder the greatest variety of form. Symmetry is obvious } at once to the eye ; proportion, though based upon the same desire for unity and measure, has a more hidden influence, and shows itself only in its general effect. Adolf Zeising's well-known aurea sectio is the law that lies at the root of the study of Proportion. This law is not only applicable to the human body, but also to the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. Both balance and counterbalance must be found in the productions of art. Of no less importance than this harmony between the whole and its parts is the harmony between the thought, which the artist wants to express, and the form with which it is clothed that between the soul of the work and its image. Beauty can only be attained by avoiding conflict. The Universe is beautiful because it is the perfect image of eternally renewed life ; it is a harmonious whole, full of and inspired by the highest spirit of life. Thoroughly to understand and appreciate its beauty, we must exercise our faculties in the contemplation of its separate parts. Our admiration continually increases when we discover how the simplest germ is gradually developed into the most complicated structure. The charm of a landscape, taken as a whole, lies in the impression which we receive from the happy combination and harmonious relation of the natural objects, organic and inorganic, of which it is com- posed. It is a powerful help in aesthetic education to excite and develop an appreciation of the different aspects which Nature assumes in different countries. Van Vloten next discusses the phenomena of Motion, Sound, and Light, which have had most to do with our recognition of the Beautiful, the nature of Art as not merely imitative, the relation of Esthetics to Ethics ; and then proceeds to a consideration of the six separate Arts in detail, the classification of which, he says, dates from the Middle Ages. His analytic power is seen at its best in these concluding sections of his book. In 1889, J. P.- N. Land, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Leiden, published an Inleiding tot de Wijsbe- geerte (An Introduction to Philosophy). In it he discusses M 1 62 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. the subject of Beauty and Art. In trying to give a defini- tion of the Beautiful from which the definition of Art must be deduced, we have first to ask whether Beauty is a thing sharply defined (like a circle or a straight line), or whether it indicates many qualities of objects, more or less related, which perhaps have nothing in common, but only this, that they procure for man (in many different ways) an unselfish enjoyment. It is extremely difficult to give a general answer to the question, What is beautiful, either in Art or in Nature ? To give a normal judgment, one ought to study man in his development throughout the ages, and try to find out what has been considered the most beautiful for a long time, and in a large circle. If Beauty be one separate quality, e.g. harmony, it is nevertheless united and interwoven with so many other pleasing qualities, that to treat of it separately makes it not much more than a lifeless mathematical conception. If one intends to study all pleasing qualities in their mutual relationships, one has a science which can never get on without the help of experience, and for which systematic unity is only an ideal. Much has been said on the question, Whether the Form of a work of Art constitutes its beauty, or the Thought which it is meant to express ? If Harmony in representation be the principal aim of the artist, Beauty may undoubtedly be achieved by well -chosen colours and lines, by light, shadow, etc., although the object represented be perhaps of little interest. But a work of Art, in which harmony of form is associated with an object which awakens our interest, and stimulates our attention, will fascinate us more lastingly. True and high art must be distinguished from its lower forms, which may sometimes please us, in the inequalities of our intellectual life, and which (as such) may perhaps be temporarily beneficial. Apart from the philosophical questions which arise everywhere in the study of Art, and its many forms, we must consider what its cultivation adds to the harmonious development of man ; also what limits must be observed, if xi The Philosophy of Holland 163 we would not injure other important interests. It cannot be denied that the cultivation of Art or the manners and ways of Life, which attend it often promotes a super- excitation of the passions, and a slackening of the sense of duty, and personal dignity. For this reason Art has sometimes drawn upon itself wholesale condemnation. If it be said that every one who is unwilling to concede unlimited freedom to Art and Artists, is a narrow-minded moralist, this will not solve the problem for us ; especially when the question may be put whether the cultivation of Art is sufficient to satisfy our desire for the Beautiful. Should it not be our highest aim to get to the primal or original beauty, if only because we can meet with it oftener than we can see works of Art, which only give us, from time to time, an ennobled edition of a fragment, or an extract of the world as we see it ? Ought we not, for example, to consider more the beauty of our speech, than that of music ? the beauty of the life we lead, more than that of an epic poem or a drama ? and the beauty of living men (beautiful in soul and body) above that of statues ? Othenvise, may not our worship of the idea deteriorate into an adoration of the imperfect and the perishable, excellent though they be ? This was a question which Plato asked himself, and man will have to return to it many times. CHAPTER XII THE PHILOSOPHY OF BRITAIN I. Bacon to Hutcheson THE first writer on the subject of Beauty in our English literature is not, as we might have expected, the father of British philosophy, Lord Bacon. His remarks on Beauty in the De Augmentis are very fragmentary, and have no philo- sophical importance. Perhaps the most notable saying of Bacon's on the subject is this (in his forty-third Essay) : " That is the best part of Beauty, which a picture cannot express ; no, nor the first sight of the eye. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." A translation of Dufresnoy's poem, De Arte Graphica, by Dryden, appeared in 1695, with a preface containing, with other things, a parallel between poetry and painting. Dryden tries to unfold the characteristic features in which all good Painting and Poetry excels, viz. Invention, Design, and colouring or expression. He falls back, however, on the Aristotelian imitation of Nature. " To imitate Nature well is the perfection of Art." " That picture and that poem which comes nearest the resemblance of Nature is the best ; but it follows not that what pleases most in either kind is therefore good, but what ought to please." There was, however, no real discussion of the subject ot the Beautiful amongst English writers till the beginning of the eighteenth century. The list opens with the name of the first Lord Shaftesbury, the author of the Characteristics. CHAP, xii The Philosophy of Britain 165 He was the first philosopher in England to discuss the question of the Beautiful with any insight, or with an ade- quate sense of its importance. His Moralists, a Philosophical Rhapsody originally published in 1 709, and afterwards in- corporated in the Characteristics with all its diffuseness and lack of precision, has passages in the spirit of Plato. As a reproduction of the Platonic dialogue, it is an utter failure ; but it recalls the mental attitude and the general drift of the teaching of the Academy, which is still further developed in the Miscellanies, published in 1714. The following extract from the Rhapsody will show how far Shaftesbury grasped the teaching of Plato : " Whatever in Nature is beautiful is only the faint shadow of the First Beauty " (pt. iii. sec. 2). " Beauty and Good are one and the same." " I now am obliged to go far in the pursuit of Beauty, which lies very absconded and deep. I have dwelt, it seems, all this while upon the surface, and enjoyed only a kind of slight superficial beauties, having never gone in search of Beauty itself, but of what I fancied such." And then the dialogue proceeds (pt. iii. sec. 2) "'Whatever passions you may have for other Beauties, I know, good Philocles, you are no such admirer of wealth of any kind as to allow much beauty to it, especially in a rude heap or mass. But in medals, coins, imbost work, statues, etc., you can discover beauty, and admire it.' 'True,' said I ; ' but not for the metals' sake.' ' 'Tis not then the metal or matter which is beautiful with you?' 'No.' 'But the Art?' 'Certainly.' ' The Art then is the Beauty.' ' Right.' ' And the Art is that which beautifies.' * The same.' ' So that the beautifying, not the beautified, is the really beautiful.' ' It seems so.' ' For that which is beautified is beautiful only by the accessories of something beautifying, and by the recess or withdrawing of the same it ceases to be beautiful ? ' ' Be it so.' ' In respect of Bodies then, Beauty comes and goes ? ' ' So we see.' ' Nor is the body itself any cause of its coming or staying.' ' Never.' ' So there is no principle of Beauty in body.' ' None at all.' ' For the body can no way be the cause of Beauty to itself?' 'No way.' 'Nor 1 66 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. govern, nor regulate itself? ' ' Nor yet this.' ' Nor mean, nor intend itself ?' ' Not this neither. 3 'Must not there- fore that which means and intends for it, which regulates and orders it, be the principle of Beauty in it ? ' 'Of necessity.' 'And what must that be ?' ' Mind, \ suppose; for what can it be else ?' ' Here then,' said he, 'is all I could have explained to you before : that the Beautiful, the Fair, the Comely, were never in the matter, but in the art and design ; never in the body itself, but in the form, or forming Power.' " He then goes on to " establish three degrees or orders of Beauty. First, the dead forms, which are formed by nature and by man, but which have no forming power, no action or intelligence ; secondly, the forms which form, i.e. which have intelligence, action, and operation." Here we have double beauty. We have both form, the effect of mind, and the mind itself. In this second kind or type we have living form, vital Beauty. But in the Beauty which fashions or produces Beauty (artist-like) we rise to a third order. Architecture and music resolve themselves into this last, which is the order of the parent or creative Beauty. So much for the Philosophical Rhapsody of 1709. In the Miscellaneous Reflections of 1714, Shaftesbury reverted to his former teaching on the subject, and laid down a proposition, in which the three provinces of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good are mapped out almost as clearly as by Cousin. "That what is beautiful is har- monious and proportionable, what is harmonious and pro- portionable is true, and what is at once both beautiful and true is of consequence agreeable and good." In a note he recurs to his scale of Beauty ; the first in the inanimate, the second in the animate, and the third in the sphere of the mixed. Inanimate beauty is in regular figures, symmetrical architecture, harmonious sounds ; the animate is in living things, in character, in societies, communities, and common- wealths. In the third the two forms are joined (as in man, body and soul are united), and we have the beauty of family life, cemented by friendship, and of national life with patriotic feeling as the tie. xii The Philosophy of Britain 167 Shaftesbury vindicates the originality of natural beauty. He speaks of it as existing independently " in figure, colour, motion, sound " ; and, selecting the first, he asks why an infant is at once pleased with a sphere or globe in preference to irregular shapes. He answers that there is " a natural beauty which the eye perceives as soon as the object is presented to it." " No sooner does the eye open to see a figure, or the ear to hear sounds, than straightway Beauty results, and grace and harmony are acknowledged. No sooner are actions viewed, and affections discerned, than straight our inward eye distinguishes the fair, the shapely, the admirable." In his ethical teaching Shaftesbury threw emphasis on sentiment rather than reason. He would have human con- duct guided by natural normal impulse, or feeling, rather than by the control of a law from without, or a rational principle from within. So far as he applied his doctrine of Beauty, which he had derived, both directly and indirectly, from the Greeks as he was a classical scholar, and was in sympathy with the spirit of antiquity to the sphere of conduct, an action was to be condemned, if it was inhar- monious. A selfish act was an ugly one. It violated the canons of good taste, whereas an action that was normal, and that regarded the welfare of others as well as of one- self, was always beautiful. From 2 ist June to 3d July 1712, Joseph Addison discussed the " Pleasures of the Imagination," in a series of ten papers in the Spectator (Nos. 411 to 421). Addison's essays are bright and sparkling, but his philosophy is both slender and nebulous. He affirms that " though there / is not perhaps any real Beauty or Deformity more in one piece of matter than in another, we find by experience that there are several modifications of matter " [why did he not say * objects ' ?] " which the mind, without any previous con- sideration, pronounces at first sight beautiful or deformed." He then refers to a second kind of Beauty, which " raises in us a secret delight for the places or objects in which we discover it. This consists either in the gaiety or variety of colours, or in the symmetry and proportion of parts, in the 168 The Philosophy of the Beautifttl CHAP. ' arrangement and disposition of bodies, or in a just mixture and concurrence of all together." All this is vague enough. It was almost inevitable, however, that the subject should be discussed in this rhetorical fashion in England before it was handled with analytic rigour in the schools. The English empiricists, as a rule, true to the funda- mental principle of their system, have dealt with the out- ward features of the Beautiful, and tabulated some of its characteristics with skill, but they have seldom risen above or got behind these external features. Many of them have explicitly avowed that we cannot reach any ultimate principle. What the best of them saw was a sort of uniformity in the order of Nature, but not a unity underlying the diversity of its forms. In 1725 seventeen years after Shaftesbury's Moralists appeared Francis Hutcheson, Professor of Philosophy at Glasgow University (1694-1747), published a book which he called an Enquiry into the Original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue, This book was professedly an explanation and defence of the teaching of Shaftesbury, against the sub- sequent attack of Mandeville, the author of The Fable of the Bees. In his preface Hutcheson says that his chief solicitude is to prove " that there is some sense of Beauty natural to man" But while his starting-point is thus realistic or matter of fact, it is also idealistic, as he affirms that Beauty is an idea in us ; and he wants to find out what occasions it, what quality in objects excites it. He concludes that it is by " an internal sense " that we perceive Beauty, or " receive its impressions " ; and he justifies his use of the term " sense," because our pleasure does not arise " from any knowledge of the principles, causes, or usefulness of the object." We recognise a Beauty in objects before we are aware of any advantage to be derived from them. Hutcheson divided the kinds or types of Beauty into the Absolute and the Relative. Absolute Beauty, however, is not beauty in an object out of all relation to the mind that perceives it ; for, without mind to perceive it, no object could be beautiful. Absolute Beauty is beauty in an object xii The Philosophy of Britain 169 without relation to anything beyond it, anything of which it is! an imitation. Relative Beauty is beauty in objects which are resemblances of other things. The ideas of absolute beauty are raised in us by the perception of uniformity amid' variety ; the variety increasing the beauty, and the uni- formity heightening it also. This is the foundation of the beauty we perceive in Nature generally ; and in the in- dividual things in Nature that we call beautiful (especially in living things) the proportion of the parts to one another is an additional source of their beauty. The beauty of theorems is due to the amount of variety mingling with - uniformity in them, and when many corollaries are deducible from them. The same is true of beauty in the great laws of Nature, such as the law of gravitation. Then as to Relative Beauty, it springs from the imitation of what is originally beautiful. To this the beauty of metaphors, symbols, and allegories is due. But Hutcheson affirms that to obtain this secondary or relative beauty, it is not neces-' sary that there should be any beauty in the original. "An exact imitation shall still be beautiful though the original were entirely devoid of it." The sixth section of Hutcheson's treatise is devoted to the " originality of the source of Beauty among men." Deformity is only the absence of beauty where it was naturally to be expected. A rude heap of stones is not ugly ; but rude and irregular architecture is. The effect of association in deflecting our judgments, and artificially changing things that are naturally very different, is fully ad- mitted by him ; and he thinks that it is due to the influence of association that many persons do not admire what is really beautiful, and do admire what is not beautiful. Still, he says, " there is a natural power of perception, or a sense of the beauty of objects, antecedent to all custom, education, or example." Custom simply makes us perceive things, or perform actions, more easily than we did at first ; but, had we no natural sense of Beauty, custom could never have made us perceive any beauty in them. In other words, it enlarges our capacity, and quickens our powers, but it creates nothing. 170 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. The net result of Hutcheson's speculations on the Beauti- ful is not great. All honour to him, however, in that prosaic eighteenth century, for the work which he did as a pioneer. Probably Pere Andre had something to do in suggesting the subject to Hutcheson ; and it is worthy of note that, with the exception of Andre, British writers preceded those of Germany and France, if not in an appre- ciation of the Beautiful, at least in recognising the fact that the subject could be scientifically dealt with, and that it demanded philosophical treatment. The Enquiry into the Original of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue is the prototype of all subsequent discussions in Europe on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. Kant seems to have read the book (it was translated into German) ; Jacobi also was familiar with it ; and Hutcheson is almost the only English writer on the subject who is referred to by the German historians. 2. Berkeley to Hogarth In the third dialogue of Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, written by George Berkeley, the Bishop of Cloyne (1684-1753), and published at Dublin in 1732, there is a discussion on Moral Beauty. " Doubtless," said Euphranor, "there is a Beauty of the mind, a charm in virtue, a symmetry and proportion in the moral world." This moral Beauty was known to the ancients by the name Honestum, or TO KaXov. Euphranor gives the meaning of it as he understands Plato and Aristotle, and then asks Alciphron for his definition of the beauty of virtue, since he does not agree with Plato and Aristotle. " Moral Beauty," he replied, " is of so familiar and abstracted a nature, some- thing so subtle, fine, and fugacious, that it will not bear being handled or inspected, like every gross and common object." " It is rather to be felt than understood a certain je ne s$az qtwi" moral beauty being perceived by the moral sense, as colours are by the eye. Euphranor rejoins that inward feeling is a very uncertain guide in morals, and that reason should rather come in, and balance xii The Philosophy of Britain 171 pleasures one against another. Alciphron replies that he contemns the man who "must have a reason for being virtuous." The abstract Beauty of virtue should itself allure, and virtue be "loved for virtue's sake." Euphranor then asks Alciphron " if all mankind are agreed in the notion of a beauteous face." He replies that " all minds have the ideas of order, harmony, and proportion." Euphranor presses him, however, for a definition of Beauty "in the objects of sense." Alciphron replies, " Every one knows ] * that Beauty is that which pleases " ; but, as odours and tastes are not beautiful, but pleasant only, it must be further defined as consisting "in a certain symmetry or proportion pleasing to the eye." He is asked if it is the same in all things. He replies that it is different in different ' things. It therefore consists in proportions and relations, which proportions and relations must be so adjusted that the whole is perfect of its kind ; and a thing is perfect in P its kind when it answers the end for which it was made. | This being the work of reason, not of sense, Beauty "is in / objects, not of the eye, but of the mind," and Beauty is . discerned only by the mind. Euphranor then refers to I architectural proportion, and to the beauties of draping amongst the ancients, which he compares with the artificial ugliness of some Gothic dresses ; and concludes that Beauty, both of architecture and of dress, "depends on their subserving to certain ends and uses." This gives us the distinction between the Greek and the Gothic Archi- tecture the Greek being founded on reason, necessity, and use ; the Gothic being fantastic. Euphranor further pleads that the fact that a thing gave pleasure 2000 years ago, and 2000 miles away, and that it does so now and here, is proof that there is in it " some real principle of Beauty," r and that we may therefore conclude that the order, pro- portion, and symmetry of objects, which tend to some use or end, are integral elements in their beauty. The dis- cussion then proceeds to moral beauty, and Berkeley argues that the beauty of the moral system " supposeth a Providence." In comparing the discussion of Beauty in Alciphron 172 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. with that of Shaftesbury in his Rhapsody, and even with that of Hutcheson in his Enquiry, it will be seen that our English idealism has assumed a new and a more finished form. Its affinity with the teaching of Plato is more marked, and its idealism gives character to the style no less than to the doctrine of Berkeley. In 1744 a Treatise concerning Art, and another on Music, Painting, and Poetry, were written by James Harris (1709-1780) ; better known as the author of Hermes (1751) and Philological Arrangements (1775). It ls m tne f rm of a dialogue, and a very cumbrous dialogue it is. Art is defined as a cause set in operation by man to produce an effect which he only can produce (not a very luminous definition). But the object on which this cause operates in not the abstract course of Nature, but the "transient, particular, contingent " Nature. Art is " an energy " whose dominion is of the widest kind. Fire, air, water, earth, and the mind of man, are all amenable to it ; and it always operates "for the sake of some good, relative to human life, and attainable by man " (p. 44). Towards the middle of the eighteenth century Joseph Spence, Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, wrote two works which deal with the subject of Beauty. The first was Polymetis, or an Enquiry concerning the Agreement between the works of the Roman Poets, and the Remains of the Ancient Artists, being an attempt to illus- trate them -mutually from each other (1747). This work is criticised by Lessing in his Laocoon, who points out that Spence did not distinguish the province of Art with accuracy, making the range and power of the sculptor equal to that of the poet. One of the special aims of the Laocoon was to distinguish these provinces. He held that all repulsive subjects must be removed from plastic Art, while Poetry might deal with them. Spence's second work was Crito ; or a Dialogue on Beauty, printed in the first volume of Dodsley's Fugitive Pieces (London 1752), and afterwards at Dublin in 1762. This Dialogue was written under the pseudonym of Sir Harry Beaumont " I should as soon think," wrote the xii T/ie Philosophy of Britain 173 author, " of dissecting a rainbow, as of forming grave and punctual notions of Beauty. Who, for Heaven's sake, can reduce to rules what is so quick and so variable as to be shifting its appearance every moment ? " (p. 9). And yet he proceeds to lay down some excellent, if not " grave and punctual notions." " Everything belonging to Beauty falls under these four heads Colour, Form, Expression, Grace ; the two former of which are the body, the two latter the soul of Beauty" (p. n). (i) The delight of Colour is due to its "natural liveliness," the charm, when colours " are properly blended," of the idea of health which they convey, and of variety, when many different kinds of colour are intermixed. (2) In Form we have symmetry, harmony, proportion. But (3) in Expression the ideas and changes of the mind are made visible by look and gesture, as they also are (4) by Grace ; and if the chief seat of expression is the eye, that of grace, he fancies, is the mouth. The discussion is not a profound one ; but the dialogue was adopted almost wholesale in an article on Beauty in Wilkes' Encyclopedia Londmensis, and also in Barrowes' Modern Encyclopedia. The principle of an independent standard of the Beautiful, announced by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, had leavened a few minds in Britain, and borne fruit in various ways ; and it is interesting that the next expression of opinion on the subject came from one of the artist -minds of England. William Hogarth is better known as a painter and engraver, than as a literary man or a philosopher. Nevertheless he published, in 1753, a somewhat important book, which he called The Analysis of Beauty , " written " (he added on the title-page) "with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of Taste." Eight years before, he had made a frontispiece for one of his engraved works, in the form of a painter's palette, on which he drew a serpentine line, like the letter S ; and under it he placed the words, " the Line of Beauty." It was a sphinx- riddle to his contemporaries. The Analysis of 1753, however, explained it. Like the work of 1745, it had a frontispiece ; this time it was a prismatic cube, within which a serpentine line was drawn from the apex to the base, 174 The Philosophy of tlie Beautiful CHAP. with the word " Variety " printed below. In his preface, Hogarth raises the question, why the great artists of the past had not given us a theory of the Beautiful ; and he answers that it was because they had been so busy with their craft, and with copying Beauty, that they had found no time for its analysis, so that "je ne s$ai qiioi had become a fashion- able phrase for grace." He proceeds to defend his own Line of Beauty. Rubens had made use of a large flowing line, Raphael of the serpentine line, particularly in his draperies, as did Peter of Cortona, and Correggio. Albert Diirer and Vandyke did not ; and this explains why there was more of beauty in the works of the former than in those of the latter. In his Introduction, Hogarth explains that his aim is to show what the principles in Nature are, by which we call certain objects beautiful, and others ugly. These principles are " fitness, variety, uniformity, simplicity, intricacy, and quantity, all which co-operate in the production of Beauty, mutually correcting, and occasionally restraining each other." There is (i) the fitness of the parts to the design for ' which each thing is formed, as in the case of the eye formed for seeing. There is (2) variety in such things as shape and colour. All the senses rejoice in variety, and dislike uniformity. But the variety may be either in the way of increase or diminution, and the results in either case be j beautiful. (3) There is uniformity, regularity, and sym- metry, which, says he, " please only as they seem to give the idea of fitness." (4) Simplicity and distinctness. " Simplicity without variety is wholly insipid," but with variety it pleases the eye " by giving it the power of enjoy- ing with ease." (5) Intricacy. The eye enjoys "winding walks and serpentine rivers, and all sorts of objects whose forms are composed of waving and serpentine lines." " Intri- cacy of form," he says, " is that peculiarity in the lines that leads the eye a wanton kind of chase " ; and he adds that " grace more intimately resides in this than in the other five, except ' variety, 5 which indeed includes this and all the others." (6) Quantity. Great objects, because of their greatness, excite our admiration, especially if simplicity is xii The Philosophy of Britain 175 allied to quantity. " It is quantity that adds greatness to grace." These six principles Hogarth applies to Lines and Figures, to Colours, and to Actions. In every kind of' composition he affirms that the art of composing well is the art of varying well ; and he says that St. Paul's Cathedral is one of the noblest instances of the application of every principle he has mentioned. In this monumental work of Wren we find " variety without confusion, simplicity with- out nakedness, richness without tawdriness, distinctness without hardness, and quantity without excess." The line of Beauty or Grace, according to Hogarth, is ' ' the serpentine line, its excellence being due to its curves giving play to the imagination, as well as delighting the eye. He illustrates this at great length, and^tries to show that almost all ornamentation, from the very beginning of Art, consisted in the double curve. But his analysis of the beauty of colour is perhaps more interesting. Here it is variety the utmost possible variety that is the source of the charm. It is, he says, "the not knowing Nature's artful and intricate method of uniting colours for the pro- duction of the finer tint of flesh, that hath made colour- ing, in the art of painting, a mystery in all ages." He thinks Correggio stands almost alone in this excellence, that Guido was always at a loss about it, and that Poussin seems scarcely ever to have had a glimpse of it. 3. Burke to Sir Joshua Reynolds In 1756, three years after Hogarth's Analysis appeared, Edmund Burke published his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. Burke's theory harked back from the idealistic to almost the lowest empirical level. He identified the Beautiful with the pleasant. But his discussion has this interest and merit, that it dealt with some of the physiological aspects of the question. The elements of Beauty, accord- ing to Burke, are (i) smallness of size, (2) smoothness of surface, (3) variety of outline in curves, (4) delicacy, sug- gesting fragility, (5) brightness, and softness of colour. He 176 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. emphasised smoothness of surface and softness of outline till he made it almost all -dominant, and in consequence gave his theory a one - sided character. Those objects appear beautiful which have the power of relaxing our nerves, and producing in us a sort of languor and repose. He could see no beauty in angles, or sharp points of any kind ; and so, in his eulogy of smoothness, he mistook one of the conditions of beauty for its constitutive essence. Burke's was a thoroughly partisan theory. His way of comparing the Beautiful with the Sublime has more interest than his separate discussion of either of them. " Sublime objects," he says (pt. iii. p. 27), " are vast in their dimensions beautiful ones comparatively small : beauty should be smooth and polished the great rugged and negligent : beauty should show the right line, yet deviate from it insensibly the great in many cases loves the right line, and when it deviates makes a strong deviation : beauty should not be obscure the great ought to be dark and gloomy : beauty should be light and delicate the great ought to be solid, and even massive." The year after Burke's essay appeared (in 1757), David Hume issued his Four Dissertations, the last of which was " Of the Standard of Taste." It was afterwards included in his Essays : Moral, Political, and Literary, where it forms the twenty-third essay. It is, in many respects, remarkable ; mainly because in it the chief agnostic of the eighteenth century takes up a position which is out of keeping with the rest of his philosophy, and which, had it been carried out consistently, would have led to a vital modification of the doctrine of experience, if not so far as the opposite philosophy of idealism. On this point Hume has been greatly misunderstood. His clear and penetrating intellect is seen to much advantage in his essay on Taste. He begins by saying that it is natural for us to desire a standard of Taste, and he refers to " a species of Philosophy which cuts off all hope of success in such an attempt," a philosophy which says " Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them, and each xii The Philosophy of Britain 177 mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity where another is sensible of beauty, and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiments, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek the real Beauty or the real deformity is as fruitless an enquiry as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or the real bitter " ; and so the old maxim de gustibus, etc., should be extended to " mental as well as bodily taste." Many persons have supposed that in this paragraph Hume was quoting his own opinion ; whereas he goes on imme- diately to state and the whole purpose of his essay is to defend what he calls " a species of common sense, which opposes it, or at least seems to modify and restrain it." The very burden of the essay is a vindication of the general and permanent principles of criticism, as against the fluctuating verdicts of individual minds. He recalls to us the fact that " the same Homer who pleased at Athens and Rome is still admired at Paris and London," and he connects this with what he calls " certain qualities in the original struc- ture of the internal fabric [i.e. the mind of man] which are calculated to please, and others to displease." This is really a concession, and a very important concession, on the part of perhaps the strongest European brain of the eighteenth century, to the very doctrine of innate ideas, which it elsewhere repudiated. " Some objects," Hume says, " by the structure of the mind are naturally calculated to give pleasure." "Though it be certain," he adds, "that Beauty and Deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not qualities in objects, but belong entirely to sentiment, it must be allowed that there are certain qualities in objects which are fitted by Nature to produce those particular feelings" This is every way a most significant admission. The essay deals further with the things which tend to make Taste delicate and accurate, its rapid and acute per- ception of minute things, its training by long practice, its freedom from prejudice, the revision of its judgments, and the comparison of varied excellences. Hume affirms that the difficulty of finding a standard of Taste, even in parti- culars, is not so great as is represented. The principles of N 1 78 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Taste are " uniform in Human Nature." They are " uni- versal, and nearly, if not entirely, the same in all men " ; and he expressly contrasts the difficulty of finding a standard of the True by which to judge the systems of Philosophy, with the ease with which a trained taste can judge a work of Art. These explicit statements by Hume should have saved him from the indiscriminate and ignorant charge of denying an objective standard. It would have been a much wiser criticism to have suggested that the admission he made of the existence of a universal and uniform standard of Taste might be extended from the realm of the Beautiful to that of the True and the Good ; that the variety in the verdicts of men in the latter sphere is not greater than in the former ; and that the admission of a standard in the one case suggests, and almost logically involves, its admission in the other. In reference to the deeper question of the origin of the standard Hume is of course silent. In the same year in which this essay of Hume's appeared, D'Alembert read to the French Academy his " Reflections on the use and abuse of Philosophy in matters of Taste," and Richard Price the extreme intellectualist amongst the eighteenth-century moralists of England issued his Review of the Principal Questions of Morals. In the second chapter of Price's " review " there is a dis- cussion "of the ideas of the Beauty and Deformity of actions." Price's position was a curious one. He con- sidered that the action, both of the understanding and of the heart, came into play in determining the moral quality of actions, and that by the former we judge of them as right or wrong, by the latter as beautiful or base ; the one faculty (intellect) deciding as to the St/couov (the right), and the other faculty (feeling) deciding as to the KoAov (the beauty). He agreed with Hutcheson that uniformity and variety was the source of the Beauty of Nature ; but if we go on to ask why this characteristic of Nature pleases us, he did not think we require to bring in the hypothesis of an internal sense to explain it, because the objects as such have this quality in them. If there be uniformity xii The Philosophy of Britain 179 within the variety in every natural object, the object is more easily measured, and its beauty taken in by us ; while it is the order and symmetry of objects that give them strength and stability. The uniformity is as necessary to the variety, as the variety is to the uniformity ; and Price held that natural Beauty was a quality absolutely inherent in objects, that it existed in them whether any mind per- ceived it or not. A chapter in the Theory of Moral Sentiments of Adam Smith, published two years after these discussions by Hume and Price (1759), must not be overlooked by the student of the history of aesthetic doctrine in Britain. It is the first chapter of the fifth part of the book, and is entitled " Of the influence of custom and fashion upon our notions of Beauty and Deformity.' 3 Smith gives a much wider scope to their influence on our judgments of Beauty, both in Nature and in Art, than Hume did. He states the theory of Pere Buffier, 1 but he is unjust in his inference that, according to it, the whole charm of the Beautiful arises from the habits which custom imposes on the imagination. Adam Smith no more admits that Beauty can be explained by custom than Buffier, or Price, or Hume had done. He held that the fitness of objects for their intended end, their utility, was the source of the Beauty, independently of custom. This was perhaps a natural conclusion for the father of modern Political Economy to come to. The utilitarian rule was that by which he tested most things. But he also held that certain colours were intrinsically beautiful, that smoothness was naturally more agreeable than roughness, and variety than uniformity. In the same year as that in which Smith's book appeared (1759), Dr. Alexander Gerard of Aberdeen published his Essay on Taste, an acute work of no speculative value. He held that Beauty is of many kinds. The first is that/* of Figure, and is found in objects which have uniformity, ' variety, and proportion. " Uniformity, when unmixed," will j "pall upon the sense." "Variety is necessary to enliven j 1 See p. 98. 180 TJie Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. ! it"; but "were the variety boundless, the mind would be fatigued." A certain deg'ree of uniformity must therefore ; be blended with the variety of objects. These two qualities, by moderating one another, increase the pleasure resulting from each. To this "proportion" must be added, or a "general aptitude of the structure to the end proposed." In marked inconsistency with this Gerard sets down "utility, or the fitness of things for answering their ends," as "another species of Beauty." "The beauty of colour" he finds " entirely distinct from both the former," and " in most instances resolvable into association." " In all cases Beauty is at least in part resolvable into association." We now reach the work of another English artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds, who discussed the subject of Beauty with more rhetoric, but with less insight, than Hogarth had done. In the same year as Smith's Moral Sentiments appeared (1759), Reynolds wrote a paper in the Idler (No. 82) on Beauty ; and in subsequent years, in three discourses which he delivered to the students of the Royal Academy (1769 to 1790) he re-discussed the subject under many aspects. Adopting the theory of Buffier that every vital species, animal or vegetable, had a "fixed or determinate form, towards which Nature is continually inclining," and that there is therefore a goal of Beauty as the end of Nature's effort, he went on, not to develop this doctrine logically, but to append to it illogically the statement which is a bare unreasoned assertion on his part that we admire Beauty " for no other reason than that we are used to it " ! He added : " I have no doubt that if we were more used to deformity than Beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of Beauty, and that if the whole world should agree that yes and no should change their meaning, yes would then deny, and no would affirm " ! (P- 359)- Such a position scarcely requires any comment. Reynolds had drunk deeply at the well of the aufklarung, the French "enlightenment." Sir Joshua did much more for England by his Art than by his Discourses upon it. He has charmed posterity by his portraits, and by his skill as a colourist, but he has xii The Philosophy of Britain 181 contributed nothing to a theory of the Beautiful. It is curious to note, however, that in his third Discourse he contradicts the principle which he had laid down in his essay in the Idler. In that address, delivered in 1770 (eleven years after the Magazine article appeared), he wrote : Every object which pleases must give pleasure upon some certain principles. ... In every particular species (of being) there are various central forms which are separate and distinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful. ... As there is one general form, which belongs to the human kind at large, so in each class there is a common idea, or central form, which is the abstract of the various individual forms belonging to that class. . . . Perfect Beauty, in my opinion, must combine all the characters which are beautiful in that species. It cannot consist in any one, to the exclusion of the rest. No one therefore must be predominant, that no one may be deficient. He goes on to speak of the education of the artist necessitating a knowledge of the difference between "the genuine habits of Nature as distinguished from those of fashion," and in this connection refers to the saying attri- buted to Zeuxis, in aeternitatem pingo. In another Discourse the seventh, delivered in 1776 Reynolds discusses the question of the reality of a standard of Taste, and he defends it. He says that caprice and casualty would govern the Arts if there were no settled principles in them, and he actually affirms that Beauty and Nature " are but different names for expressing the same thing." "The works of Nature, if w.e compare one species' with another, are all equally beautiful ; and in creatures of the same species, Beauty is the medium or centre of all its various forms." Again : " The most general form of Nature is the most beautiful." This, if carried out logically, would be very much the same as affirming that Beauty is the perfect mean between all extremes. In the eighth Discourse (1780) he deals with "the Principles of Art," to show that they have their foundation in mind. In the tenth he objects to imitation as the end of Art a subject resumed in the thirteenth (in 1786). 1 82 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In Sir Joshua's notes to Mason's translation of Dufres- noy's De Arte Graphica, he alludes to the same subject, e.g. " We can no more form any idea of Beauty superior to Nature than we can form an idea of a sixth sense, or any other excellence, out of the limits of the human mind. Nothing can be so unphilosophical as a supposition that we can form any idea of Beauty or excellence out of or beyond Nature, which is, and must be, the fountain-head from whence all our ideas must be derived." 4. Lord K aimes to Thomas Reid In 1762, Henry Home (Lord Kaimes) published his Elements of Criticism. Kaimes was an accomplished Scot- tish lawyer, and a man of wide culture ; but notwithstand- ing the praise of Dugald Stewart (which was largely the exaggeration of friendship), he did not do much to advance the subject he discussed. He limited the objects which are beautiful to those which appeal to our sense of sight. What appeals to us through the ear may be agreeable, but it is not beautiful. It is only by a figure of speech that sounds, thoughts, theorems, or events can be said to be beau- tiful. The objects of sight are more simple than those of any other sense ; and their beauty is either intrinsic or relative. Intrinsic Beauty is in an object, as one of sense, and is ultimate. Relative Beauty is in an object, as a means to an end, a purpose. When the Beauty of an effect is trans- ferred to its cause, then an object, in itself void of intrinsic beauty, appears beautiful from its utility. Lord Kaimes analyses the beauty both of colour and of figure. The latter arises, he thinks, from regularity, uniformity, proportion, order, and simplicity. Many of his remarks on the superior beauty of the square to the triangle, etc., are foundationless ; and he asks at the close of his chapter on this subject whether Beauty is a primary or only a secondary quality of objects. Colour being admittedly a secondary quality, existing only in the mind of the spectator, the beauty of colour must also be subjective. The beauty of form is the xii The Philosophy of Britain 183 same, "for an object is said to be beautiful for no other reason but that it appears so to a spectator." It is not, and " cannot be an inherent property," either in " the per- cipient, or in the object perceived." In his analysis of Grandeur and Sublimity, Kaimes simply brought in the element of size, or mass. If the qualities that go to make an object beautiful are present in quantity, or if the object be vast, and other qualities be superadded, the emotions, first of grandeur, and then of sublimity, are evoked. In William Shen stone's Essays on Men, Manners, and Things (1764) there is an "Essay on Taste." The object of Taste is corporal beauty. All beauty is either absolute, relative, or a compound of both. Every- thing derives its pretension to beauty on account of its colour, smoothness, variety, uniformity, partial resemblance to something else, perfection, or suitableness to the end proposed, some connection of ideas, or a mixture of all these. Habit has an influence over taste to which we can affix no bounds. The most perfect health is the most per- fect beauty. An obvious connection may be traced between physical and moral beauty. These are samples of the commonplaces of Shenstone. He affirms that our ideas of beauty depend greatly upon habit, and yet admits that there is a beauty in some forms which is independent of their use. In 1 768, Abraham Tucker published his Light of Nature purstied, under the pseudonym of Edward Search. In the twenty-second chapter of the first volume, entitled " Plea- sure," he discusses the subject of Beauty, adopting the then dominant empirical view. " Nothing is beautiful in itself : ' those things bid fairest for the title that are adapted to please the generality of mankind " ( 4). " Our sense of Beauty was not born with us, but grows by time, and may be moulded into almost any shape by custom, convention, or accident." " There seem to be four principal sources from whence the efficiency of Beauty derives : composition, succession, translation, and expression" ( 5). The first and last of these are evident enough. By the second Tucker refers to variety, not mere novelty, but such a change as prevents monotony. By the third he refers to 184 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. 'the power of association, in transferring what belongs to an effect to its cause, or in investing objects with charms not originally theirs. He explicitly combats the Platonic doctrine of an absolute and essential Beauty existing in objects independent of the subject. A Scotch artist and writer, John Donaldson (1751-1801), issued a small book in 1780 which he called The Elements of Beauty ; also reflections on the harmony of the Sensibility and Reason. He considered it " the common error of most of our modern writers on Beauty " that they have supposed all beautiful things " subject to one fixed principle, relative to sense." " Taste," he says, " prevents judgment, and is more beholden to sentiment than to experience. There is, however, a perfect agreement between right reason and true taste. They are reciprocal tests of each other's validity " (p. 6). " Qualities of objects, so far as they relate to Beauty, are either such as most clearly excite perception or life in the senses, or an expression of life or sensibility " (p. 9). He discusses light, sound, motion, assimilation, contrast, personification, character and expression, and gracefulness. Although not a contribution to philosophical theory, the book contains some happy statements, e.g. "We cannot judge of anything but by relation, and it is in the changes of things that we perceive them" (p. 21). "What pleases one sense comes as it were recommended to the rest" (p. 32). " Imagination in all its conjunctions acts like a skilful musician, proceeding by the rule of contraries " (p. 43). " Everything that assails the senses violently is personified ; and life, clad in the armour of the foe, is turned against itself." James Beattie, the somewhat prosaic occupant of the Chair of Philosophy in Aberdeen from 1760 to 1787, and author of the Essay on Truth, also wrote a series of Dissertations, Moral and Critical, which appeared in 1783, and in which we find an anticipation of much that Alison and others subsequently wrought out. The first of his Disserta- tions is on " Memory and Imagination " ; and in the fourth section of the second chapter of the essay on Imagination he discusses the origin of our ideas of Beauty in Colour, xii The P kilos op ky of Britain 185 Figure, Attitude, and Motion, which he partly accounts for from the influence of " custom, as an associating prin- ciple." " In all cases, it seems possible to account for them," i.e. our ideas of Beauty, " upon the principle of asso- ciation, except perhaps in that single one of colours giving pleasure, and being called beautiful, merely because they are bright, or because they are delicate" (p. 142). Beattie seems to admit that Symmetry is in itself beau- tiful ; but he contends that Utility is essential to beautiful things (p. 115). He endorses Hogarth's "line of beauty," but brings in custom and association to explain our delight in it. The beauty of gesture or movement is wholly due to what it suggests ; but he distinguishes " expression " from "beauty," and considers that many very expressive things are not beautiful ; although the beauty of others, such as the human eye, depends upon their expression. Regularity of feature is beautiful, because it "betokens an r even temper, and the absence of those passions by which the features are made irregular" (p. 136). Beattie, however, contends for a standard of Beauty. "Beauty cannot be perceived without (the requisite) percipient faculties" (p. 141). He discusses the subject elsewhere indirectly, in his " Illustrations of Sublimity." He has hardly got his due, as a precursor of the later associationalists. The idealistic attitude of mind, never wholly absent from the Celtic race, and repressed rather by foreign influ- ence than by native tendency in Scotland, at length found expression in the philosophical teaching of her Universities. In 1785, Dr. Thomas Reid the typical "common-sense" philosopher of Britain, and teacher of it both at Aberdeen and Glasgow published his Essays on the Intellectual Powers, in one section of which he discussed the Beautiful. He starts by assuming the existence of a power of the mind by which we discern and relish the Beauty of Nature, and begins by comparing it with other "tastes." He finds a' judgment as to the beauty of objects implied in the opera- tions of this power or faculty. This "judgment of Beauty " is accompanied by a feeling or emotion, a " sense of beauty." In his analysis of the things in Nature "which 1 86 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. please a good taste," and call forth this judgment and feeling, Reid followed the defective classification of Addi- son and Akenside, viz. novelty, grandeur, and beauty, just as in another part of this discussion he somewhat slavishly followed the ground -plan of the author of Crito (see p. 172). He seems, however, at once to perceive its in- adequacy, because he goes on to say that Novelty " is not properly a quality of the thing to which we attribute it," but is " a relation which the thing has to the knowledge of the person." That a thing which is new interests us, is a very commonplace observation. Reid's analysis of " grandeur " may be passed over. It is in his fourth chapter, " Of Beauty," that he seems for the first time to see the real point of the difficulty, when he remarks (as indeed many had done before him) that while there is beauty in colour, sound, form, and motion, in truth, action, affection, and character, the ques- tion is "Is there any quality the same in all, which we may call by the name of Beauty ? " He can find none. There is no identity or even similarity in the beauty of a theorem and the beauty of a piece of music ; and he gives us the reason why we call such different things by a com- mon name (i) that they both produce an agreeable emotion, and (2) that this is conjoined with a belief that they possess some inherent excellence. This is " a second ingredient in our sense of Beauty." When objects strike us at once as beautiful, our judgment as to them is instinct- ive : others are only deemed beautiful when we can ration- ally explain their Beauty, or how we came to regard them as beautiful ; and so, Beauty itself may be distinguished as original and derived. The one shines by its own light, the other by borrowed or reflected light. Thus, we transfer the beauty of the sign to the thing signified, of the cause to the effect, of the end to the means, of the agent to the instrument. Trying next to determine the qualities in objects to which Beauty may be rationally ascribed, he finds that it is in qualities of mind that original Beauty is to be found, and that in the objects of Nature the beauty is " derived from some relation they bear to mind." He quotes the xii The Philosophy of Britain 187 lines of Akenside as to Mind, and mind alone, being " the living fountain " of the beautiful ; and adds that it is a beautiful character that primarily awakens in us the feeling and the judgment of Beauty, while " every object of sense is beautified by borrowing attire from the attributes of mind." Inanimate matter is made beautiful by the possession of qualities that resemble mind. Music is most expressive when it shadows forth human sentiment, emotion, or passion. An external object is most beautiful when its form is most fitted for the end it is destined to subserve, and that kind of fitness is a mental quality ; while the greatest Beauty of all lies in expression, which again is a mental quality. On the whole there is in Reid a curious mixture of shrewd insight, limited by the horizon of Scottish idiosyn- crasy, with vague platitude. At times he seems the very incarnation of commonplace, and again there are width, penetration, and flashes of real insight, which make his discussion a valuable one. 5. Alison to W. Thomson While the intuitional and a priori teaching of Reid (and others) held its own in the north, a reaction from it was also inevitable. The influence of Hume and Smith was intellectually a much stronger one than that of Reid ; and the unconscious presence of the opposite type of philosophis- ing, in the minds of many who were unaware of it, wrought out results opposed to the admission of an objective standard of Beauty. The principle of Association was brought forward (with more explicitness and more apparent success than ever before) to explain the formation of those judg- ments that seemed innate and intuitive. The writer who led the way in developing this empirical psychology, and applying it in the sphere of aesthetic, was Alison. In 1790 he published an Essay on the Nature and Principles of Taste. A second edition appeared in two volumes in 1811, when it was criticised by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review, and this review article Jeffrey expanded into an encyclopaedia one for the sixth edition of the Britannica, in the year 1824. 1 88 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Alison's aim was to analyse the emotions of Sublimity and Beauty, with the view of showing that they are not simple but complex emotions, and "involve in all cases (i) the production of some simple emotion, or the exercise of some moral affection, and (2) a peculiar exercise of the imagina- tion ; and that the peculiar pleasure of the Beautiful or Sublime is only felt when these two are conjoined, and a complex emotion produced." Alison denies the existence i of any quality in objects which makes them beautiful. Their beauty is entirely due to the influence of the principle of ; association. With great wealth of illustration he traces the working of this principle, in local associations, historical ones, etc. He applies it first to the sublimity and beauty of the material world, to sounds, the notes of animals, the tones of the human voice, and to music ; next to the object of sight, colours and forms. He traces the influence of Design, fitness and utility, on the beauty of forms, especially of the human form and countenance, and at the end of his discussion he says : " The conclusion in which I wish to rest is that the beauty and sublimity which is felt in the various ap- pearances of matter are finally to be ascribed to their expression of mind, or to their being either directly or in- directly the signs of these qualities of mind which are fitted by the constitution of our nature to affect us with pleasing or interesting emotion" (vol. ii. p. 423). All of this, however, is irrelevant to the problem in debate. A letter from Robert Burns to Alison, dated Ellisland, Feb. 1791, maybe referred to in passing. Alison had sent Burns a copy of his book. In acknowledging it, he said : " Except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, I never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your Essays on the Principles of Taste." The letter is satirical. As it was a sequel to Alison's, Lord Jeffrey's Essay on Beatify may be referred to somewhat out of its chronological order. It was based upon, and it almost entirely endorses, Alison's theory, in opposition to the existence of any in- trinsic beauty in objects. It is thus that Jeffrey defines his 'position: "Our sense of beauty depends entirely on our xii The Philosophy of Britain 189 previous experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, andi consists in the suggestion of agreeable and interesting sensa- tions with which we had formerly been made familiar, by the direct agency of our common sensibilities ; and that vast variety of objects to which we give the common name of beautiful become entitled to that appellation merely because they all possess the power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they have been the accompani- ments, or with which they have been associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of connection." And so on, and so on, and so on. Jeffrey's theory is an ' irrelevancy from first to last, even more than Alison's. In 1792, William Gilpin, Prebendary of Sarum, and Vicar of Boldre in the New Forest, wrote Three Essays on Picturesque Beatify, etc. He thought that disputes about Beauty might be lessened " if a distinction were established between such objects as are beautiful, and such as are picturesque ; between those which please the eye in their natural state, and those which please from some quality capable of being illustrated in painting." His chief inquiry was as to "that quality in objects which marks them as picturesque." Beautiful objects are usually, though not/ always, smooth ; picturesque objects are the reverse, they \ are rough or rugged. Thus while a temple newly built may be beautiful, as a ruin it is picturesque. So with garden ground, and so with the human face and figure ; when smooth they are beautiful, when rough and rugged they are picturesque. In rough and rugged objects we have the variety and contrasts which are wanting in smooth ones ; we have also greater light and shade, less uniformity, and/ more varied colouring. He proceeds to ask why the quality of roughness should make an essential difference" between the objects in Nature that are picturesque, and those of Art. He finds no solution, and gives up the inquiry into first principles in art, as in metaphysics and ethics, as an impossible one. In 1794, Uvedale Price issued an Essay on the Pictur- esque, as compared with the Sublime and the Beautiful^ which passed through several editions. It was followed in 1795 1 90 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. by a supplement on the application of the Principles of Landscape Painting to Landscape Gardening, in reply to Mr. H. Repton; and in 1801 by a Dialogue, on the distinct characters of the Picturesque and the Beautiful, in answer to Payne Knight. These works of Sir Uvedale Price were re-edited, in 1842, with an introductory essay on the origin of Taste, by Sir Thomas Dick Lauder. Uvedale Price defines the picturesque as "everything that can be represented with good effect in painting" (ch. iii.). He thinks the definition of Gilpin "at once too vague and too confined." He held that the picturesque had a char- acter " separate and distinct from the beautiful and the sublime," and " independent of the art of painting." He objects to the combination of the two words in the phrase "picturesque beauty" as tending to mislead, because the picturesque "not only differs from the beautiful," "but arises from qualities the most diametrically opposite." He follows Gilpin 1 in believing that " roughness, and sudden variation, with irregularity, are the most efficient causes of the picturesque." " Time converts a beautiful object into a picturesque one." Picturesqueness holds a station between beauty and sublimity" (ch. iv.), "and, on that account, is more frequently and more happily blended with them both than they are with each other. It is, however, perfectly distinct from either." Price says of Beauty and Picturesqueness that they are " founded on opposite qualities ; the one on smoothness, the other on roughness ; the one on gradual, the other on sudden variation ; the one on ideas of youth and freshness, the other on those of age and even of decay " (ch. iv.). The Beautiful is symmetrical, but "symmetry is adverse to the picturesque." The picturesque is equally distinct from the sublime. Greatness of dimension is a cause of the sublime; it has no connection with the picturesque. The intricacy and variety which characterise the latter can be found equally in the grandest and the gayest scenery. Infinity, boundlessness is one cause of the sublime ; but it is on definite shape and 1 Although he tells us that a great part of his book was written before he saw Gilpin's essay. xii The Philosophy of Britain 191 boundaries that picturesqueness depends. Uniformity is' often the cause of sublimity, the picturesque requires variety ; and while the sublime is austere, the picturesque captivates. But "it seldom happens that the two qualities" (the beauti- ful and the picturesque) " are perfectly unmixed." " Nature has blended them" (ch. v.). "The picturesque fills up a vacancy between the sublime and the beautiful" (ch. vi.). " Smoothness is the groundwork of Beauty, yet roughness is its fringe and ornament, and that which preserves it from insipidity." "The charm of smoothness is that it conveys the idea of repose, of roughness that it gives that of anima- tion and variety." Price next discusses light and shade, the difference between the beautiful and the picturesque in colour, and in his ninth chapter deals with ugliness. " Deformity is to ugliness what picturesqueness is to beauty." Perhaps the most interesting section of his treatise is the concluding chapters in which he discusses the principles of Landscape Gardening, especially his treatment of the subject of Trees as ornament, whether in clump, or belt, or avenue, and the general effects of water on landscape. In a printed letter addressed to Price by Mr. H. Repton in July 1794, his theory of "deducing landscape gardening from painting " was vigorously replied to. Price rejoined in a treatise, called A Letter to H. Repton, Esq., in which the picturesque in landscape gardening is discussed in detail, and in which he maintains that the best landscape artists would be the best landscape gardeners were they to devote themselves to it. Price also wrote three essays, on Arti- ficial Water, on Decorations near the House, and on Architecture and Buildings; and in 1801 a Dialogue on the distinct characters of the Picturesque and Beautiful. This was written in answer to the objections of Payne Knight, given in a note to the second edition of his poem The Landscape, in which he tried to show that Price's distinction between the beautiful and the picturesque was imaginary. It was prefaced by an Introductory Essay on Beauty, with "remarks on the ideas of Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Burke upon that subject." This essay contains an acute, and on 192 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. the whole a sympathetic estimate of the theories of Sir Joshua and Burke ; while differing from them on several points. Price quotes Sir Joshua's fifty-sixth note on Du- fresnoy, in which he says : " A flowing outline is recom- mended, because Beauty which alone is Nature cannot be produced without it ; old age or illness produce straight lines, corpulency round lines, but in a state of health accompanying growth, the outlines are waving, flowing, and serpentine " ; and he seems to admit that the highest beauty must conform to rule, the rule of a " central form," and the qualities which " constitute the beautiful are in all objects chiefly found to exist at that period when Nature has at- tained, but not passed, a state of perfect completion." Price's Dialogue is of less value than his essays. In connection with these discussions on the picturesque a Letter to Mr. Repton from the Right Honourable William Wyndham should not be overlooked. He held, in opposition to Price, that grounds should not be laid out with a view to their appearance in a picture, but solely with a view " to their uses, and enjoyment in real life ; and their conformity to these purposes constitutes their true beauty." Mr. Repton, in his Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening, endorses this. A work on the Beautiful that is little known was pub- lished eight years after Alison's, viz. in 1798, by William Thomson, an Irish scholar and artist (1726-1798). One of Thomson's pictures attracted the attention of Reynolds, but he had no success as a painter. His book is called An Enquiry into the elementary principles of Beauty, in the Works of Nature and Art. It is prefaced by an " Introduc- tory Discourse on Taste," in which the various faculties are discussed seriatim (perception, memory, imagination, taste, judgment), with a view to determine in what the faculty of taste consists, whether it can be developed, and whether it is a universal faculty inherent in all, or only in a few. The rest of the book is a discussion on " the elementary prin- 'ciples of the Beautiful." Thomson finds that it is the result jof " six different accidents or elementary principles, each of which is a distinct beauty in itself, and consequently com- xii The Philosophy of Britain 193 municates a peculiar Beauty to every object to which it is' joined. All beings, inanimate as well as animate, have one or more of these six beauties, and each of these elementary principles which is added after the first (which none are or can be without) increases its beauty by the addition of such element. It follows that the creature or element which possesses all the elementary principles is most or perfectly beautiful ; while the creature or object which possesses only one element is least beautiful ; and if there be any creature or object which possesses more it must be ugly, deformed, or monstrous" (pp. 101, 102). The six elementary principles of Beauty are (i) The,' beauty of proportion or fitness, (2) the beauty of shape, (3) the beauty of lines, (4) the beauty of colours, (5) the beauty of variety, (6) the beauty of smoothness. Thomson; thought that the creature which possessed beauty of " shape," in addition to that of " fitness," was, on that account, a stage higher in the scale of beauty ; that those creatures which, in addition, had the "beauty of the S-like line," had beauty in the third degree ; further, that those which had beauty of colour were in the fourth degree ; and that those which, over and above, had the beauty of variety and of smoothness, had beauty of the fifth and sixth degree. All this is quite arbitrary. No creature that has proportion is without beauty of shape, line, colour, and variety. Thomson himself admits (p. 182) that "variety is not a definite element like the others, but an occasional mode or accident, by which the Beauty of the other elements is heightened or increased." The book had neither specu- lative nor literary merit to outlast its generation. 6. Erasmus Darwin to S. T. Coleridge Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) first published his Zoo- nomia; or the Laws of Organic Life in 1794-6. In the third edition, 1801 ( xvi. 6, i) there is a slight discussion on Beauty. His explanation of its origin is purely physical. " The characteristic of Beauty is that it is the object of love ; <; O 194 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and though many other objects are in common language called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agreeable." Neither a Greek temple nor a Gothic cathedral, neither music nor poetry, can be termed beautiful, except metaphorically, because " we have no wish to embrace or salute them " ! " Our perception of Beauty consists in our recognition by the sense of vision of those objects, first, which have before inspired our love by the pleasure they have afforded to many of our senses (as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste, hunger and thirst) ; and, secondly, which bear any analogy of form to such objects." And so he finds that the infant's experience of smoothness, softness, and warmth when it receives nourishment leads it after- wards to find delight in objects that are smooth, soft, and warm. Erasmus Darwin's explanation of Beauty, as thus traceable to a material source, has been more fully wrought out in the next generation by his son Charles and others, and by them presented in a more scientific form ; but the groundwork of the theory is the same in Zoonomia as in The Descent of Man. Henry Fuselli (or Fusseli), a Swiss naturalised in England, friend of Lavater and of Reynolds, became, in 1799, Professor of Painting and Keeper of the Royal Academy in London. In his twenty-third year he trans- lated Winckelmann's Reflections on the Painting and Sculp- ture of the Greeks (which was published in 1765). He delivered a course of lectures on invention, expression, design, colouring, etc., to the pupils of the Academy during the tenure of his office. They were published in 1801. In his seventh lecture he says : " The notion of Beauty arises from the pleasure we feel in the harmonious co- operation of the component parts of an object towards one end at once ; it implies their immediate coexistence in the mass they compose ; and as that, immediately and at once, can be conveyed to the mind by the eye alone, Figure is the legitimate vehicle of Beauty, and Design the physical element of Art " (p. 4). Fuselli's own art-work was wild and erratic, but his art-criticism shows insight as well as knowledge. xii The Philosophy of Britain 195 In 1805, Richard Payne Knight who had discussed the subject in previous works published An Analytical Enquiry into the Principles of Taste, This book is a product of the empirical school ; but it is full of detached wisdom and insight. The author maintained that under) all the varieties of fashion and taste there was a real and! permanent principle of Beauty, a " standard of excellence, which every generation of civilised man has uniformly recognised in theory " (p. 4). Visible Beauty he finds in , " harmonious but yet brilliant and contrasted combinations of light, shade, and colour, blended but not confused, and , broken but not cast into masses" (Ft. I. ch. v. 16, \ p. 68). His analysis of the picturesque in Art is excellent (Pt. II. ch. ii. 15-27). It does not consist in reproducing " what the eye sees," but in massing objects so as to give them breadth of light and shade, blending them lightly and airily. An Enquiry into the state of the Arts of Design in E?ig- land, etc., by Prince Hoare (1806), need only be mentioned as a connecting link of a conventional character in a some- what barren discussion. In 1806, ten essays on The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression as connected with the Fine Arts, by Sir Charles (then Mr.) Bell, were published, though they were written some time previously. They contain a " theory of Beauty, in the (human) countenance." Mr. Bell held that it was by losing sight of Nature that the right principle of Beauty had not always been reached. He objected to the notion that the artist's principle was in losing sight of the real to find the ideal ; as if, by avoiding the human, we could reach the Divine. "With what divine essence," he asks, " is the comparison to be made ? " The artist has an abstract idea of perfection in his mind ; and all that the ancient sculptors did to interpret divinity was to " avoid individuality," that is to say, individual peculiarity. He was of opinion that we can only define Beauty negatively, as the reverse of the ugly. As Mengs, the pupil of Winckelmann put it, " Labellezza e 1'opposito della brutezza." He held that Raphael was mistaken in supposing that as no 196 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. real model gave him perfect beauty, he could fall back on the ideal within his own mind. No painter could " dis- engage himself from material things, and rise into the sphere of intellectual ideas." And yet, with some inconsistency, Bell affirmed that " the painter must not be satisfied to copy and represent what he sees ; he must cultivate the talent of imitation merely as giving scope to the exertions of his genius." He was a realist in Art-theory, as is seen in his criticism alike of Winckelmann, Hogarth, and Sir Joshua Reynolds ; but his account of " the sources of expression " in the human countenance is acute and valu- able. " Expression is of more consequence than shape ; it will light up features otherwise heavy ; it will make us forget all but the quality of the mind" (Essay iv. 5). He held that the ancient sculptors went beyond mere imita- tion. They combined excellences. He differs from other writers on Art in his explanation of the work of the ancients. He says : " They " (other writers) " call the ' ideal head ' that which does not represent individual beauty, but collect- ive beauties, a selection and adaptation of beautiful parts taken from a variety of individuals, and combined in one representation. I place the superiority of the antique on higher ground, on the more extended study of nature, of brutes as well as of man" (Essay iv. 5). In 1 8 10, Dugald Stewart to whom we are indebted for a refined and scholarly development of the philosophy ot Thomas Reid published his Philosophical Essays ; in the second part of which we have " Essays relative to matters of Taste." The first essay in this second part is On the | Beautiful. Stewart begins by saying that Beauty always denotes what gives refined pleasure ; and, criticising and rejecting the theory of Diderot, that it consists in perfection of relations, he falls back on the Socratic definition in the Memorabilia, and reiterates what the author of the Ana- lytical Enquiry?- and what D'Alembert, in his Eclaircisse- ments sur les Elemens de Philosophic, had said about the metaphysical meaning of words. He decides that Beauty is primarily applicable to objects of sight, and that " our 1 See p. 195. xii The Philosophy of Britain 197 first ideas" of it are "derived from colours" (p. 204). " From the admiration of Colour, the eye gradually advances to that of Forms" (p. 205); and thence to Motion, "a species of beauty which is in part a modification of that of Form " (p. 206), giving rise to Grace ; and the beauty of graceful motion is due to " the living expression which it exhibits " (p. 207). Stewart then criticises Burke's theory of the causes of Beauty, especially the doctrine that "smoothness" is the most considerable of them. It may be, and is, one element in Beauty; but the rough, the jagged, and the angular may be also beautiful, as in crystals and in mountain scenery. He deals also with the teaching of Uvedale Price, and contends that " asperity, sharp angles, and irregularity are amongst the constituents of Beauty." In an eclectic spirit he affirms that "the meaning of the word Beauty, instead of being restricted, in conformity to any particular system whatsoever, should con- tinue to be the generic word for expressing every quality which, in the works either of Nature or Art, contributes to render them agreeable to the eye" (p. 225). Continuing the discussion in chapters somewhat diffuse, he maintains that " amongst the elements which enter into the composition of the Beautiful, some are intrinsically pleasing, without reference to anything else ; others please only in a state of combination." " The beauty of the former may be said to be absolute, or intrinsic ; that of the latter to be only relative" (p. 228). Things relatively beautiful are so only in their proper places. It is thus that they are picturesque. Stewart criticises Price's doctrine of the picturesque (in which it had been arbitrarily separated from the Beautiful), and falls back upon Gilpin's view, in his Observations on Picturesque Beauty, that things are picturesque when they are so combined, or grasped, as to be fitted for purposes of the painter. He objects, on similar grounds, to the distinction of the Sublime from the Beautiful, as if it belonged to a totally different category. He would widen out the general category, so as to include within it the simply beautiful, the picturesque, and the sublime. " It is only when the beautiful and the 198 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. picturesque are united that a landscape painting produces its highest effect" (p. 234). Many of the details in a landscape picture have no intrinsic beauty, but they suggest what is not delineated. As Pliny in his Historia Naturalis says of Timanthus, the painter of Iphigenia, " in omnibus ejus operibus, intelligitur plus super quam pingetur" (lib. 35, cap. 36). In another chapter Stewart gives an acute criticism of the principle of Association, as applied to the Beautiful by Alison. He saw clearly that Association could never account for the origin of anything. " If there was anything originally and intrinsically beautiful, the associating prin- ciple would have no materials on which it could operate " (p. 242). It was evident to him that the office of associa- tion is to heighten and combine, not to create. That it adds a charm to the things round which it gathers, every one admits. Stewart has four essays " relative to matters of Taste." The first, On the Beautiful, has been already analysed. The second is On the Sublime, the third On Taste, and the fourth On the Culture of Habits connected with Taste. In the second he criticises the views of Uvedale Price. A feeling of the sublime is awakened, not by motion down- wards, according to the law of gravitation, but by motion upwards ; active power, like the flight of the eagle soaring sunwards, produces it. Similarly, heroic qualities affect us, as those which transcend ordinary experience. He then refers to the influence of Religion in heightening the sublime, to the forces of the physical universe, and to the power of human emotion. The second essay is more diffuse and popular than the first. In 1814, S. T. Coleridge contributed several "Essays on the Fine Arts" to Felix Farley's Bristol Journal}- In the first of these essays " on the principles of criticism," he says of Association, " explaining everything it explains nothing, and above all leaves itself unexplained." In the 1 They were republished in 1837, as an "appendix" to Joseph Cottle's Early Recollections chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. xii The Philosophy of Britain 199 second essay he refers to the vague way in which terms are used. Beauty gives pleasure, but so does food ; it might be better to speak of complacency or delight than of pleasure. Savage races have no word for Beauty, because the idea is dormant ; but though " stifled and latent in some, and perverted and demoralised in others," it is a universal principle " independent of local and tem- porary circumstances, and dependent only on the degree in which the faculties are developed." In the third essay he defines the Beautiful, reverting to Plotinus. In its essentials it is " that in which the many, still seen as many, become one." He gives an illustration from the frost ferns on a window-pane. So far is the Beautiful from depending on association, it is often " produced by the mere removal of associations." Beauty is harmony, and exists only in composition ; it results from a pre - established harmony between Nature and Man ; and it exists only in objects appealing to the eye and the ear, because these only can be divided into parts ; it exists pre-eminently where Life is superadded to Form, the freedom and movement of life in the confining form. By this the " forma informans " reveals itself. It is thus that we find a general principle of Beauty, and while it may be true " de gustibus non est dis- putandum," it is not true " de gustu." Coleridge therefore falls back on Plotinus's definition TO a/xepes 6V, ev TroAAois (/xxvra^o/zevov. The discernment of the harmonious relation of the parts of a thing each to each, and of all of them to the whole, at once and intuitively excites in us a feeling of delight. This is wholly different from a sense of what is agreeable, and it is in a sense intermediate between it and a perception of what is good. The scent of the rose may make it more agreeable to us, but it does not add to its beauty. The usefulness of the sheep-dog to a shepherd, and its intelligence, may make it more valuable to him, but these things do not increase its beauty. The Beauty of an object depends neither upon its use, nor on our seeing in it the fitness of means to ends, nor on proportion. In an oyster, the unshapely shell is the instrument of use ; the pearl, in which beauty is found, is produced by disease. It is not 2oo The Philosophy of tJie Beautiful CHAP. by analysing an object into parts that its beauty is seen. " The moment we look at it in division, the charm ceases." The "Essay on Beauty" (1818) a fragment of two pages, first printed in Coleridge's Remains, vol. i. adds nothing of importance to the Essays of 1814. In it he refers the Beautiful in objects to two elements " first, the shapely, formosus ; second, the lively, the free, the spon- taneous." In 1817, Coleridge wrote a Dissertation on " Method," as a general introduction to the Encyclopedia Metropolitana. It has no great value, amongst the schemes for classify- ing the sciences ; but it may be referred to in a passing sentence. Between the sciences (both pure and mixed), and the scientific arts, lie the Fine Arts, which are governed by the laws of taste. The Fine Arts are " sciences applied to the purposes of pleasure through the medium of the imagination. They are poetry, painting, music, sculpture, architecture." In reference to the mixed sciences, and some of the applied sciences, the " mental initiative comes from without." In the Fine Arts, the mental initiative must necessarily proceed from within. Their authors are impelled by a mighty inward power, a feeling quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio tan turn. 7. David Wilkie to Sir William Hamilton In 1816, Henry H. Milman afterwards the dis- tinguished historian of Latin Christianity obtained the prize for an English essay at Oxford, on a comparative estimate of Sculpture and Painting. It is published in the third volume of The Oxford English Prize Essays (1830). He refers to the difficulty of framing any positive theory as to Taste. The Fine Arts, while they advance the imagina- tion through the sense of sight, and strictly imitative in their origin, "become purely ideal, and present us with forms closely adhering to their types in Nature, but wrought to supernatural grandeur or beauty." It is this address to the imagination which chiefly causes the emotions within us. Painting has a wider scope than sculpture. There is in xii The Philosophy of Britain 201 man an innate tendency toward the ideal. " All from Thersites up to an Achilles, between a * Hecate and a Helen,' may exist in nature, and why not something more lofty than Achilles, more lovely than Helen ? " The dicta of a Scottish artist of some repute, David Wilkie, on the subject of Beauty, should not be overlooked, for the following reason. Wilkie began his artistic life as a literalist, and imitator of Nature, but he ended as an idealist, at least to some extent. In the year 1805, at the age of nineteen, he wrote : " I am convinced that no picture can possess real merit, unless it is a just representation of Nature." 1 In the year 1836, at the age of fifty-one, he wrote : " If Art was an exact representation of Nature, it could be practised with absolute certainty, and assurance of success ; but the duty of Art is of a higher kind. . . . Art is only Art when it adds mind to form." 2 There is a discourse on ' Beauty ' in John Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture (1829), from which one sentence may be quoted : " That Beauty is not merely an imaginary quality, but a real essence, may be inferred from the harmony of the Universe." At this date, too, a sentence from Constable (1776- *837) the pioneer of Turner, and of all our modern land- scape Art may be quoted : " I know that the execution of my paintings is singular, but I love that rule of Sterne's : ' Never mind the dogmas of the schools ; go straight to the heart, if you have it in you.' People may say what they like of my art. I say that it is my own." In 1817, Sir George Stewart Mackenzie published an Essay on some subjects connected with Taste. He begins by desiring a more accurate definition of the terms Beautiful and Sublime. He criticises Dugald Stewart's notion that the term Beauty was originally applied to colour, and then extended to other things agreeable to the senses. Though he admits, with Stewart, that Beauty is nothing sui generis, he recognises " an internal faculty which judges and deter- 1 Life of Sir David Wilkie, by Allan Cunningham, vol. i. p. 76 ; cf. p. 158. 2 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 131. 202 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. mines which perceptions are true of beauty, and which of ugliness' 5 (p. 20). He thinks that Beauty does not reside in the objects of Nature or their qualities, but in the effects they produce (p. 28). Beauty is "the sign by which we express the consciousness of pleasurable effects following the perception of certain qualities in objects " (p. 39). He thinks that in all discussions of the emotions, we should keep strictly to their " genuine effects, Pleasure and Pain " (p. 40). Then follows a criticism of the association theory as applied ( I ) to Form, (2) to Colour, and (3) to Sound. The radical defect of Alison's theory is pointed out with much acuteness. There is " something in our minds which leads us to prefer certain forms, etc., to others" (p. 161). He accounts for varieties of taste by variations in the faculties and their balance, and by differences and defects in the brain (p. 298). An essay " On Taste " by William Hazlitt, first pub- lished in 1819, was included in the volume of Sketches and Essays, collected by his son, and issued in 1839. This essay of Hazlitt is, for the most part, a diluted commentary on the old de gustibus maxim, although he admits a general approach to canons of taste amongst the educated. Taste should not be opposed to genius, for genius in art is simply the power of producing the Beautiful, and men of genius should be the best judges of excellence. " He sees most of Nature who understands its language best, or connects one thing with the greatest number of other things. Experience is the key which unfolds a thousand imperceptible distinc- tions." The triumph of art is shown, "not in making the eye a microscope, but in making it the interpreter and organ of all that can touch the soul." " Beauty does not consist in a medium, but in gradation and harmony." He saw the defect of the association theory : " If there is a pleasing asso- ciation, there must be first something naturally pleasing." " Beauty consists in gradation of colours, or symmetry of form : sublimity arises from the source of power, and is aided by contrast. The ludicrous is the incoherent, arising from weakness." " The ideal is not confined to creation, but takes place in imitation. Invention is only feigning accord- xii The Philosophy of Britain 203 ing to nature. . . . Rules and models destroy genius and art ; and the excess of the artificial in the end cures itself. . . . Nature contains an infinite variety of parts, relations, and significations ; and different artists take them, and all together do not give the whole. ... It is ridiculous to suppose there is but one standard or one style." William Hazlitt also wrote an " Essay on the Fine Arts " for the sixth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which was republished in 1836, in the second volume of his Literary Remains. It is a defence of the imitative theory of art. He thinks that the form of the Greek statues was " as completely local and national as the figures on a Chinese screen." Their superior symmetry was all due (i) to "the superior symmetry of the models in nature," and (2) to the "more constant opportunities for studying them," with the peculiar susceptibility of the Greek race to what is beautiful and grand. The beauty of the statues " existed substantially in the forms from which they were copied"; and in keeping with this he defines the ideal as simply the preference of that which is fine in Nature to that which is less so. He maintains that the figures in Raphael's cartoons, and his groups in the Vatican, the work of Da Vinci and Correggio, and every great master in Art, are all careful copies from Nature. His essay is an elaborate attempt to prove this thesis. Success in Art is a return to Nature, and a reaction against all attempts to improve upon it. It is easy to criticise such a representation of the ideal theory in Art, as Reynolds has laid down in his Discourse, "giving the general ideas, and avoiding details." But Hazlitt utterly fails to understand Sir Joshua, and was unable to grasp the profound truth which underlay his maxim ; and yet, had he carried out the principle underlying one of his own sentences towards the close of his essay, he might have left the most of it unwritten. " We still want a Prometheus (in Art) to embody the inmost refinements of thought to the outward eye, to lay bare the very soul of passion. That picture is of comparatively little value, which can be translated into another language ; ... for it 204 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. is the excellence of every Art to give what can be given by no other in the same degree" (Literary Remains, vol. ii. pp. 177, 178). In discussing " the immediate emotions " in his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, published in 1828, Dr. Thomas Brown who held the Chair of Moral Philo- sophy in Edinburgh from 1810 to 1820 deals with the subject of Beauty and Sublimity (Lectures 53-58). It is an obscure and wordy discussion. His first remark is that Pleasure is " the one essential " of the emotions ; and his second that we transfer the delight we feel, and embody it in the object. " Beauty is simply that which excites in us a delightful feeling." The external beauty is our delight reflected over the object, and diffused into it. He quotes Akenside's lines Mind, mind alone, bear witness Heaven and earth, The living fountain in itself contains Of beauteous and sublime and spends many pages in trying to prove that the whole charm of external Nature consists in its reflecting our own feelings. Many things modify our emotion of Beauty. It is flexible under the influence of fashion, or even of acci- dent and passion. He thinks this is true both of the beauty of external Nature, and of Moral Beauty. These modifying tendencies are at work from our birth, and deflect our judgments. We can only reach a probability, and not a certainty as to whether there is such a thing as original Beauty. He goes on, however, to refer to the "natural language of emotion," which is " instinctively understood," and says that the burden of proof rests with those who deny an original Beauty independent of association, and seems at least to hint that an original standard of Beauty is as likely as the existence of an original standard of Truth. Neverthe- less he endorses the association theory almost in full ; and affirms that Beauty is not anything " which exists in objects, independently of the mind that perceives them," and that the emotion of the beautiful is " not one feeling of the mind, but many feelings that have a certain similarity." The xii The PJiilosophy of Britain 205 Beautiful is " a mere general term expressive of similarity in various pleasing feelings." John Wilson (Christopher North), Brown's successor in the Chair of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh (1820-1853), in the main followed Alison and Jeffrey in their association theory, as did the late Professor MacDougall, Wilson's suc- cessor in office from 1 85 3 to 1868. Wilson wrote an article in BlackwoocFs Magazine (January 1839), in which he speaks of the theory " that all beauty and sublimity in external Nature are but the reflections of mental qualities" as "in a great measure true " ; but the real attraction of the theory to W T ilson (as to all poetic minds) lay in its recognition of " analogies between the object of the external world, and the attributes of our moral and intellectual being." He saw through the;fiction that it was the process of association that made objects beautiful to us. We as instantaneously perceive Beauty, as we perceive the object itself. But it was that part of the theory of association which discerned mental qualities in Nature that appealed to Wilson. While " admitting the truth of the principle " of Alison, he sought to " limit the application of it." A short section in James Mill's Analysis of the Pheno- mena of the Human Mind (1829) chap. xxix. 2 deals with the "objects called sublime and beautiful, and their contraries, contemplated as causes of our pleasures and pains." Mill adopted Alison's view almost entirely, and added nothing of importance to it. A course of Lectures on Painting was delivered at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, London, in 1834, by Henry Howard, R.A., Professor of Painting to the Academy. They were published in 1848. They deal with design, chiaroscuro, colour, composition, etc. In the lecture on Design, the theory of the Beautiful is dealt with. The author applies the maxim " the proper study of mankind is man " to Art, and to any answer we may give to the question, " How to look on Nature." The Greeks saw that we must refine upon ordinary Nature, and therefore not select any specimen for portrayal, but from what he calls "a wide and collective survey " find the centre or generic character 206 The Pliilosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. of all the species we meet with. The Greeks even idealised their ideal man, to find the divine ; and they brought in the ideal, that in the human they might find an emblem of the divine. All Greek sculptors and painters of eminence Phidias, Polycletus, Praxiteles, Zeuxis present in their masterpieces the combined result of many actual forms of beauty, blending their separate excellences in one. The notion that nothing is natural but that which is " drawn from an individual type " (p. 67), is condemned as a " vulgar error." The perfections of Art are "deviations from Nature." So far art must be conventional. Artistic style is " Nature rectified by her own permanent standard, and restored to her. original perfection" (p. 68). Mr. Howard does not enter into the metaphysics of the problem, but, dealing with the beauty of form, he maintains that certain forms are beautiful intrinsically, apart from association ; and, referring to the theories which find the essence of Beauty in " fitness, propriety, harmony, perfection," he says that they all virtually " admit proportion to be an essential element of Beauty" (p. 71), which he thinks a "primary and universal" element (p. 72). The contribution of Sir William Hamilton to the philosophy of ^Esthetic, in his Lectures and the Notes to his edition of Reid, is fragmentary ; but the forty-sixth or last lecture of his metaphysical course is devoted to the Beautiful and the Sublime. His treatment is wholly subjective. He makes no attempt to determine the objective character of Beauty itself. After discussing the feelings, and sub- dividing them in a somewhat artificial manner he con- siders those " which arise from the acts of the Imagination and the Understanding in conjunction" (p. 506). These, he says, are " principally those of Beauty and Sublimity." He, however, distinguishes aptly (because the distinction is constantly forgotten) between the feelings of Beauty and the judgments of Taste. He affirms that the satisfaction which we feel in the presence of the Beautiful or the Sublime " arises solely from the consideration of the object, and altogether apart from any desire of, or satis- faction in its possession" (p. 507). He refers to the xii The PhilosopJiy of Britain 207 distinction between Beauty that is "free or absolute," and Beauty that is " dependent or relative." He rejects the distinction, but at the same time affirms that certain objects " please us directly, and of themselves, no reference being- had to aught beyond the form which they exhibit" (p. 508). Others which please us indirectly, and for a purpose, are simply useful ; although the same object may please us in both ways. Relative beauty is only "a beautified utility, or a utilised beauty" (p. 509). In the case of Free or Absolute Beauty, both the imagination and understanding find occupation, and an object is beautiful to us in proportion as these two energies act fully and freely. The action of the understanding, however, tends towards unity. It binds up separate parts into a whole ; and as different minds do this differently with varying speed, and varying success we can easily account for differences in the apprehension of the Beautiful. The less cultivated mind lingers over the parts, the multifarious details ; the more educated combines these in unity. So much for the feeling of the beautiful. A judgment of Taste is either pure or mixed ; it is pure when it is based on the beautiful solely, it is mixed when it takes account of other things which stimulate the senses. Thus, Hamilton's defini- tion of the beautiful is, "A beautiful thing is one whose form occupies the Imagination and Understanding in a free, and full, and consequently an agreeable activity " (p. 5 1 2). It will be seen that it is defined, not from what it is in itself, but solely from its effects. He proceeds to a definition of the Sublime in the same fashion. " The beautiful attracts without repelling ; whereas the sublime at once does both : the beautiful affords us a feeling of unmingled pleasure, in the full and unimpeded activity of our cognitive powers ; whereas our feeling of sublimity is a mingled one of pleasure and pain of pleasure in the consciousness of the strong energy, of pain in the con- sciousness that this energy is in vain. But, as the amount of pleasure in the sublime is greater than the amount of pain, it follows that the free energy it elicits must be greater than the free energy it repels. For Beauty, magnitude is an 208 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. impediment ; sublimity, on the contrary, requires magnitude as its condition. That we are at once attracted and repelled by sublimity, arises from the circumstance that the object which we call sublime is proportioned to one of our faculties, and disproportioned to another" (p. 513). He divides the sublime into three classes the sublime of Space, of Time, and of Power. The Picturesque stands opposite both to the Beautiful and the Sublime. An object is ugly when the understanding and imagination, working together, cannot take it up into a unity. But without wholly failing, the faculties may be only embarrassed, em- barrassed by the amount of variety, which for a time baffles the reduction of the mass to detail, to unity. Hamilton thinks that if the mind "expatiates freely and easily in variety, without attempting painfully to reduce it to unity " (p. 567), it will find the object before it picturesque. A picturesque object is " so determinately varied, and so abrupt in its variety, it presents so complete a negation of all rounded contour, and so regular an irregularity of broken lines and angles, that every attempt at reducing it to a harmonious whole is found to be impossible " (p. 5 1 7). There is much that is suggestive and valuable in Hamilton's discussion, but as a branch of psychology it is altogether subjective. He does not face the problem of the nature of objective beauty. 8. M ( ''Vicar to George Ramsay By far the most important Scottish writer on the philo- sophy of the Beautiful during the nineteenth century has been Dr. M'Vicar of Moffat. In the year 1837 he issued a work On the Beautiful, the Picturesque, and the Sublime. Nineteen years afterwards he published a series of Lectures addressed to the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, on the same subject, and memorable lectures they were. Delivered in the city of Jeffrey, they gave the coup de grace to the association doctrine, so that it could no longer be described as the " Edinburgh theory " on the subject. But M 'Vicar's earlier work is the more thoroughgoing and xii The Philosophy of Britain 209 philosophical of the two. It is full of wisdom, and contains much relevant criticism, both of the transcendentalists and of the disciples of experience. Its division into four parts in which Beauty, physical, physiological, and ethical, are considered seriatim is, however, an unfortunate one. M'Vicar saw clearly that if "Beauty" and "Ugliness" were matters of taste, "Truth" and "Error" must be matters of opinion, or " ways of viewing things " ; while " Good " and " Evil " would be accidents of custom ; and that, therefore, the problems of the philosophy of the Beau- tiful "touch the first principle of all Philosophy" (p. n). He also saw that, if we are to succeed in finding out " wherein true Beauty lies," we must withdraw it from the sphere of sense, and " fix it amongst the permanencies of our intellectual nature" (p. n). The emotion of the Beauti- ful, instead of being confined to the imagination, " has the range of the whole mind" (p. 19). It is also "extremely varied as to its origin" (p. 20). It "tends to diffuse itself over the objects which awake it " (p. 21); and so mankind has come to believe that " Nature is really full of feeling, and animated either by one Great Spirit, whose expression in every region is always kindred with the scene, or by many spirits, each of which has its own peculiar dwelling- place" (pp. 21, 22). The various objects in Nature that are beautiful, he regards as so many "natural mirrors that only reflect, and do not utter feeling " ; and he goes on to unfold what he calls "the law of imputation" (p. 22), by which we externalise our feelings. Probably the law of investiture would have been a happier phrase. In the next chapter M'Vicar classifies the various sorts of Beauty, in two interesting tables, in the former of which he divides it into Beauty derived from fitness, utility imitation, reminiscence, and association, and as therefore objective ; and Beauty that is factitious and subjective, due to organic and even irrational causes. In the latter table he divides it into (i) simple Beauty, the beauty of Repose, which " awakens disinterested admiration"; and (2) express- ive Beauty, the beauty of association. The former he subdivides into Beauty, kaleidoscopic and arabesque ; and 210 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. the latter into Beauty, picturesque and sublime. His his- torical and critical remarks on the theories of Alison and Jeffrey at this point are excellent. In his analysis of beautiful objects M 'Vicar distinguishes the way in which their constituent parts are grouped to- gether from the elements out of which they are composed. It depends on the latter, or the way in which objects are composed, whether they are simply beautiful, or picturesque, or sublime ; and he thinks that " smoothness with regard to surface, and simplicity of ratio with regard to structure, are the principles by which Beauty is developed" (p. 50). This is just the unity in variety of the ancients, and of some modern writers. It is the principle of simple in- expressive Beauty only that leaves the emotions in a state of repose. But, he asks, are not wreck and ruin expressive, when these things have been " set free from their artificial symmetry"? (p. 56). While conformity to symmetry im- parts simple Beauty, departures from it give expression ; and " as objects lose mere beauty, they acquire expression, and from having been simply beautiful, they become pictur- esque or sublime" (p. 57). Kaleidoscopic beauty, however perfect, is, " after all, hard and stern-looking, and it seals rather than opens the fountains of emotion " (p. 58). " The most regularly beautiful countenances are usually the most inexpressive." Expression always breaks away from formal symmetry. As the one increases, the other diminishes (p. 69). So, in landscape, the Dutch is symmetrical, but there is no expression in it ; or (as in Claude Lorrain) we have "sunny serenity and sweet repose" (p. 73): whereas in Salvator Rosa we have compositions that are wild, and full of feeling. The same is true of musical compositions. In other chapters M' Vicar develops his principles of Beauty as depending either on angles or areas (kaleido- scopic beauty), or on lines and contours (arabesque beauty) ; and then, in what he calls his " philosophical section " (pp. 131-181), he discusses the relation which exists (i) between the beauty and the economy of Nature ; (2) be- tween the beautiful, picturesque, and sublime, and our xii The Philosophy of Britain 211 mental economy ; and (3) between the Beautiful and our organisation. He asks, why is the symmetry of objects a source of Beauty ? and why is the expression of objects increased, when their mere symmetry is destroyed ? He answers that symmetry is the condition of perfection in organic bodies. Nature is everywhere endeavouring to realise equilibrium, in symmetrical and stable products. It is so from the structure of the solar system, down to that of the flower. Thus simple Beauty has its signature in Nature ; it is not a creation of the mind. Here he states, how- ever, a very disputable proposition, viz. that it is the func- tion of physical agencies to produce symmetry, but of the vital agencies to produce departures from it, because they impart movement. They expand and vary, while the former condense and confine. But surely such a vital process as the growth of a rose is more symmetrical than such a physical agency as the rush of a cataract, while the latter may be far fuller of expression ? M 'Vicar is clearly wrong in confining simple Beauty to the physical economy of Nature, and expressive Beauty to its vital economy. In his chapter on the relation between the Beautiful and our mental economy, he raises the question, how it comes about that Nature often charms us, in spite of our knowing nothing as to what it is. He rejects the solution of habit (or use and wont), because habit often operates precisely the other way, unfitting us for the enjoyment of the Beautiful in Nature. On the other hand, we constantly appreciate a new thing that is beautiful the moment we see it. Going straight to the fountain-head, he finds that Beauty lies in the unity and variety of Nature ; our analysis showing the variety, and our synthesis disclosing the unity. We see a " harmonious variety running into a central unity, and the central unity radiating into a harmonious variety" (p. 152). That is the symmetry of Nature. He next asks how it is that objects which are not sym- metrical become expressive ; and he answers : " Their char- acter is either that of a variety which refuses to recognise a preceding principle of unity, or that of a unity which 212 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. refuses to expand into a harmonious variety" (p. 157). But how does all this develop emotion ? It is partly because the demand for unity in variety is unsatisfied. The mind moves on from point to point, from centre to centre, and is not at rest ; and this gives rise to the idea of many separate powers in Nature, centres of force and energy, i.e. to a poly- theistic interpretation of Nature. So much for the cases in which the mind is resisted, but not overcome. But now suppose that the object is a unity which defies expansion into variety (e.g. the boundlessness of space, or of the Infinite), then, while the mind is unable to take in the idea as a whole, or to get round it by imagination, the judgment, and the correlative feeling, are those of the sublime ; and this connects itself with the monotheistic interpretation of Nature. M 'Vicar acutely points out that the judgment and the feeling of the merely picturesque in Nature tends to a polytheistic view of the universe, while that of the sublime tends to a monotheistic one (pp. 160, 161). In a subsequent chapter, on the relation of the Beautiful to our organisation, he shows the influence of the physique over our judgments and feelings as to the Beautiful. He finds a partial explanation of the curve (or Hogarth's "line of Beauty") in the form of the spinal cord, which is "the axis of the organic system" (p. 172), and in the elliptic curves of the brain. " The architecture of the mind's palace," he says, " exhibits the lines of Beauty on all hands " (P- 175)- M 'Vicar's book has not received the attention it deserves, either in Britain, on the Continent, or in America. In 1842, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder prefixed an Essay on the Origin of Taste to an edition of Sir Uvedale Price's Essay on the Picturesque, and some others of his essays. He defines his aim as an attempt to get beyond the more popular views of Price as to the objects, or combination of objects, which excite in us an emotion of the beautiful, to the philosophical ground on which the principle of Beauty may be maintained ; but it is in the style of the doctrinaire that Lauder sets forth " the true theory," and denounces the " great error " that " there exist in material objects certain xii The Philosophy of Britain 213 inherent and invariable qualities of beauty, sublimity, and picttiresqueness " (p. 2). If it were so, he thinks all tastes would agree ; and so he falls back helplessly on the association theory of Alison, Jeffrey, etc. ; and his long essay is merely a restatement of that theory without critical insight. He even quotes Robert Burns as a sudden convert to Alison's theory on a perusal of his Essay, not perceiving the delicate irony that underlay the Scottish bard's letter to the Edinburgh essayist. In 1846, Mr. D. R. Hay of Edinburgh published his First Principles of Symmetrical Beauty. This, with his Science of Beauty, as developed in Nature, and applied in Art, though not the earliest, was the most important of numerous works by Mr. Hay on the science of the Beautiful. 1 In it he tries, as he says, to develop the principles of Symmetrical Beauty, and their application to the Arts, in a popular manner. Mr. Hay knew nothing of Plato when he began his studies, but he worked on the Platonic lines. He believed, as Sir Isaac Newton did, in " general laws with respect to all the senses," and therefore that there was an underlying analogy between the principles of form and those of sound. He laboured very much, as Michael Angelo did, with a view to discover the principles of Beauty. Of ^Esthetics he says : "In this science the human mind is the subject, and external Nature the object. Each individual mind is a 1 The following are some of Mr. Hay's other works : The Laws of Harmonious Colouring, to -which is added an attempt to define ^Esthetical Taste (1828). The Natural Principles and Analogy of the Harmony of Form. (1842). Proportion, or the geometric principle of Beauty analysed (1843). An Essay on Ornamental Design (1844). Principles of Beauty in Colouring systematised (1845). On the Science of those Proportions by -which the human head and countenance, as represented in ancient Greek Art, are distinguished from those of ordinary Nature (1849). The Natural Principles of Beauty as developed in the human figure (1852). The Orthographic Beauty of the Parthenon, referred to a law of Nature (1853). The Harmonic Law of Nature, applied to Architectural Design (1855). 214 The PJiilosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. world within itself, but the individual mind and the world at large have a relation to each other. The subject is affected by the object. . . . The science of aesthetics is devoted to the investigation of the mode in which external objects affect the mind, to please or to displease it, to produce a sense of harmony or of discord. Harmony is, as Aris- totle defines it, the union of contrary principles having a ratio to each other." " The contrary principles are those of uniformity and variety, which give rise to two distinct kinds of beauty, according to the predominance of one or the other of them in an object. The one may be called symmetrical beauty, and the other picturesque beauty the first allied to the principle of uniformity, in being based upon precise laws ; the second allied to the principle of variety to so great a degree that no precise laws can be laid down for its production" (pp. 20, 21). He proceeds to show the operation of harmonic ratios, first on rectilinear figures, and then on curvilinear ones ; and tries to prove that by their union the laws of harmony are evolved (p. 40), and that the principles of harmony which he has set forth are " a natural and an inherent quality in geometry " (p. 62). In the Scie7ice of Beauty, as developed in Nature, and applied in Art, Mr. Hay expands his doctrine, his aim being to prove scientifically that the Beautiful in Nature and in Art, which appeals to the mind through the eye, is governed by the same laws as govern the ear ; in other words, that Beauty must conform to the laws of Nature in the plastic art of painting, as well as in the sister art of music. [In this he was partly anticipated by a work, published in 1831, The Music of the Eye; or, Essays on the Principles of the Beauty and perfection of Architecture, by Peter Legh, in which the resemblance of music to Architecture is traced at some length, Architecture being called the music of the eye.] His aim, he says, is "to rise superior to the idiosyncrasies of different artists, and to bring back to one common type the sensations of the eye and of the ear." He repeats, almost verbatim, the analyses and the conten- tion of his former book, that symmetry gives rise to beauty, xii The Philosophy of Britain 215 and variety to picturesqueness. The science of Beauty is evolved from what he calls the " harmonic law of Nature," which is based on the Pythagorean system of numerical ratios. He applies it first to Sound, and afterwards to Form (especially as seen in the form of the human head, countenance, and figure), and lastly to Colour, and the proportions of ancient Greek vases and ornaments. He considers all aesthetic science as "based on the great harmonic law of Nature, which pervades and governs the universe ; and which lies, as such, intermediate between the physical and the metaphysical sphere." In an article in the Edinburgh Review, October 1843, Sir David Brewster wrote an elaborate criticism of Mr. Hay's books on Harmonic colouring, and the Harmony of Form, chiefly from the scientific side. In 1848 an Analysis and Theory of the Emotions, with dissertations on Beauty, Sublimity, and the Ludicrous, was published by George Ramsay, the author of several philo- sophical works. "We must always bear in mind these two things : first, that the Beauty which we feel must be distinguished from the outward cause which excites it ; secondly, that Beauty is an emotion, not a sensation " (p. 69). " Wonder and love may combine with Beauty, and so en- hance the feeling, but they are not essential to it." " It is a simple, not a compound emotion, and cannot be analysed." " Beauty and Sublimity are distinguished from all other emotions by the incorporating process, whereby the mind unconsciously communicates its own feelings to outward objects, clothing dead matter with the nature and qualities of spirit " (p. 70). Mr. Ramsay thought that Beauty and Sublimity were quite as subjective as any sensation, or as the emotions of love, hate, fear, and wonder, but that they were distinguished from the latter by this incorporating process. But in his next chapter, " on the source of Beauty," he opposes the association theory with incisive vigour. He maintains that there is an original Cause or Source of Beauty in the world. Association cannot create ; it can only arouse. It "may change, modify, prevent, pro- vided there is something to be changed, modified, prevented " 216 The Philosophy of tJie Beautiful CHAP. (p. 76). He sees that the theory which explains the Beautiful by association, must deal similarly with the True ; and that neither custom nor utility can account for the origin of Beauty. In his third chapter he deals with " the real sources of Beauty." Premising that it is not the ultimate principle, but the " proximate causes " that he is in search of, he traces four in material objects viz. (i) Colour, (2) Form, (3) Outward Texture, and (4) Inward Composi- tion. In his second part he discusses Sublimity, and wherein it differs from Beauty. He thinks that the emotion of the sublime is not simple, as that of Beauty is, but is " a compound of wonder and fear, the result of the two united" (p. 133). There is in it an alloy of pain. It is a more violent and less durable emotion than the feeling of Beauty, and it is aroused in us by things great, by things rare, and by things dangerous (p. 142). Ramsay's analysis of "the Ludicrous emotion" (pp. 149-179) is a useful supplement to an acute discussion. 9. Carlyle to Ruskin In the allusions to Art scattered throughout the writings of Thomas Carlyle, we find the germs which subsequently bore conspicuous fruit in the teaching of John Ruskin. In Sartor Resartus (1831), in the chapter entitled " Symbols " (Book III. ch. iii.), Carlyle taught that it is through symbols that we pass from the visible to the invisible. " In a symbol there is concealment, and yet revelation," as "by silence and speech acting together comes a double significance." In the Symbol proper there is ever more or less distinctly and directly some embodiment and revela- tion of the Infinite. " The Infinite is made to blend itself with the finite, to stand visible, and as it were attainable there. By symbols accordingly is man guided and com- manded. . . . Not our logical mensurative faculty, but our imaginative one is king over us." " Sense is but the implement of fancy. ... It is through symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being." xii The Philosophy of Britain 217 It is, however, when the Divine manifests itself through sense that symbols have intrinsic meaning. " Of this sort are all true works of art. In this (if we know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice) we discern Eternity looking through time, the Godlike rendered visible." In Past and Present (1843), Book II. ch. iv., there are some thoughts on the Ideal " shooting forth into practice as it can," and " growing to a strange reality." " The Ideal has always to grow in the Real, and to seek out its bed and board there, often in a very sorry way." " By a law of Nature, all ideals have their fatal limits and lot, their appointed periods of growth, of maturity, of decline, de- gradation, death, and disappearance." In Book III. chap. x. he tells us that " all human things do require to have an ideal in them, to have some soul in them, were it only to keep the body unputrefied ; and wonderful it is to see how the Ideal or Soul, place it in what ugliest body you may, will irradiate said body with its own nobleness." Again, in one of the Latter-Day Pamphlets, entitled "Jesuitism" (August 1850), he admits that "it is to the Fine Arts that the world's chosen souls do now chiefly take refuge, and attempt that ' worship of the Beautiful ' may thus be possible for them. . . . Ever must the Fine Arts be, if not religion, yet indissolubly united to it, dependent on it, vitally blended with it as body is with soul." He sees, how- ever, that there may be unveracity and even "Jesuitism" in the Fine Arts, and how, in that case, its " thrice-unblessed presence smites the genius of mankind with paralysis," how its worship ends in mere dilettantism and empty talk. " The Fine Arts divorcing themselves from Truth, are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die." In Shooting Niagara he writes : " All real Art is the disimprisoned soul of Fact." It will soon be seen how this teaching bore fruit in the next period of art-literature. From 1844 to 1848, David Scott, one of the most notable of Scottish artists in ideality of design perhaps the most original of them all wrote what he called " Notes for Memory," a record of passing thoughts, feelings, etc. 218 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In February 1845 he jotted down a "basis for a Theory of Beauty." " Beauty is not dependent on any combination of sensuous qualities, as Burke attempts to say ; nor is it dependent on association with other perceptions or sensa- tions ; it is by itself and ultimate. It may terminate in itself, and has no necessary connection with other qualities, mental or corporeal. In a superhuman existence we must imagine it always present. ... A confusion of tongues on the subject has resulted from the so-called differences of opinion of different nations. But there is in reality no such difference of opinion, except in the degree of per- ception, or in the grounds of decision. ... If a negro thinks the black the handsomer, he still gives his preference to a quality similar in its nature to that which guides the decisions of the white. Beauty of form and of colour are founded in all cases on the same perception, but all the forms and colours may be different degrees of it. In form and colour, however, there is a highest, and here lies the transcendental root of the matter. This highest is purely elemental and abstract the most primitive sensations in both resulting from lines, and the several colours, without relation to combination in things. The human form is the highest combination. We can easily refer the feeling produced in us by it to certain pro- perties, but the reason of this feeling is beyond the under- standing" (Memoir of David Scott, by William B. Scott (1850), pp. 291, 292). Mr. Ruskin has done so much for this generation, and for all time, by his art-criticism, and he has made us his debtors in so many ways, that it is hard to deal with him as a philosopher, in the same way as we deal with other con- temporaries. As the second volume of Modern Painters, which gives us Mr. Ruskin's view of the Beautiful, was first published in 1846, his contributions to the literature of Esthetics, extending over nearly half a century, may be considered at this stage. Perhaps the chief value of Ruskin's art-criticism is that it goes beyond Art to life, that it binds the ethical, the xii The Philosophy of Britain 219 social, and the artistic within one supreme category, and that it is so varied and so vital in reference to all the art- schools of the world. His vindication of the functions and uses of Art is specially noble, because he is much more than an art-critic, he is a moralist as well, and it is from the moralist's point of view that he almost invariably writes. A somewhat captious critic, who writes under the pseudo- nym of Vernon Lee, has remarked in Belcaro that he has " made Morality sterile, and Art base, in his desire to sanctify the one by the other." * In opposition to this verdict, I would say that Ruskin has almost invariably illumined his art-criticism by his subtle side-glances into the problems of duty, and that his indirect ethical teaching which is vastly superior to his direct moralising has lit up the very foreground of the field of Art. Ruskin is not a moralist looking down on Art, or an art -critic keeping aloof from moral problems. He combines the two functions as they have never been combined before. Art is to him, at its root, not only moral but divine ; morals are, at their root, not only good and true, but beautiful. Plato and Plotinus had taught that Beauty was an emanation from the Infinite, and a disclosure of it. They reached this by a speculative intuition from above. Our modern art -teacher has reached the same truth from beneath. He holds that, in the perfectly beautiful, perfect goodness lies ; so that men may buttress their lives against the inroads of selfishness by knowing the beautiful, and loving it with disinterested emotion. The beautiful and the good are not one, but diverse ; nevertheless they are kindred at the root, and have very subtle affinities and correspondences. Suppose a moralist to raise the question, Why should I, in a world where moral evil exists, devote myself to the Beautiful at all ? Ruskin's answer would be, You must do this, in the very interests of morality. The Beautiful must not only be known, it must be studied and loved, if morality is to be either attractive or stable. It is the ethical undertone of Modern Painters that is the supreme charm of the book. One may dissent from 1 " Essay on Ruskinism," p. 225. 220 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. many of its judgments as to art, but its interpretation of the soul of Nature, of the correspondence between man and Nature, and of the voice that comes out of all high artistic work which rebukes our egotism and condemns our selfish- ness has no parallel in the previous criticism of Art. Ruskin has no new and distinctive art-theory to unfold. As Mr. Edward Cook well says, 1 " the gospel according to Ruskin is one of glad tidings, not of news." Of his Modern Painters the author said himself : " From its first syllable to its last, it declares the perfectness and eternal beauty of the work of God, and tests all work of man by concurrence with, and subjection to that." And yet he has given us no satisfactory definition of Beauty. " Any natural object," he says, 2 " which can give us pleasure in the simple contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct or definite exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, and in some degree, beautiful." " Ideas of Beauty," he adds, " are the subjects of moral, but not of intellectual per- ception." The discussion of "the Ideas of Beauty" in the second volume (pt. iii.) is, however, ill arranged, and some- what prolix. Ruskin's teaching as to the importance of reality or Truth in Art (notwithstanding Carlyle's praise of it as a " divine rage against falsity ") is, after all, only a truism. His criticism of inadequate theories of the beautiful and his exposure of the craze of the modern " esthete " (that what pleases the senses is the ultimate criterion of all good art) is excellent ; but when he goes on to say that there is no other definition of the Beautiful than that it is "what one noble spirit has created, seen and felt by another of similar or equal nobility," we feel that this is nearly as inadequate as another of his dicta is meagre, that " all great Art is praise." Beauty, we are assured, is an objective reality, and it is "the expression of the creating spirit of the universe." So far well; but when we are further told that it consists (i) in certain qualities of bodies which are types of what is divine, and (2) in "the felicitous fulfilment of function in 1 Studies in Ruskin, p. 3. 2 Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. ch. vi. xii The Philosophy of Britain 221 vital things," we do not find ourselves helped forward theoretically. Ruskin's discussion is philosophically unsys- tematic to the last degree. Though lit up by passages of rarest insight, it is arbitrary and inconclusive. It lacks precision, while the notes to the last edition, which fre- quently disown the conclusions of the earlier text, are some- what distracting. Then his terminology is arbitrary. Why should he call the aesthetic faculty, or the power which deals with Beauty, the " theoretic faculty " ? The division of the kinds or classes of Beauty into typical and vital, is also open to criticism. The beauty of the natural inorganic world he calls typical, because it is emblematic of tran- scendent beauty. This typical beauty, " whether it occurs in a stone, flower, beast, or man, is absolutely identical " ( i, ch. iii.), and its elements or constituents are In- finity, which is the type of the Divine incomprehensibility; Unity, which is the type of the Divine comprehensiveness ; Repose, which is the type of Divine Permanence ; Symmetry, the type of Divine Justice; Purity, the type of Divine Energy ; Moderation, the type of Divine Government by law ; and he speaks of all this beauty as a " characteristic of mere matter." The latter class of Beauty (vital Beauty) is "the felicitous fulfilment of function in living things, more especially the joyful and right exertion of perfect life in man," and it is either relative or generic. Having finished his treatment of the theoretic faculty, Ruskin goes on to deal with the imaginative. He says that the sources of Beauty which exist in the external world are never put before us in a pure transcript. They always receive the reflection of the mind. This is the work of the imagination. In the study of imagination, the metaphysicians afford us no aid whatsoever, because they are trying to explain to us the essence of the faculties, whereas the imagination is "utterly mysterious and inexplicable, and to be recognised in its results only." Surely this is true of all the faculties. Mr. Ruskin next says that imagination is the source of all that is great in Art, and departing from the agnostic position he had just laid down, goes on to define the action of the imagination as "penetrative, 222 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. associative, and contemplative " in a highly suggestive analysis. Mr. Ruskin is not successful as a speculative philosopher. Indeed he expressly forswears metaphysics ; but when he keeps to art-criticism and ethical teaching in detail ; when he shows, for example, how Art and Religion are twin sisters ; how you cannot understand the former without reverencing it ; how the reverence that comes from a true perception of Beauty is religious ; and how the beauty of Nature is a reflection of the beauty of character in all this his teaching is unique, and of lasting value. i o. Lord Lindsay to Professor Bain In his Sketches of the History of Christian Art (1847) Lord Lindsay has a prefatory note on " the Ideal." His reading of the history of the race as a whole, is not so successful as his subsequent discussion. He thinks that the three elements of Human Nature, " sense, intellect, and spirit," "had their distinct development at three distinct intervals, and in the personality of the three great branches of the human family." The African races developed the first, the Greeks the second, and the Jews and Christians the third. "The peculiar interest and dignity of Art consists in her exact correspondence in her three departments with these three periods of development, and in the illustration she thus affords more clearly and markedly even than Literature to the truth that men stand or fall according as they look up to the Ideal, or not." " The archi- tecture of Egypt, her pyramids and temples, express the ideal of sense. The sculpture of Greece is the voice of intellect and thought ; while the painting of Christendom is that of an immortal spirit. The Christian is superior to the classic Art, because the Greek ideas were youth, grace, beauty, thought, dignity, and power. Form, consequently, or the expression of mind, was what they chiefly aimed at, and in this they reached perfection." "Faith, hope, and charity these wings of immortality as- yet serve art." "It is not symmetry of form, or beauty of colouring," that give to the Art of Christendom its vantage. "It is the depth, xii The Philosophy of Britain 223 intensity, grandeur, and sweetness of the emotions at the command of the Christian artists, as compared with those elicited by the ancients" (vol. i. p. xv.). The analogy which Lord Lindsay afterwards draws between Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting, and the three persons in the Christian Trinity, is more than un- fortunate. But, when he leaves these generalisations, and enters on his criticism in detail, his analysis is remarkable, and it opens up a new track in the historical study of Art. His " general classification " of Schools and Artists (vol. i. pp. ccix.-ccxlvii.), his record of the develop- ment of the Architecture of Christendom from the ancient basilica, his summary of Roman and Byzantine Art generally, his account of the rise of the Lombard style, and then of the Gothic (both north and south of the Alps), are all extremely learned and able ; while his analyses of the work of Niccola Pisano, and of Giotto (vol. ii. letters 3 and 4), are fine instances of subtle discriminative criticism. One sentence from his account of Niccola Pisano may be quoted : "Niccola's peculiar praise is this that in practice at least, if not in theory, he first established the principle that the study of Nature, corrected by the ideal of the antique, and animated by the spirit of Christianity, personal and social, can alone lead to excellence in Art ; each of the three elements of Human Nature (Matter, Mind, and Spirit) being thus brought into union, in relative harmony and subordination. It was in this that Niccola himself worked. It has been by following it that Donatello, and Ghiberti, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo have risen to glory. The Sienese School and the Florentine minds contemplative and dramatic are alike beholden to it for whatever success has attended their efforts. Like a treble-stranded rope, it drags after it the triumphal car of Christian Art. But if either of the strands be broken, if either of the three elements be pursued disjointedly from the other two, the result is grossness, pedantry, or weakness " (vol. ii. letter 3, pp. 102, 103). If sometimes too rhetorical, Lord Lindsay's work is, in many respects, a monumental one. In the November number of the British Quarterly Review in 1848, there is an able article (No. IX.) on "the 224 The Philosophy of t/te Beautiful CHAP. Beautiful and the Picturesque." Their difference is thus signalised. In an object that is picturesque the details are never grasped in their entirety. They are so multiform and varied, that the mind is not quite at rest regarding them. With an object that is beautiful, on the contrary, the whole is obvious to the eye at once ; the details are taken in with ease. Therefore a picturesque object is complex and manifold, a beautiful object is simple, uniform, and regular. Because we take in the former with some difficulty, it excites a prolonged or continuous interest, and does not weary us. Apprehending the latter with ease, it sooner wearies us. An oak tree, for example, is picturesque, because it is multitudinous \ a beggar is picturesque, because his garments are irregular and various. A lily, on the con- trary, is beautiful, because it is a whole that is taken in at a glance with ease ; this ease is partly the source of our delight. The same object may, however, be both beautiful and picturesque, in different situations and circumstances e.g. a sea when calm, and the same sea disturbed with storm ; 1 or the Parthenon, which when newly built was beautiful, but now in ruin is picturesque. The distinction between the two is applied (i) to Nature, (2) to Art products, (3) to the human figure, and (4) to patterns in articles of dress and of household use. The writer then applies the same principle to Archi- tecture ; and explains the effect of the Gothic over us, because it combines the beautiful with the picturesque. In Greek architecture we have Beauty alone, in Gothic the two are combined. He also says that we may explain the difference of opinion which exists as to the Beauty and Deformity of the Human Countenance, not only from custom and fashion, but also from the fact that, while the Greek ideal of regular form is unquestionably superior to all that is irregular, expression lighting up the latter (or even an otherwise ugly countenance) may make it appear finer than one that is perfect in form. In 1849, Mr. James Ferguson issued An Historical 1 Take Peele Castle, as described by Wordsworth in the first and second stanzas of his poem, or the picture of it by Sir George Beaumont. xii The Philosophy of Britain 225 Enquiry into the true principles of Beauty in Art, more especially with reference to Architecture. This was, in some respects, a retrograde work ; in others, a real contribution to the subject. In his " Introduction " (pt. ii. 6) he dis- cusses the " Fine Arts," and affirms that " Beauty, or the sense of Beauty, means really nothing more than the gratification which we are able to extract out of every useful function we perform. ... It is thus that all the useful arts are capable of becoming Fine Arts ; or, in other words, besides ministering to our necessities, they may become sources of pleasure. . . . All common and useful things may be refined into objects of Beauty ; and, though common, all the beautiful and high in Art is merely an elaboration and refinement of what is fundamentally a useful and a necessary act." In the Introduction to his elaborate History of Archi- tecture in all Countries (1874), Mr. Ferguson restates and condenses his view ; but his statement of it is freshest and fullest in the earlier work. The want of success in attempted definitions of " Beauty in Art " has been due, he thinks, to the very erroneous idea that the sense of Beauty "is one single and well-defined emotion, whereas, in truth, nothing can be more various." Beauty has three types or classes. The first is technical or mechanical Beauty. A merely useful Art can belong to this class, as when one says that a thing is beautifully fitted for its purpose. The second class is aesthetic or sensuous Beauty ; and when this is combined with technic beauty, we have many of the Fine Arts, e.g. painting and music. The third is intellectual Beauty, which may be presented to us through words, or conventional signs only. The most perfect Art is a combination of all the three ; and one work of Art is more perfect than another in proportion as the aesthetic predominates over the merely technical, and the intellectual predominates over the merely aesthetic. These are the three great types or classes of the Beautiful ; but between them there are gradations innumerable, and mani- fold combinations and shades. We may have mere technical excellence in art, we may have the sensuous element in excess, or the intellectual expression all-domi- Q 226 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. nant. In the sub-sections, which Ferguson indicates, there is much that is arbitrary, with much that is suggestive, and his historical criticism is very valuable, e.g. in the com- parisons he draws between the Egyptian and Greek art, in the former of which he considers that the technical pre- vailed, and in the latter the aesthetic. His remarks on association are also good. The scenes of childhood, national melodies, etc., are dearer to us by association ; and in Architecture and Sculpture we are under the slavery of precedent. " Though I am far from denying," he says, " the beneficial influence of association in Art, when properly used, it is at best only a slavish and retrograde source of Beauty, in every respect inferior to those derived from perfection, and harmony, and imagination" (pp. 145, 146). Form and Sound, can their beauty be dependent on the same physical laws? "a critical enquiry," by Thomas Purdie, published in 1848, is the record of a controversy with Mr. Hay. Mr. Purdie followed Alison, Brown, and Jeffrey in their association doctrine ; but he admits that the emotion of Beauty is also "direct and original," and that, although association may always " lend a charm to beauti- ful things," it is not always the origin of the emotion of Beauty. The sensations produced in us by natural objects directly, are also one source of the emotions of the Beautiful. There are "objects, the beauty of which addresses the intellect alone " (p. xli.). Beauty is as well entitled to be considered a primary and direct emotion as fear, loss, hope, or the sense of the ludicrous. "^Esthetics and ethics are entitled to hold precisely the same rank " (p. xlviii.). " The highest of all beauty is expression " (p. xlvii.). Mr. Purdie opposes Cousin's doctrine of Absolute Beauty, and falls back on the agreement of mankind. He questions if primitive man had any idea of Beauty, and considers it only as a state of mind, not as a quality of objects. He thinks there is no analogy between beauty of Sound and beauty of Form : the one is fixed by definite rule ; the other, infinitely diversified, cannot be reduced to rule. And so we find that the fundamental principles of music are universally adopted, while men do not agree as to beauty of form. The work xii The Philosophy of Britain 227 contains much acute thinking, but is disfigured by the bitterness of its attack on Mr. Hay. In 1850, Lord Iddesleigh (then Sir Stafford Northcote) gave a lecture on Taste to the Literary Society at Exeter. It is reproduced in his posthumous Lectures and Essays (1887). It was suggested by the preparations then being made for the first International Exhibition of Art and Industry in 1851. The laws of taste and of the beautiful are founded on the study of Nature ; and a safe test of good art is its accordance with Nature. Nothing is beautiful that is unnatural ; but this does not mean that Art's sole function is to copy Nature. It only means that all good Art is fashioned on the same principles as those on which Nature is constructed. Ornamental Art does not merely copy, it creates ; but the ornament " must be capable of removal without impairing the utility of the construction." That is the first great rule in art ornamentation ; and the second is that the ornament must not destroy or even interfere with the use. The fundamental laws of Taste are (i) truth or honesty, reality, the absence of pretence ; (2) suitableness, a leading idea being present, to which all else is subordinate ; (3) the love of Beauty for its own sake. In 1852, George Butler, of Exeter College, Oxford, afterwards Canon of Winchester, published four lectures on The Principles of Imitative Art, which he had delivered to the Oxford Art Society, and elsewhere, in the same year. They are based on Aristotle's theory, as unfolded in the Poetics. He held that all art is the imitation of an image in the mind, either awakened by an external object, or arising from within. In discussing the question what Beauty is, he starts from the groundwork of the senses, which in the main suggest the same ideas to different individuals (p. 26). He then explains, and in the main follows, Burke's theory, but at the same time admits an external standard or "canon of proportion." He sinks back, however, without reason, to the doctrine of relativity, affirming that what we call Beauty is really our feeling for Beauty, which is different in degree in different individuals. The Beautiful is various, and the artist should aim at 228 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. variety, finding the standard of Beauty within himself. On the other hand, Mr. Butler's width of view comes out in the admission that in Art " we look for something beyond the reproduction of the actual" (p. 38). Some of the review articles on the subject of the Beautiful are quite as valuable links in the evolving chain of literary discussion as are the treatises devoted to it. There was, for example, in Blackwood's Magazine for December 1853, a review of Jeffrey, M< Vicar, and Hay which was as good as many a volume. The writer holds that, if there be no standard of the Beautiful, " novelty " is all that is left to us in art-work. We can no longer speak of the great masters, or of any masters. If association can explain the beautiful, then the study of ^Esthetics is but labour lost, (i) Beauty is, on the last analysis, but another name for perfection. The beauty of individual things is various ; but the beauty of all beautiful things agrees in this, that they all approach perfection, and delight us according as they do so. (2) Beauty (which is perfection) is " as diverse in its forms as the several faculties and organs by which we come into con- tact with Nature." (3) These forms of the Beautiful are divisible into two great classes, viz. the intellectual and the material. In his criticism of the association theory, the writer asks how it comes to pass that a circle is regarded, " semper, ubique, et ab omnibus," as more beautiful than an irregular figure, unless there be a standard of beauty in the mind ? So also with colours and sounds. Differences in taste prove nothing against a standard ; because each taste may have a standard for itself, and yet they may all vary, just as Greek and Gothic architecture vary, or as the several types of heroic action do. The writer affirms truly that " the beautiful and the good stand together on the same pedestal." We cannot hold by the one, and despise the. other. Acoustic science shows that the beautiful in music is based on certain objective harmonious ratios ; so with the beauty of colours. " Unity and variety are the two grand elements in all fine art compositions ; and unity in variety (in other words, symmetry) is the first thing to be attended to in aesthetical science." xii The Philosophy of Britain 229 The principle of symmetry in material Beauty is, in music, the fundamental chord. How, and why, are the fundamental notes in music more pleasing than others ? When any musical note is struck, other notes may be heard sounding as it dies away ; and every sounding body has a tendency to excite an identical note in all sonorous bodies near it, so that they vibrate in unison (or nearly so) in varying ratios " the notes produced being called respect- ively the tonic, the mediant, and the dominant, which in unison with the keynote form the fundamental chord in music." These harmonic notes please us, because they sustain to each other the simplest and most perfect proportions. Ideal Beauty is not to be found by a merely eclectic combination of detached excellences existing in Nature. It is not found in external Nature, but in the mind of man On Earth there's nothing great but Man, In Man there's nothing great but Mind. Ideal Beauty is reached by the mind either through criticism or creation. The external world stirs the inner, and the latter creates objects of its own, as vivid and real as those of the former. Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, by Pro- fessors M'Cosh and Dickie of Belfast, was published in 1856. It is a treatise on Natural History and Theology; but in Book III. chapter ii. sec. 4 there is a discussion of "the aesthetic sentiments." The authors affirm that the effort to find out in what physical beauty consists have been " so far successful." They endorse the views of M 'Vicar and Hay ; but they affirm that even if physical science shall have demonstrated their views, the phenomena of Beauty will not be fully explained, because the correlated mental sentiment has also to be explained. They think that mere perfection of form is insufficient to explain the feeling called forth by the beautiful. It is only "when there is something to indicate that there has been more than mechanism at work" (p. 483) that we recognise the 230 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. beautiful. They think that the sense of beauty in organic objects is called forth by the union of the TI'TTOS with the reAos, the typical form with the special end in creation. They admit, on the one hand, an original principle of beauty in the world, and an original feeling for beauty in man ; and, on the other, the influence of association in modifying and warping the faculties ; and they thus account for "what is fixed in aesthetics the uniformity of judgment in matters of taste," and " for what differs in different in- dividuals " (p. 488). A very elaborate and valuable work on The Grammar of Ornament, by Owen Jones, was published in 1856. His aim, as stated by himself, was, by " bringing into immediate juxtaposition the many forms of Beauty which every style of ornament presents," to "aid in arresting that unfortunate tendency to be content with copying, whilst the fashion lasts, the forms peculiar to any bygone age, without attempting to ascertain the circumstances which rendered an ornament beautiful because it was appropriate." He thought that if a student of the Beautiful would search out the thoughts of the past, he would find " an ever-gushing fountain in place of a half-filled stagnant reservoir." Mr. Jones endeavours to establish four things (i) that when any style of ornament is universally admired, it is in accordance with the principles of form which exist in Nature ; (2) that, however varied the manifestations of Beauty may be, the leading ideas on which they are based are very few ; (3) that the changes and developments of style have been due to the " sudden throwing off of some fixed trammel, which set thought free for a time, till the new idea, like the old, became again fixed, to give birth in its turn to fresh inventions " ; (4) that future progress is only to be secured by "a return to Nature for fresh inspiration." Mr. Jones lays down 37 Propositions, embodying general principles as to the arrangement of Form and Colour, in architecture, and the decorative Arts, in which there is a great deal of aesthetic wisdom ; e.g. (Proposition 4) " True Beauty results from that repose which the mind xii The Philosophy of Britain 231 feels, when the eye, the intellect, and the affections, are satisfied from the absence of any want." " Beauty of Form is produced by lines growing out one from the other in gradual undulations : there are no excrescences ; nothing could be removed and leave the design equally good or better." His propositions on the relation of Colour to Form are extremely valuable ; and throughout, his demand for general principles is noteworthy. He says (Proposition 36) : "The principles discoverable in the works of the past belong to us ; not so the results." The discussion of Mr. Jones and his friends, on savage Art, on Egyptian, Assyrian, and Persian ornament, on Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arabian Art, etc., are all valu- able. Their condensed form is not due to haste, or to want of thoroughness, but to the extent of research, and the power of epitomising results. The pre-eminence he assigns to Egyptian Art, however, is questionable. He places it in a position of superiority to all the rest of the art of the world. If other styles approach perfection only in so far as they follow the Egyptian, it would seem that the race had fallen from perfection. The Grammar of Ornament, like Charles Blanc's book (see p. 128), is a standard work on its subject. In 1857, Mr. A. J. Symington wrote a diffuse though suggestive book, entitled The Beautiful in Nature, Art, and Life. It is full of appreciative and scattered know- ledge of all kinds ; but it is far too rhetorical, too full of poetical extracts and unverified quotations. It has proved a useful book to many, and if one goes to it without great knowledge of the subject, a sympathetic spirit will gain much from its genuine enthusiasm, and from the idealism which pervades it. Mr. Symington's appreciation of the musical schools deserves special notice. A short treatise on The Principles of Art, by John Addington Symonds, M.D., was published in 1857. It had its origin in a lecture given to the Canynge Society, formed for the restoration of the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe in Bristol, and is in the main an exposition and defence of Mr. Hay's teaching on the subject of Beauty, 232 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. especially his theory that the proportions of visible beauty are strictly analogous to the ratios which govern music ; the author thinking that Mr. Hay had done more than any other writer to find out the scientific basis of Beauty of Form. He first discusses the Beauty that is disclosed through the senses of sight and hearing, noting the pleasure given by variety, continuity, and similarity in the sensations thence arising. He offers a physiological explanation of the pleasures derived from Beauty of Form, tracing them to rhythmical muscular action. He next considers intellectual and moral beauty, and what he calls "the associated emotions " ; but in these sections he deals merely with certain powers of the mind, or of feeling, the exercise of which gives pleasure. A subsequent section is devoted to Ideal Beauty, which is due, he thinks, to the activity of the Imagination, which in exercise gives rise to Art, Poetry, etc. Art includes Nature. " It is Nature, and something more. Nature is substance existing in certain forms, full of forces that are latent or actively at work." But man can "contemplate these objects under other forms, forms of his own invention, that have a fascination of their own," and which, though " taken from Nature," are " fairer and grander than Nature can supply" (pp. 58, 59). In 1858, J. S. Blackie, Professor of Greek in the Uni- versity of Edinburgh, published three discourses On Beauty, delivered in the University of Edinburgh, with an exposition of the doctrine of the Beautiful, according to Plato. It is an enthusiastic defence of the Platonic doctrine of Beauty, against the empiricists, and especially the associationalists. In his first discourse he deals with order, symmetry, pro- portion, and congruity ; in the second, with the ludicrous, perfection, the sublime, and the infinite ; in the third, with expressiveness, moderation, smoothness, delicacy, and cur- vature, variety, novelty, contrast, and the association of ideas ; and in an appendix he discusses the doctrine of Plato. It has the merit of defending the Platonic view of Beauty, with great force and wealth of illustration, against the degenerate teaching of the soi-disant Edinburgh school of Alison and Jeffrey. xii The Philosophy of Britain 233 In his Emotions and the Will (1859) and in his Mental and Moral Science (1868) Professor Alexander Bain has discussed the subject of the "aesthetic emotions." He defines them as "the group of feelings involved in the various Fine Arts." They have three characteristics (i) they have pleasure for their immediate end ; (2) they have no disagreeable accompaniments ; (3) their enjoy- ment is not restricted to one or two, but can be shared by many. The eye and the ear are the two senses through which aesthetic pleasure reaches us ; but what appeals to the other senses, and reaches us through them, may also become the subject of Art, by being idealised. The source of beauty is not one single quality, but many qualities. What may come within the domain of Fine Art are ( I ) the emotions of eye and ear, in their elements ; (2) the intellectual resuscitation of them, other senses co-operating in their revival ; (3) the special emotions, wonder, surprise, novelty, etc. ; (4) Harmony. Mr. Bain next discusses, with some repetition, the pleasurable emotions of sound, with their harmonies, and the pleasurable sensations of sight, with their harmonies ; proceeding thence to complex harmonies, fitness of means to ends, and unity in diversity. He then considers the sublime as a sentiment due to the disclosure of power, and gives an epitome of theories of the Beautiful. It is to be noted, in reference to the three characteristics of aesthetic pleasure mentioned by Mr. Bain, and especially in reference to the third of them, which Aristotle signalised so well viz. its disinterestedness, or its being sharable by others that this is not peculiar to aesthetic pleasure. It is a characteristic of all intellectual life, of scientific knowledge, and of moral as well as of aesthetic pleasure. 1 1 . William B. Scott to Charles Darwin The nineteenth of William B. Scott's Half-Hour Lectures on the History and Practice of the Fine and Ornamental Arts (1861) discusses "Taste and Beauty." It has special 234 The Philosophy of tl'ie Beautiful CHAP. merit, as an artist's discussion of Art. He deals with the common charge of the arbitrariness of taste by showing that it is governed by law, and that the varieties of judgment are due to difference of organisation. In considering the elements of Beauty, he begins with harmony of parts as "the first and most necessary condition" (p. 349), all things being accordant, and a unity underlying all variety. The second condition is symmetry, " every living creature being composed of two halves, each the exact counterpart of the other" (p. 251). When there is a want of this symmetry, it is because Nature has been thwarted by opposing forces, by some disturbing or alien element. " All architect- ure is the triumph of symmetry." It is " not reproduction or imitation of Nature ; on the contrary, it overcomes the law of gravitation by constructive devices." Scott affirms that the good, the beautiful, and the true are but the three forms of the same spirit ; and that the Beautiful is " the appreciation of the good and the true in the bodily life about us" (p. 355). In June of the same year (1861), W. Barns, author of Poems in the Dorsetshire Dialect, discussed the subject of Beauty and Art in Macmillarfs Magazine. His definition is a very vague one, and may be quoted as a foil to the definitions given by more accurate thinkers. " The beautiful in Nature is the unmarred result of God's first creative or forming will, and the beautiful in Art is the result of the unmistaken working of man in accordance with the beauti- ful in Nature." To affirm that Beauty is the outcome of a forming will defines or explains nothing. Mr. Barns goes on to identify the Beautiful with the good and the fit. The beauty of colours lies in their fitness or harmony ; and it is the same with the beauty of landscape. In discussing the beautiful in Art, he quotes a Welsh sentence : " The three main necessities for a man of awen (artistic genius) are an eye to see Nature, a heart to feel Nature, and boldness to follow Nature." Barns also tries to show how the study of Art gives keener insight into the beauties of Nature. In 1865, Miss Frances Power Cobbe contributed a very able article to Eraser's Magazine, on "the Hierarchy of xii The Philosophy of Britain 235 Art," which was republished in her Studies, Ethical and Social, issued in the same year. In it she distinguishes three orders of priesthood " in the sacred service of the Beautiful" (i) the primary, or creative artists : the poets, architects, sculptors, painters, composers of music ; (2) the secondary, or reproductive artists : the dramatic performers, translators, copyists, engravers, performers of music ; and (3) the tertiary, or receptive artists : the dilettanti, who merely appreciate. She distinguishes good from bad art in each of these three classes, and deals with them in detail. Her remarks on the primary art of Poetry are ex- tremely good. It is "the first of the arts, in right of its instrument, its scope, and its durability. ... It is the medium between mind and nature. It is the logos whose father is spiritual and whose mother is corporeal. . . . The true poet sees all history as an epic Odyssey of our humanity. To him creation itself is a divine drama of Prometheus unbound. . . . The poetry of Nature and the poetry of Art alike are God's revelations of the Beautiful. . . . It is by revealing Beauty that Art fulfils its purpose." Professor J. F. Seeley contributed a very interesting paper on the Elementary Principles in Art to Macmillarts Magazine in May 1867. "Art," he says, "is one of the natural forms which are assumed by joy ; what we call the arts are really different ways of being happy." They fill up the blank spaces of our lives, and save us from ennui ; they lift us to higher levels, and send us forward. Mr. Seeley's aim is to show that there are laws or principles in Art and to determine what they are. He seeks for what is common to all the Arts, and adopts Schiller's doctrine that all Art is play or sport. The Muses are the daughters of joy. But while all art is play, it does not follow that the artist is simply one who amuses himself. He is the dispenser of joy, and in order to be so he must be young in spirit. But play is not mirth. There is a serious element in it, a strenuous intense element (as even in games of skill) ; but it has itself for its end, not anything beyond itself. "When the powers of man are at the highest, his gambols are not less mighty than his 236 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. labours." All Art then must "in its total effect be pleasur- able," and it is only after use has been satisfied, that its function begins. The different Arts answer to different faculties, but in all of them, delight is expressed by rhythm or proportion of some kind ; and this rhythm, which runs through our whole existence, and without which life would be comfort- less, is the principal thing in Art. It is present in painting, sculpture, and architecture, no less than in poetry, music, and dancing. Rhythm is regularity in Time ; and regularity in Space is Form. This gives us the first principle in Art ; but added to it there must be imitation. This is the second of the two primary principles. It is imitation which is the passive principle in Art, that gives to it its boundless range ; whereas the other (rhythm or proportion) is the active shaping principle. By the one we find what exists in Nature, and reproduce it ; by the other we give a new interpretation to what we find. In another Review, the Fortnightly, for June 1871, Mr. Edward J. Poynter published a lecture delivered at Man- chester in the winter of the same year, on " Beauty and Realism " in construction and decoration. According to Mr. Poynter, " the qualities of mind required to produce a work of Art are two viz. the power of Design, and the power of Imitation. The power of Design, again, is of two kinds, Constructive and Ornamental. . . . Amongst uncivilised peoples, the art of design, both ornamental and con- structive, is generally far in advance of that of imitation. . . . If we examine the elements of Beauty in constructive design we find that two things are essential first, fitness for the purpose which the object is intended to fulfil ; and second, good workmanship in making it." As to Beauty in constructive design, if colour, form, and workmanship be attended to, Nature may be freely imitated. In ornamental design, the imitation of Nature is a principal aim ; and " truth to Nature is the most important necessity in any kind of work which professes to imitate Nature." But Mr. Poynter thinks that the distinction between Realism and Idealism is often far too sharply drawn. xii The Philosophy of Britain 237 They should not be set in opposition to one another. It is difficult for every one, and impossible for the untrained, to decide as to what is true to Nature, and what is not. Any one can see the broad external facts of Nature, but a lifetime of observation is required to see its deeper truths, and to reproduce them in Art. Mr. Poynter's remarks on High Art, on the grand style, on technique, and on manner- ism in Art, are all admirable. The essay is an excellent defence of realism in Art in its profounder aspects, but it is such a realism as leads to and involves the ideal. Mr. Poynter's appreciation of Michael Angelo as the greatest of the realists, is excellent. Ten Lectures on Art, by the same author, published in 1879, are on Decorative Art, systems of art education, objects of art study, the study of Nature, and other topics. In the lecture on Decorative Art he affirms that "an essential element of beauty in the art of Painting is realism" (p. 34). But as tastes differ, he asks if there can be a standard of the Beautiful, and in reply he affirms (i) his distinct consciousness of the beauty of certain things (such as a lily or a rose), and the ugliness of others (e.g. a toad). (2) Differences in taste, artificial estimates of the Beautiful, do not warrant the conclusion that there is no external standard of Beauty. While "truth of Nature is the most important necessity in any work which professes to imitate Nature" (p. 37), too much distinction has been made between the ideal and the real, between the imitation of Nature and its idealisation. "The highest beauty is attained by the highest application of the realistic or imitative faculty" (p. 39). But what is it to be true to Nature ? Realism gives the " highest form of Beauty" only if we " search through Nature for the most beautiful forms and the loftiest characteristics" (p. 43), as Raphael and Michael Angelo did. The Greek artists of the Parthenon "have the supreme right to the title of idealists." Michael Angelo, on the other hand, was, according to Mr. Poynter, "the greatest realist the world has ever seen" (p. 51). He considers Michael Angelo the supreme master in the world of Art, both in grandeur of form, 238 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and expression ; and his idealism was only a higher form of realism. He opposes Mr. Ruskin's view of Angelo and Raphael, and his doctrine that the perception of some moral quality in Beauty is essential to the production of a great work of Art. He holds that " the moral nature of beauty cannot be expressed in painting or sculpture." The beauty must be expressed in the work of Art itself, " and not merely exist in the mind of the artist or be supplied by that of the beholder." Mr. Poynter's book is slightly dis- figured by the bitterness of its attack on Mr. Ruskin, and its excessive eulogy of Michael Angelo as " on the solitary mountain height, where he reigns apart from and above other mortals" (p. 241), but is full of the most valuable art-criticism. In Charles Darwin's Descent of Man (1871) the sense of Beauty is repeatedly discussed. The author of The Origin of Species thinks that it is not a sense peculiar to man. Birds ornament their nests, and appreciate brilliant colours in their mates ; while some animals seem to have a greater sense of Beauty than some men (vol. i. pp. 63, 64). Although it is difficult to distinguish between what is merely curiosity in them, and what is admiration, there is no doubt that the Australian bower-bird possesses the sense of Beauty (vol. ii. p. 112). Darwin gives a high place to the " influence of Beauty in determining the marriages of mankind." The love of ornament is native to man, and primitive art is decorative. He enlarges very much on the diversities of taste as to Beauty amongst savages, and ends his discussion of the " sexual characters of man," in his nine- teenth chapter, with the profound remark that "characters of all kinds may easily be too much developed for beauty. Hence a perfect Beauty, which implies many characters modified in a particular manner, will in every race be a prodigy. As the great anatomist Bichat long ago said, if every one were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de Medici, we should for a time be charmed ; but we should soon wish for variety ; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain xii The Philosophy of Britain 239 characters in our women a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard" (vol. ii. p. 354). 12. Herbert Spencer to Mr. Sully In the second edition of his Principles of Psychology, Ft. VIII. ch. xi. (1872), Mr. Herbert Spencer discusses the " ^Esthetic sentiments " ; and in his Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative (1868), there are several papers on aesthetic questions, e.g. " Use and Beauty," " Sources of Architectural Types," " Personal Beauty," " Gracefulness," " The Origin and Function of Music." In a chapter of his Principles, on "^Esthetic sentiment," Mr. Spencer adopts Schiller's theory of the play-impulse. He separates the utilities which conduce to life, from those which conduce to enjoyment. The energy of all creatures inferior to man is spent in life-maintenance and race-maintenance ; but, in the human race, where these energies are satisfied, there is leisure for something more. Nevertheless it is the old energy finding a new outlet. Play of all kinds is the " superfluous and useless energy of the faculties that have been quiescent" (p. 630). The "useless activity of unsound organs " is play. Play is " simulated actions in place of real actions." From the sport of kittens, or children, or boys, up to the playful conversation of adults in a wit-combat, it is the same. The impulse is carried on for the sake of pleasure, not for any lower utility. If a feeling has any aesthetic character, it has no " life-serving function." Sensations of taste, which are useful, have no aesthetic character. What reaches us through the eye and ear, having less of a life-serving function, has more aesthetic character. Passing from sensation to sentiment, the love of possession has no aesthetic character. A rich man is not an object of the aesthetic sense. But a man who shows prowess, or excels in a deed of daring, is. That the object matter of the aesthetic feelings is things in them- selves, not their uses, is further seen from the fact that many of them tend out to other people. What "brings the 240 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. sensory apparatus into the most effectual unimpeded action " (p. 636) is the origin of Beauty, as regards that sense, especially in regard to the eye and ear. He admits the very great influence of association in helping the primary physical element, which is the source of beauty. The primary source of aesthetic pleasure is that element or quality in an object " which exercises the faculties affected in the most complete ways, with the fewest drawbacks from excess of exercise " (p. 638). A secondary source is the " difference of a stimulus in large amount, which awakens a glow of agreeable feeling"; and a third is the partial revival of the same, with special combinations. A hierarchy, or scale of aesthetic pleasures, is given us thus (i) the pleasure of simple sensation, odours, colours, sounds ; (2) the pleasure which arises from a perception of the com- bination of lights and shades, colours, cadences, and chords, and more especially in " structures of melody and harmony " ; (3) the pleasure which results when sensation and percep- tion combine, and the representative element is predominant, and high emotion results. The highest state is that in which all of these conjoin and co-operate. The aesthetic emotions are not different, " in origin or nature," from any others. They are only " particular modes of excitement of our faculties." They differ from our non-aesthetic sensations perceptions and emotions, which are transitory, in that they are "kept in consciousness, and dwelt upon" (p. 647). In his essay on Personal Beauty, Mr. Spencer makes the suggestive remark that " Expression is feature in the making." The Theory of the Beautiful, a Saturday lecture delivered at Trinity College, Dublin, by John Todhunter, M.D., Professor of English Literature, Alexandra College, Dublin (1872), is a specially valuable essay, and one of the most condensed in our literature. It is a defence of the transcendental idealism of Plato, Schelling, and Hegel, with Jouffroy's Cours cPEsthetique as his "guide-book." The Beautiful is defined as the infinite loveliness which we apprehend both by reason and by " the pure enthusiasm of love," " knowing and feeling being necessary to each other, xii The Philosophy of Britain - 241 and simultaneous" (p. 5). To a certain extent each man has his own canons of .taste, and there is no recognised infallible authority to which we can refer for guidance" (p. 9) ; but it is the same with our ethical judgments. In both, however, there is "an approach to unanimity," and the more cultivated men are, the more they agree as to Beauty. The variability in taste depends on us, and on defects in us, not upon the Beautiful itself. Dr. Todhunter discusses (ist) the characteristics of objects in which Beauty exists, and (2d) the effects pro- duced in us by them. He reduces the miscellaneous mass of beautiful things to two categories (i) beauty of form and colour, and (2) beauty of rhythm and sound. He asks if we can abstract form from colour and rhythm from sound, and a beauty remain in each of them. He main- tains that there is a beauty of pure form apart from colour, and a beauty of pure sound apart from rhythm. A design drawn on a white ground with black ink, a bit of blue sky, silent symmetrical movement seen at a distance, and a single pure note of an instrument are cases in point. But he goes on to affirm, with some contradiction, that there is a form inseparable from colour, and a rhythm which reveals itself in hue. Form and rhythm respectively divide space and time ; they also measure them. Form is a statical idea, and expresses molecular rest ; rhythm is a dynamical idea, and expresses molecular motion. All form and all rhythm are not beautiful ; the form must be symmetrical, and the rhythm must be harmonious. Dr. Todhunter makes some acute remarks on the relation of the seven colours of the spectrum to the seven notes of the musical scale. He finds that Order and Proportion are conditions of the Beautiful Order being Symmetry (or the interdepend- ence of parts by which each contributes to the perfection of the whole) ; and Proportion being Harmony (or the inter- dependence of parts which most satisfies the mind) ; and both together resulting enabling the objects that possess them to fulfil their function in the universe. Every object that has beauty has also expression. A poem, a piece of music, a statue, a beautiful face, " all bring us into contact R 242 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. with other minds besides our own'. 3 (p. 16). But "the sunset and the landscape do not express the human mind." . . . "What," he asks, "if the beauty itself be the expression of something behind this material world, some character of that Invisible of which the visible is the reve- lation ?" (p. 17). Passing to a consideration of the effects produced in us by objects that are beautiful, he says they may be all summed up in the one word "joy." But joy and pleasure are different things, and all that gives pleasure is not beautiful. Pleasures are either interested or disinterested. The things that give us interested pleasure are not beautiful, although the same thing may be both beautiful and useful. The use and the beauty are not the same, else they would always coexist, and would increase and diminish together. But we have disinterested pleasures which are purely sympa- thetic, and which take us out of ourselves altogether. The emotion of the beautiful is one of them. It is not only dis- interested, it has in it an element of worship. We revere it, and yet we long to be absorbed into it. There is more than sympathy in the emotion of the beautiful. Sympathy unites similar personalities, but love unites dissimilar ones. Transcending experience, it carries us into the region of the unknown. It is "a rapture of love, like that of Endymion for his goddess, of a mortal for an immortal, who perpetu- ally melts from his embrace " (p. 20). In his concluding section Dr. Todhunter asks what this is intrinsically " which speaks to us through forms, colours, sounds ? and what does it say to us ? " He answers that it is not something merely pleasant to the senses, or interest- ing to the intellect, or delightful to the emotions, it is " something that we instinctively recognise as good and right in and for itself." It is the " revelation of a more perfect order of things," " no product of blind forces, but of forces working intelligently, and with mutual helpfulness towards a definite end." Through it we pass beyond our- selves to the Divine. But it is a double revelation. Beauty also reveals ugliness ; the cosmos discloses its opposite, a chaos ; and " the mystery of Harmony is that its perfection xii 'The Philosophy of Britain 243 consists in its being imperfect. It proceeds by the endless resolution of discord. There is always a remnant of dis- cord to be removed, and this suggests higher harmonies " (pp. 22, 23). "The essence of Harmony is that it unites dissimilar elements, so that by the very clashing of their natures they enhance each other's perfection. . . . Beauty is, in fact, the reconciliation of contradictions, a Hegelian identity of opposites" (p. 23). Further, it is a progressive idea. " It must include more and more in its signification, as our knowledge of the mysteries of the universe becomes more profound" (p. 25). The last essay in Mr. James Sully's Sensation and Intui- tion; Studies in Psychology and ^Esthetics (1874), is "On the possibility of a science of ^Esthetics." Essays 7, 8, and 9 are on the basis of musical sensation, the aspects of Beauty in Musical Form, and the nature and limits of musical experience; while Essays 10 and n discuss the aesthetic aspects of Character, and the representation of character in Art. Mr. Sully is a representative English writer on the sub- ject of aesthetics, and no one has done better service to the school which he champions, although many will dispute the conclusions at which he arrives. He affirms with notable catholicity that no one prin- ciple of ./Esthetics has absolute validity, but that relative validity is all we need, alike in Ethics and ^Esthetics. He provisionally defines the essence of Art as " the produc- tion of some permanent object, or passing action, which is fitted not only to supply an active enjoyment to the pro- ducer, but to convey a pleasurable impression to a number of spectators or listeners, quite apart from any personal advantage to be derived from it." He thinks (and here many will disagree with him) that the labours of meta- physicians to discover the source of Beauty are of no use towards a science of Art, because the properties of Art " are innumerable, and can only be subsumed under some such conception as pleasurability." Its essence is to "gratify certain emotional susceptibilities." "Art, in its first and simplest aspect, is a mere variation and expansion of 244 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. pleasures imparted to the eye and ear by nature." He refers to the labours of Alison, Bain, and Spencer in classify- ing pleasures, and then gives what he regards as a more complete system of aesthetic pleasure (i) Primary plea- sures of stimulation, due to single organic impressions; (2) secondary ones, due to a plurality of impressions; (3) ideal revivals of these, when the idea is one of immediate inference ; (4) pleasures of ideal recollection ; (5) pleasures of intuition ; (6) pleasures of imagination. In discussing these pleasures we get " the first dimen- sion in the aesthetic measure, viz. extension." It will be noted that, in pointing out what falls to be discussed under some of these heads, Mr. Sully takes up the despised metaphysical problem. The important result, however, is that we reach "certain approximately universal laws of pleasurable impression " ; e.g. it is possible to define the organic conditions of pleasure in sound and in colour ; further, a variation of the elements of sensation and emotion is always necessary for clearness and intensity of conscious- ness ; and, in addition, feeling, once excited, tends to persist. These are " constant laws of aesthetic enjoyment," and every work of Art must conform to them. So much for " the dimension of extension." But in addition to this, Art demands, in the next place, "a dimension of intention, or degree"; and this Mr. Sully finds (i) in the utilitarian rule of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. He would measure the value of an aesthetic pleasure on the one hand, and of a work of Art on the other, by their respective universality and permanence. (2) Some aesthetic pleasures are, in their nature, purer, more durable, and more easily recovered than others are ; and therefore a work of Art is higher than others according as it affords a purer pleasure to "atypical aesthetic nature." (3) If the first condition seems too concrete, and the second too abstract, a third lies midway between them. It seeks to separate what is " large and abiding " in aesthetic tendency, from what is " variable and transient " ; thus giving a con- crete basis to the aesthetic ideal and to Art. Hence the importance of a study of the development xii The Philosophy of Britain 245 of the aesthetic tendencies of the race, as seen in the history of Art. Mr. Sully finds that there has been a pro- gressive growth in the number of aesthetic pleasures, and in their variety ; and, in comparing the lower stages with the higher ones, there is "an immense increase in the quantity of pure enjoyment." What, however, are the essential features of the pro- gress ? Slightly modifying Mr. Spencer's classification, Mr. Sully holds that our aesthetic feelings become more refined, intense, and frequent, (i) according as we discriminate things more accurately and assimilate them more rapidly, and (2) according as our powers of retention and reproduc- tion increase. For example, the distinction of shades of colour, and of sound, open up to the artist's eye and to the musician's ear pleasures of which others have no con- ception. Hidden sources of pleasure are thus discerned ; while the power of retaining, and of rapidly reproducing old experiences, or of bringing former pleasures again on the stage by vividness or alertness of faculty, is a new source of pleasure. Signs that awaken no feeling to the ordinary mind, suggest a train of ideas to the cultivated eye, and widen the area of pleasure. Therefore, according to the refinement and the complexity of pleasures, they may be arranged in an ascending scale, and the higher pleasures are not only more permanent, but they tend to recur more frequently. Mr. Sully gives his final definition of aesthetics in these terms : " A work is aesthetic which, through impressions of the eye or of the ear, satisfies some pleasurable suscepti- bility, and satisfies some universal law of pleasurable impression ; highly artistic, when it affords a large number of such pleasurable impressions ; further, when these feel- ings are either permanent emotional needs of the human heart, or refined and complex products of mental develop- ment." He subsequently deals with what he regards as " the second branch of aesthetics," viz. artistic effect. Mr. Sully has also discussed the subject, on similar lines, in his Outlines of Psychology (1884), in numerous essays in Mind especially one on "The Harmony of Colours" 246 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. (April 1879) and in his article on "Esthetics" in the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the latter he gives an excel- lent summary of the history of opinion, so far as it goes. Mr. Sully naturally emphasises the views of writers to which a representative of the opposite school will attach little importance, and he omits the names of many authors whose writings seem of great value to idealists. He has, however, done nothing so complete as the thirteenth essay of his Sensation and Intttition (1824). Some will doubtless feel, after the most careful perusal of his book, that his elaborate tracing of the source of pleasure, his analytic study of the separate strands of sensa- tion, emotion, imagination, and thought all of which enter into our complex enjoyment of the Beautiful is outside the main problem of aesthetics. It is extremely interesting as a psychological analysis, but a series of measurements of pleasure is not the whole even of aesthetic Science ; while the Philosophy of the Beautiful essays something very different. The outcome of his teaching is hostile to any standard of Beauty. Beauty is not an intrinsic quality of objects. The harmony of the pleasures of sense, intellect, and feeling is all that we are conscious of; and the whole effect of Beauty comes to be the pressure on us of " a mass of pleasurable stimulus for sense, intellect, and emotion." 13. Canon M 02 ley to Mr. Grant Allen In Professor J. B. Mozley's Ser?nons preached before the University of Oxford, published in 1876, there is one on " Nature " which contains a distinct contribution to the Philosophy of the Beautiful. " Nature," says Dr. Mozley, "has two great revelations that of Use, and that of Beauty ; and the first thing we observe about these two characteristics is that they are bound together, and tied to each other. . . . But, united in their source, in themselves they are totally separate." The laws of Nature throw off Beauty. He observes that a new passion for scenery, and for natural beauty, has sprung up in our time and pene- xii The Philosophy of Britain 247 trated to the masses of society. This has given rise to a new and vast fabric of poetical language, in which Nature is regarded, not as useful, but as pictorial. Yet the two are one, and the picture is as immediate a vision of the Divine as the utilities of Nature are. Beauty in Nature is an extra, which baffles the materialist. " Physical science goes back and back into Nature " ; but here, on " the front of Nature," not in its interior recesses, lies a raiment of Beauty, " the garment we see Him by." Beauty in Nature is the visible disclosure of Reason ; and while a study of the phenomena of Nature discloses their multitudinous uses, these phenomena do not explain the beauty that is in it. " The glory of Nature," says Mr. Mozley, " resides in the mind of man ; there is an inward intervening light through which the material objects pass ; a transforming medium which converts the physical assemblage into a picture." These material objects are transformed by the light which comes from within the percipient. " Nature is partly a veil, and partly a revelation." Mr. Mozley unites this semi- Berkeleyan doctrine with a more explicit Platonism. All Nature is symbolic of man. We cannot describe Nature without the help of terms that are human, although we cannot tell how it is that material things are emblematical of man. Nature inspires us both with awe and with a sense of greatness and glory. How ? Because it utters a language, which speaks to us of the Divine, and because its dumb hieroglyphics "surpass its speech." Nature is full of enigmas, but its spirit addresses us through symbols, and " creates in Nature a universal language about itself." Canon Mozley has endeavoured to broaden the basis of Natural Theology by taking in more than the teleological view of adjustment, and by arguing directly from the Beauty that exists in the world to a Source that is infinitely beautiful. In his Natural Theology of Natural Beauty ', Mr. St. John Tyrwhitt has amplified the teaching of Mr. Mozley. He adopts the physical explanation of the origin of a sense of beauty ; and, while he does not think it proved that birds have been guided in choosing their mates by the 248 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. selection of the most brilliant colours, or bees by selecting the brightest flower, he says that if it were so, it "would only prove that Beauty was a rule of natural selection." We cannot bring man into the category of the lower animals, " whether we level upwards or downwards," until "a dog or an elephant can be shown to be affected by the colours of sunrise and sunset, or by a starry night" (p. 23). He regards the sense of Beauty in man as "a spiritual supple- ment to the sense of sight" (p. 24). If Beauty be objective and subjective, objective Beauty is the " power with which natural objects are endowed," subjective beauty includes " our ideas of Beauty, with the whole field of art " (p. 27). Mr. Tyrwhitt's historical section is meagre and rhetori- cal, but his chapter entitled " Design within, and Beauty without " is much better, and his remarks on Turner and Ruskin are the best in his book. His argument is that the visible and natural discloses the invisible and super- natural ; and that this is done by the disclosure (i) of mind, as seen in structural design, and (2) of Beauty, as seen in form and colour. In Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion, by Sydney Dobell, published posthumously in 1876, there is a chapter on " Beauty, Love, Order, Unity." Beauty is defined as " the harmony of rhythmic parts." Its " primary principles are order and unity. But it is not enough for Beauty that it embody the primary principles. . . . When an object, having order and unity, has variety and a grada- tion of change that can be perceived without violent action," the result is beauty. There is much, however, that is fanci- ful in the detached thoughts of Dobell. The Fine Arts, and their Uses, by Mr. William Bellars, 1876. In this book are discussed (i) "Principles," (2) what are called "the fugitive Arts," (3) "the permanent Arts," and (4) " the subsidiary Arts." The first section deals with Beauty and Sublimity. The discussion is too rhetorical, and the classification of theories of Beauty as those which "make Taste a matter of the intellectual, the physical, and the moral nature" (p. 53), is not a happy one. "The essence of Beauty would seem to lie in its affecting us with xii The Philosophy of Britain 249 pleasure, immediately and intuitively.' 3 This may be a condition of our recognising it, but it can never be its "essence." It is elsewhere defined as "the instinctive perception of goodness." If we follow the Beauty developed for us in Nature, we cannot go wrong ; but all Nature is not beautiful ; some of it only has an " aesthetic value " (p. 63). It is by comparing one of Nature's products with others, that we find the standard of Beauty ; and those things in Nature which are not useful "are sure to be beautiful." Decay in Nature, for example, is beautiful. " If the sense of Beauty be the instinctive perception of good- ness, that of sublimity is the instinctive perception of great- ness " (p. 68), the recognition of superiority. In the same year (1876), The Witness of Art, or the Legend of Beauty, by Mr. Wyke Bayliss, appeared. The aim of this book is conveyed in the following sentence : "The language of Art is not simply a dialect through which we transmit our own thoughts. It is the one universal tongue, which has never been confounded. ... It is the logos, through which the silence of Nature speaks to us " (p. 15). To find the standard of Beauty, we must look elsewhere than to our untaught instincts of liking and dis- liking (p. 20). The book contains a comparison between the Greek and the mediaeval artists of the Beautiful. The aim of Greek, and of classic Art generally, was to reach the ideal, " the passionless splendour of ideal beauty." It was cold; it had no expression (p. 57); "sorrow and pain were excluded from it " (p. 60). While the Christendom of the early centuries had no art at all, in the renaissance Art we find the glow of devotion, and the suffering of Chris- tianity embodied. " Passionate expression " is the dominant note of Christian Art. This degenerated in the later schools ; and, as a reaction from it, we find that the life and strength of modern Art consists in its direct appeal to Nature, where the ideal is sought in the manifold and varied types of the natural world. In his Physiological ^Esthetics, published in 1877, Mr. Grant Allen followed in the track opened up by Mr. Sully. His book is an attempt to reply to the question which 250 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Darwin had left unanswered, viz. why man (and the lower animals) prefer certain brilliant colours and rhythmical sounds to others that are not brilliant or rhythmic. His inquiry might either be called a psychological or a physio- logical one, because he tries to show that all our "aesthetic feelings are constant subjective counterparts of certain definite nervous states" (p. viii.) a proposition which no- body can deny. He seems to think that his " not being an excessive devotee of fine art in any form," is a qualifica- tion which helps him in his psychological analysis ; and he thinks he has solved the mysteries of the problem by proving that our likings and dislikings as to beauty are " the necessary result of natural selection." He tries to prove " the purely physical origin of the sense of beauty, and its relativity to our nervous organisation " (p. 2), and this with the view of dealing in the same way " with the intellect and the affections." He explicitly announces him- self as a follower of Messrs. " Spencer, Bain, and Maudsley," and informs us that he regards the aesthetic feelings as intermediate links between the bodily senses and the higher emotions, all of which he proposes to " affiliate upon a physiological law of pleasure and pain." The rock on which his theory suffers shipwreck is seen in his definition of aesthetic pleasures and pains, as those " which result from the contemplation of the beautiful or ugly in Art or Nature." He starts by taking for granted the existence of what he at once tries to explain away. He begins by an analysis of pleasure and pain in general. All pain is due to waste, or the arrested action of sentient tissue. All pleasure is due to the normal action of tissue ; it is its reflex. But the differentia of aesthetic pleasure must be found out. Mr. Allen distinguishes, as Mr. Spencer had done, the labour that is spent on providing for our physical wants the life-sustaining and life-giving processes, entered upon for a definite purpose, from those activities which are entered upon " merely for the gratification which the activity affords" (p. 32). The latter is of two kinds (i) the play-impulse, (2) that which gives rise to Art and to aesthetic pleasure. Both have pleasure for their immediate xii The Philosophy of Britain 251 end ; but the first is active, while the second is passive. When we actively exercise our limbs and muscles for the sake of pleasure, the play-impulse is at work ; when we passively exercise our eyes and ears, the aesthetic impulse is at work, which Mr. Allen defines thus "the subjective concomitant of the normal amount of activity, not directly connected with life-serving function, in the peripheral end- organs of the cerebro-spinal nervous system " (p. 34). It is " when we arrange certain colours, or musical notes in certain orders, expressly for the pleasure which their perception will give us, that we call the result Art" (p. 37). But Mr. Allen does not admit that there is anything in- trinsic in objects which calls forth this aesthetic pleasure. " The aesthetic quality of objects is so slight that it requires the exercise of attention to bring it definitely into con- sciousness." It only amounts to this, that, when " the sensational wave is very great," it gets the better of the intellectual wave, and "hence arises the apparent object- ivity of Beauty and ugliness." " The aesthetically beautiful is that which affords the maximum of stimulation with the minimum of fatigue or waste. . . . The aesthetically ugly is that which fails to do so" (p. 39). After referring to the disinterested character of all aesthetic feeling, he dis- cusses the variety of tastes. The blind and the deaf are of course cut off from certain aesthetic feelings ; so are the colour-blind. Tastes must differ with differences of organ- isation ; but there is a common element in them all, with- out which Art " would be impossible " a major unity within the minor variety. It is easy to explain the variety by structural peculiarities in physique. Taste too can be educated ; and while we cannot impose a standard on any one, we must accept as a relative standard, valid for all, "the judgments of the finest -nurtured and most discriminative" (p. 48). These create the taste of the next generation. Minute beauties, which are overlooked by the uneducated, are noticed by the trained eye and ear ; and as we compare our own judgments as to beauty with those of others, our standard is raised. To what, for ex- ample, is the appreciation of the "great masters" in Art 252 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. due ? To the influence and association of an ever- widening experience. Passing over his analysis of the special senses, and what he ranks as the "lower senses" touch, hearing, and sight which are all "of unmistakably bodily origin," he deals next with those which are " ideal or mental," in order to see if these can be brought into accordance with his main principle. He finds that, when gratification is connected with our own personality, the pleasure is "too monopolist to reach the aesthetic level ; but when it is un- connected in thought with our own personality, it becomes a subject of aesthetic employment" (p. 211). It is thus that he explains the origin of the sister arts of poetry and painting. Two years after the publication of his Physiological ^Esthetics, in 1879, Mr. Allen issued, in what he called '"An Essay on Comparative Psychology," some of the materials which he had collected for his former book, but had not made use of, and which he then called The Colour Sense ; its Origin and Development. They were origin- ally designed for a chapter on " The Genesis of Esthetics." Mr. Allen's primary idea was that the taste for bright colours was derived by man from his " frugivorous an- cestors " ; and that he was, in this respect, on a par with all flower-feeding and fruit-eating animals, who showed it in the selection of their mates. Two books which appeared after the Physiological ^Es- thetics controverted this position. Dr. H. Magnus, in his Geschichte Entwickelung des Farbensinen, maintained that the colour - sense of mankind originated about the Homeric period ; and Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, in his Tropical Nature, attacked the theory of sexual selection altogether. To reply to these books, The Colour Sense was written. It is an extremely able book ; and its conclusions might be accepted without scruple by those who do not believe that evolution is the same thing as derivation. Mr. Allen affirms that the highest aesthetic products of the race are only the "last link of a chain whose first link 'began with the insect's selection of bright-hued blossoms " (p. 281). In connection with The Colour Sense, a very able article xii The Philosophy of Britain 253 by Mr. Sully in Mind (April 1879), on "The Harmony of Colour," should not be overlooked. Mr. Allen has contributed many articles on Esthetics to Mind: one on " The Origin of the Sublime " (July 1878), another on " The Origin of the Sense of Symmetry " (July 1879), a third on "The ^Esthetic Evolution of Man" (Oct. 1880). Seeking for the primary source of the appre- ciation of Beauty by man, he thinks it best to begin with its foreshadowings amongst the lower animals, in their taste for symmetry, colour, and lustre, and also for sound. He notes the fact that every animal instinctively regards its own species with approval, and that each individual thinks its mate beautiful. Further, the typical form of each species is the most beautiful ; and this normal type is preferred in all healthy natures. Natural selection and sexual selec- tion co-operate, and the strongest and best physical struc- tures are usually the most beautiful. The primitive ideas of beauty " gathered mainly round the personality of man and woman." There was very little appreciation of the beauty of Nature, but a link of connection between the two was found in personal decoration. The feelings vaguely aroused by beautiful objects were transferred to ornaments, and thus diverted into new channels ; and the appreciation of beauty in Handicraft led on to an appreciation of it in Nature. After personal adornment came the decoration of weapons, and domestic utensils, the home, etc. An article on " The Evolution of Beauty," by F. T. Mott, published in The Journal of Science (July 1878), is a noteworthy contribution to the general question. Mr. Mott says we can only explain organic phenomena by taking into account " the internal sources of activity," as well as the external ones. " The visible beauty of the organic world depends upon the correlation between the sense organs of the human race, and the concentrating wave of organic force " (p. 380), that builds up each structure into its form, as an organic whole. That an object should appear beautiful is not the result of accidental surroundings, nor of " any super- ficial garment spread over an ugly or repulsive interior. The elements of the beautiful are inherent in all things " 254 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. (pp. 380, 381). Beauty, says Mr. Mott, is an abstract idea like Truth and Goodness, and what causes it to arise in us is our perception of " ordered activity," or unity in variety. All objects that appear beautiful must be compounded of a variety of parts, and the mind that perceives the beautiful must be " sensitive to small shades of difference " in the parts. The active and rapid discernment of these minute shades of difference, which exist in every object, is the first condition of a recognition of the Beautiful ; but there is more than this. There must not only be a perception of difference, but also of similarity under the difference, of identity in some things and of difference in others, of like in difference. If phenomena form a group, and appear as a unity (whether of form, colour, motion, or purpose), the object is recog- nised as beautiful. Mr. Mott thinks that " a mind abso- lutely sensitive to all shades of difference, and to all degrees of relationship at the same time, would see everywhere throughout creation variety bound up in unity, would find neither monotony nor change, discord nor ugliness, but only a universal beauty" (p. 382). Beauty is "inherent in every object." Its presence is " an index of organic maturity." It is "only unseen during embryonic stages " (p. 383). 14. William Morris to W. P. Ker In 1878-1881, Mr. William Morris, author of The Earthly Paradise, delivered five lectures in Birmingham, London, etc., on what he called Hopes and Fears for Art. These lectures were published in 1881. His paper on " The Lesser Arts," and another on " The Beauty of Life," are of great value. In the year 1878 he published The Decorative Arts, in one section of which, on " The Aims of Art," he affirms that in the lives of all men there are moods of energy and moods of idleness, recurrent or combined, and that this explains why they have always cherished and practised Art. The restraining of rest- lessness is one of the essential aims of Art. " To in- crease the happiness of men by giving them beauty to xii The Philosophy of Britain 255 amuse their leisure, and to prevent them wearying even of rest, and giving them hope and pleasure in work ; or, shortly, to make work happy and rest fruitful," that is the aim of Art. Genuine Art is thus an unmixed blessing to the race. It has, however, at the present time deteriorated, and is disesteemed ; but "the springs of art in the human mind are deathless." In the Middle Ages, when the work- men who produced it were serfs, Art flourished ; and then it was social, hopeful, joyous, and progressive. Now it is "retrospective and pessimistic." The haste of our modern life, its stress and strain, is alien to Art. The world is everywhere growing uglier and more commonplace. It is the greed, the haste to be rich, which disfigures our nine- teenth century, which has wounded Art to its death. " The monster who has destroyed Beauty is Commercial Profit" Mr. Morris warns us against trying to revivify it "by dealing with its dead exterior." " It is the aims of Art that we must seek, rather than the Art itself" ; and if we reso- lutely set ourselves against all sham and unreality in it, we will enter into our inheritance of courage, and hope, and eager life. The Science of Beauty ', an Analytical Inquiry into the Laws of dEsthetics^ by Mr. Avery W. Holmes-Forbes, was published in 1881. Mr. Forbes is an idealist, who denies the inherent beauty of objects. He starts from the position, which he calls a metaphysical principle, but which is only a psychological assertion, that all our knowledge is know- ledge of self in its various modes. The "beautiful qualities" of objects are therefore "mental creations." "An object which we call beautiful must be endowed with this quality by the mind, and then resorted to by the mind, as though the object possessed that quality inherently and independ- ently " (p. i o). Mr. Forbes then puts forth what he calls "a code " of laws, on the subject of the beautiful, as follows : (i) The subjective element of beauty consists in the emotion of admiration. (2) The objective element of beauty consists in the quality of suggestiveness. (3) Beauty attaches only to utility. (4) The appearance of beauty varies in- versely with the appearance of utility. 256 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In his discussion of the objective elements of Beauty he advances what he considers to be a new theory of Poetry, viz. that it " consists in the liberation of beautiful analogies." What is true in this is not new, and what is new is not true. But in his discussion of the subjective element in Beauty, the chapter devoted to the discussion of the theory that the appearance of Beauty varies inversely with the appearance of utility (pp. 132-156) contains much that is excellent. In chap. viii. there is a discussion on Sublimity ; and as to it Mr. Holmes-Forbes' propositions are (i) that Sublimity attaches only to Power, and (2) that the appear- ance of Sublimity varies inversely with the appearance of power. In the Journal of Science, February and March 1882, Mr. F. Ram discusses "Beauty in the eyes of an evolu- tionist." He derives it altogether from the operation of the principles of Natural and Sexual Selection. It is im- portant to state his theory impartially, but its statement contains its disproof. Those who delight most in the qualities which make an individual the fittest to survive in the struggle for existence will have a more numerous off- spring than those who do not, and by their survival a taste will be created ! It is those qualities which have tended to produce " the largest number of descendants in any race that constitute Beauty among that race " (p. 78). "If there had never been sexual selection, there would have been no beauty " (p. 79). The beauty of a good complexion is due to the rapidity with which the red corpuscles of arterial blood are carried to the extremities. " The physical fact creates the beauty." Whatever physical arrangement would give promise of many descendants, or facilitate the increase of the species in the greatest degree, would ipso facto become the most beautiful ! Beauty is thus not only wholly ex- trinsic, but wholly due to physical causes, and these the most utilitarian possible. Art and the Formation of Taste, by Miss Lucy Crane, was published in 1882. Miss Crane points out that Art originally meant force or strength, man's work on Nature, " a world of itself, created out of Nature by the hand xii The Philosophy of Britain 257 of the artist- workman." " To it we owe everything which appeals to the sense of beauty" (p. 5). Its aim is "to give pleasure by transforming the things of Nature into the beauty of picture, statue, or building. ... It is Beauty that is sought for in all these " (p. 7). Art is to be con- sidered in three stages (i) in its original stage, purely necessary and useful ; (2) Art decoration ; (3) Fine Art. " The general aim of Art is Beauty ; and the appreciation of that Beauty, the true enjoyment of it, is Taste; and there are certain principles by which Taste may be formed and guided" (p. 48). "Art is a universal language, intelli- gible to the whole world alike " (p. 242). Decorative Art yields Beauty of Form and Beauty of Colour. The Fine Arts Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Music, Architecture "exist for Beauty alone." They are "the very head and crown of all that man has ever achieved" (p. 153). They are "the most lasting and stable things in the world's history." She thinks, however, that there can be "no universal formula " of the Beautiful. Mr. Ruskin's " thing by itself," Mr. Darwin's "sense of beauty in its simplest form is nothing more than the reception of a peculiar kind of pleasure from certain colours, forms, and sounds," do not help us much. She falls back on " the opinion of the majority," i.e. of the educated race. But beauty "is not tc be explained. When we have said that some forms and colours are agreeable, while others are disagreeable, we have said all we can" (p. 160). These lectures, however, though defective in their funda- mental basis, and slightly put together for popular uses, are full of information and of real insight, especially on the subjects of sculpture and architecture ; while Miss Crane's pictures of the three great Florentines, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, based upon a sketch by M. Cle'ment, are extremely vivid delineations. In a volume of Essays in Philosophical Criticism, pub- lished in 1883, Professor W. P. Ker contributed one on "the Philosophy of Art." He thinks that all Plato's various teaching on Art is the expansion of a saying of Socrates in the Protagoras that discussion on poetry and S 258 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. its meaning should be left to those whose education is not v finished. Art with all its excellence could not suffice for man without philosophy. Plato's philosophy of Art was almost wholly negative. The outcome of his teaching is " that there is one idea of Beauty, eternal, the same with itself, consisting not in the likeness of anything in heaven or earth, and that earthly beauty is a stage on the way to this" (p. 163). The theory that Art is but a stage toward true knowledge, and its value mainly educative, Mr. Ker regards as a meagre and an incomplete theory, and one that is "of very doubtful value if taken by itself" (p. 164). Art is not an education for an end different from Art itself (p. 1 66) ; and the problem which the philosophy of Art has to solve is " what is the kind of end which the artist attains?" (p. 167). Art and Science are very similar at the outset, but completed Science differs from completed Art. In the former, individual things, pheno- mena, are of use only as yielding laws and principles. In Art the particular things have a reality, an interest, and a value of their own. A scientific fact is explained by its relation to other things ; an artistic product explains itself. " Science has to go on, increasing the sum of knowledge, t without drawing any nearer the end. Art is an attempt to find a cure for this. It is a mode in which the mind can make part of the objective world intelligible to itself without being troubled by continual reference to other parts of the objective world beyond the limits it has chosen. It is a return of the mind to itself from seeking fact after fact, and law after law, in the objective world ; a recognition that the mind itself is an end to itself, and its own law" (p. 173). f. t "In Art the opposition between the one and the many, between the law and its manifestation, between the subject and the object, is overcome, not by the abolition of the dis- tinction between them, but by so uniting them that each receives the meaning of the other" (p. 176). Art is both a revelation and the vindication of freedom. It is not to be explained by the categories of the finite, still less by physio- logical detail, which refer only to its conditions. It is self- sufficing, and there is an infinite element in it, because it is xii The Philosophy of Britain 259 " free from the darkness and incomprehensibility, which is the curse of finite things" (p. 178). It is higher than science, because it is " not limited by an objective world," and "can boast of conquests which are absolute." The philosophy of Art is less abstract than pure metaphysics or ethics. It deals with its creations, not in their universality, but in their individuality. Its philosophy is a philosophy of History as well ; and explaining the causes which led to the rise of particular arts at particular times, it shows their relation to the universal life and the organic thought of the world. Mr. Ker's is one of the ablest of modern essays. to be ranked with Dr. Todhunter's lecture (see p. 240). 15. W. G. Collingwood to J. A. Symonds The Philosophy of Ornament (1883) eight lectures on the History of Decorative Art, given at University College, Liverpool by W. Gershom Collingwood, is one of the very best discussions of the subject in our literature. It deals with the earliest beginnings of Art, with that of Egypt and Assyria, Persia, China, and Japan, with Greek and Gothic Art, with the cinque cento renaissance, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and with the art of the present day. It is doubtful if in any compend on the subject there is such a philosophic group of principles and such condensed exposition of detail. The title of the book is aptly chosen, because these unpretentious lectures are fertile with the germs of a profound philosophy of Art. It will live, when more ambitious treatises are forgotten. In the same year (1883) Mr. T. C. Horsfall, of Man- chester, issued a little book, which he called The Study of Beauty and Art, in Large Towns, with an Introduction by Mr. Ruskin. Though he says it is impossible to give an exact definition of Beauty, he thinks it is possible to advance some "unquestionable truths respecting its nature." He finds a close analogy between the beauty which appeals to- the eye and that which appeals to the ear. What he calls Sensuous Beauty owes its charm to " giving to our nervous 260 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. system an activity which is conducive to health." He next says, somewhat vaguely, that an important element in Beauty is Tightness, i.e. the object regarded by us as beauti- ful must have "the qualities which it ought to have." Mr. Horsfall shows how the love of Beauty gives knowledge, and still better, he shows how by a strong love of Beauty beautiful things become part of ourselves ; while to love Beauty is to see it almost everywhere. Mr. Horsfall has been the life and soul of the movement in Manchester to establish an Art Museum for the people, and its remarkable success is almost exclusively due to his continuous labour in the cause. In 1885 a volume appeared on The Nature of the Fine Arts, by Mr. H. Parker. It discusses Art and Science, Theory and Practice, Realism, Taste, and the several arts. It is full of scattered wisdom, but is ill arranged ; and even in each chapter the discussion, abounding in wealth of illus- tration, is inconsecutive. It abandons a theory of the Beautiful in favour of a critical discussion of the Arts. In a series of eight articles contributed to Knowledge (from loth April to 22d May 1885) the late Miss Constance C. W. Naden expanded an address which she originally read to a meeting of the Mason Science College Union at Birmingham in the previous year. These papers contain one of the ablest statements of the experiential theory of the origin of Beauty, and our appreciation of it ; and it is to be regretted that they were not reproduced in the volume of Miss Naden's essays, posthumously issued. They are of much greater value than the other papers which have been published. Miss Naden begins by provisionally defining Beauty as "that quality or assemblage of qualities which please the eye," but proceeds at once to try to answer the question of the origin of the sense of Beauty, and how it has been evolved ; and she seems to identify this inquiry at the outset with the question, " Why we take pleasure in objects natural and artificial." She deals first with the pleasures of Colour, and secondly with those of Form. Beginning with the lilies of the field and the fowls of xii The Philosophy of Britain 261 the air, she asks how the former have gained their variety, delicacy, and brilliancy. Insects seek out flowers that are conspicuous ; and the flowers that are conspicuous possess a charm simply because of their conspicuousness. Similarly, the fowls of the air obtain their brilliancy of plumage by courtship. She follows Mr. Allen in believing that the colour-sense in insects has been developed in connection with the flowers on which they feed, and that of birds and mammals in connection with fruits. Bright flowers, these writers say, attract insects, and therefore the brightness increases from generation to generation. But the radical question is, What led to the first attraction in the primitive brightness ? and that question is not answered by either of them. Miss Naden starts, as Mr. Allen does, from the physio- logical fact that the normal exercise of every function gives pleasure, and that joyous life is the normal activity of the senses ; but she alters Mr. Allen's formula, " the maximum of stimulation with a minimum of fatigue," by substituting the phrase "the maximum of activity." In order to this maximum of activity there must be (i) variety in the stimuli, and (2) " smoothness or continuity." She states, and adopts as a workable hypothesis, the Young-Helmholtz theory of ether- waves, producing according to their re- spective lengths the sensations of red, green, and violet. A single bright colour pleases, because it stimulates, yet permits of rest ; but a contrast of colours gives more pleasure, because it gives more easy and varied action. She criticises Mr. Allen's theory that the prolonged contemplation of a colour overworks the nerves, and therefore lessens its brilli- ancy. Her theory is that the fibres of the retina which have been excited by one colour, when summoned to re- spond to waves of light of a different length, feel discomfort from the new stimulus, which lasts till the old stimulus ceases, and the fibres are tuned to the new one, and so on with other vibrations. Easy gradations from one colour to another being the condition of pleasure, the enjoyment of light and shade is due to " a gradual passing of action into rest, and rest into action." 262 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. In reference to the second set of pleasures Miss Naden follows Mr. Herbert Spencer in his explanation of tile relish for varieties of Form curved lines being preferred to straight or angular ones as due to the easier action of the ocular muscles. The gratification thence resulting is both physical and mental. She credits the " cerebral hemispheres" with "taking note of the similarities and dissimilarities of surrounding objects." "They receive the intellectual stimulus." "A taste for new combinations," developed in the bird, gives rise to all the varieties of colour and form, which are the outcome of a healthy and vigorous life. Miss Naden believed that the aesthetic sense in man sprang originally from very simple germs, but that it has been subjected to numerous and complex influences, which have increased in number and complexity as civilisation has advanced. The energies at first needed exclusively for the maintenance of life, were gradually set free for its advancement. Gradually subtle shades, and gradations of Beauty, began to be noted. Colours came to have emotional meanings. The appreciation of beauty in human form followed, and when mind was seen to be more powerful than brute force, intellectual features were preferred to animal ones in man. Some light has been cast on the evolution of the Greek ideal of Beauty by Sir Francis Dalton's composite photo- graphy. By throwing a number of different portraits rapidly on a sensitised photographic plate, we have for result a generic portrait, with the peculiarities of each removed, and the type of all preserved. This illustrates the formation of generic ideas. Individual features are removed, and the compound image which results is the incarnation of the best or finest features of thousands of individuals. At the close of her discussion, Miss Naden succumbs somewhat helplessly to the influence of her tutors, and her essay brilliant and suggestive as it is ends in rhetorical commonplace. In a critical essay on The Signification and Principles of xii The Philosophy of Britain 263 , Mr. C. H. Waterhouse tries to determine the essential nature of the Fine Arts, to distinguish them from other modes of human activity, and to discover the founda- tion of Art in the nature of man and of the world. Art is the apprehension of the Beautiful, through the avenues of sense. The artist differs from the scientific inquirer in that he creates. Art implies a formative faculty as well as an aesthetic sense ; and the artist studies Form through which feeling finds expression for its own sake. It is the intrinsic attractiveness of Form that gives to the Fine Arts their raison d'etre. Instructive is distinguished from Fine Art in the same way that use is distinguished from orna- ment. When Writing (a useful Art) becomes Illuminating, it is a decorative Art ; so when Building becomes Archi- tecture the utile gives place to the duke. The work, however, is too diffuse and repetitive. An English translation of the introductory part of Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art was issued, with notes and a prefatory essay, by Mr. Bernard Bosanquet in 1886. Earlier in the same year a translation of Michelet's summary of Hegel's system, by W. Hastie, was published along with a part of Hegel's own Introduction to his Aesthetik, Mr. Hastie writing an Introduction to both. These books are extremely serviceable, and of greater use to the student of the subject than three similar contributions to American literature referred to at p. 279. Mr. Bosanquet's short Introduction to his version of Hegel is excellent, and must raise special expectation in reference to his forthcoming History of ^Esthetic. Had the latter work been already issued, it would probably have rendered the present His- torical Outline superfluous. In his Sententiae Artis (1886), Mr. H. Quilter gives, as his first principle of Art, that it is an expression of life with all its varying emotions. " Deep down in the nature of man there lie, sometimes half-hidden, certain verities which are universal in their appeal, immutable in their reality ; and it is to shadow forth these in its unspoken language that Art lives lives to express, as no other manifestation of humanity is able, the triple connection of sense, spirit, and 264 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. intellect " (p. 3). " There is nothing that man has ever dreamed, or hoped, or feared, suffered, enjoyed, or sinned in, which is not a subject matter for Art ; nor is there a single aspect of the mind or spirit which has not, or may not have, some analogue in form and colour " (p. 4). " Every great picture is a record, not only of sight, but of insight, and perhaps the ratio of its greatness is in direct proportion to the complexity of its meaning " (p. 6). " A great picture is like a skeleton key, in that it may have been made for a special purpose, and yet will unlock many doors " (p. 7). He distinguishes acutely between things which are " beautiful in themselves, and those which are beautiful in spite of themselves " (p. 13). The Development of Taste, and other Studies in ^Esthetics, by Mr. W. Proudfoot Begg (1887), deals with the develop- ment of a sense of Beauty in Nature (i) amongst the lower animals, prehistoric man, savages, and the Egyptians and Assyrians ; (2) amongst the Hebrews ; (3) amongst the Greeks, and (4) the Romans ; (5) throughout English litera- ture ; and (6) in modern times. He then discusses the standard of Taste, the origin of our ideas of Beauty, the association theory, the nature of the beautiful, the pictur- esque, the sublime, and the general subject of the univer- sality of Beauty. There is a great deal of detached and stimulating thinking in the aesthetic studies of Mr. Begg. The historical knowledge, both of philosophy and literature, is much greater than appears upon the surface. In the Fortnightly Review, October 1887, Mr. Walter Pater contributed an article on " The School of Giorgione," in which he advocates an art-theory at the opposite pole from that of Matthew Arnold. (An earlier discussion by Mr. Pater, his Renaissance, Studies in Art and Poetry, 1877, should be mentioned, especially for its admirable study of Winckelmann.) Instead of making the intel- lectual element the major one in art, Mr. Pater makes the sensuous all-dominant. He affirms that all the arts tend " towards the principle or condition of music," in which the distinction between matter and form is obliterated. " In its ideal, the end is not distinct from the means, the xii The Philosophy of Britain 265 form from the matter, the subject from the expression. They inhere in, and completely saturate each other " ; and although the several arts have each its distinct area, and its incommunicable element, they all tend towards this goal, "which music alone completely realises." In all high Art, therefore, the intellectual element thought sinks to the background, while the sensuous element occupies the foreground. This is Mr. Pater's theory. It is not that matter and form blend perfectly in perfect art, and cannot be sundered without injury to both ; it is that art approaches perfection the vaguer and mistier it is, when "definite meaning almost expires, or reaches us through ways not traceable by the understanding." This is, however, a sect- arian theory, if applied, as Mr. Pater would apply it, all round the circle of the Arts. Not only is poetry in its nature a more intellectual art than music, which is more sensuous ; but both in poetry and music there are intellectual and sensuous elements, and it is possible for us by means of music to be borne into a region of clearest intellectual vision, and contrariwise to be carried through poetry into the land of the lotus-eaters, if not to one resembling the Buddhist nirvana. In the Transactions of the National Association for the Advancement of Art, and its application to Industry, which was founded in 1888, there are many papers of value. They all touch the subject of ^Esthetic less or more, and the addresses of the Presidents of the several sections, in the three years during which the society has been in existence, as well as those of many of the members, if not contributions to the theory of Art, are excellent illustra- tions of it. Mr. Alma Tadema, Mr. Holman Hunt, Mr. William Morris, Mr. Briton Riviere, Mr. G. F. Watts, and other representative artists and art-critics, have contributed to these Transactions. Principle in Art, etc., by Coventry Patmore, was pub- lished in 1889. He discusses many subjects besides Art, but the paper which gives its title to the volume is a vindication of " principle " as superior to mere " taste " in Art. Bad Art, he says, collapses before good criticism ; 266 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and " although good criticism cannot produce Art, it re- moves hindrances to its production." Mr. Patmore thinks that there exist "in the writings of Aristotle, Hegel, Lessing, Goethe, and others " the " materials necessary for the formation of a body of Institutes of Art, which would supersede, and extinguish nearly all the desultory matter, which now passes for criticism, and which would go far to form a true and abiding popular taste." This may be very warrantably doubted, especially its finality clause. The most useful essay in Mr. Patmore's book is that on "Architectural Styles" (pp. 160-201). The Rev. Michael Maher, in his Psychology (1890), in the Stonyhurst Series of Manuals of Catholic Philosophy, discusses " the ^Esthetic Emotions " towards the close of his book. The first and essential property of Beauty is that it pleases. Usually two things unite to produce this pleasure a sensuous charm, and an exercise of the imagination. Unity in variety is the most universal feature in beautiful objects. Symmetry, order, fitness, harmony, and the like, are but special forms of this unity in the manifold. On the one hand, monotony wearies us ; on the other, chaotic variety and incessant change distract, and prevent a coherent grasp of things ; but when variety is presided over by unity, it produces in us "the luxurious feeling of delight" (p. 411). Mr. Maher then refers to utility, and emphasises the well- known rule of Gothic Art that no ornament is to appear for the sake of ornament. He distinguishes between relative and absolute beauty, and discusses both the sublime and the ludicrous. Essays, Speculative and Suggestive, is the title which Mr. John Addington Symonds the author of the Renaissance in Italy, etc. gives to two volumes of admirable criticism published in 1890. They were written from Mr. Symonds' retreat at Davoz, and relate to the philosophy of evolu- tion, to the provinces of the several Arts, to Idealism and Realism, to Beauty, Style, Expression, Poetry, Music, Nature-myths, and Allegories. He thinks that the accept- ance of the doctrine of evolution, instead of crushing the aspirations of men, and reducing our conceptions of the xii The Philosophy of Britain 267 world to chaos, may be expected to reanimate religion, and to restore spirituality to the Universe. In his work on the Renaissance, and his Essays, Mr. Symonds had touched the subject of Beauty from many points ; but he has done nothing better in literary and philosophical criticism than in his latest volumes. The essay on "Realism and Idealism" is an effective vindication of both as tendencies and principles of Art. This is further developed in his essay on "Beauty Expressions, etc." Mr. Symonds thinks that in one sense Art can never rival Nature in Beauty, because, as he puts it, " Man has not the means at his command to do so not the material for sculpture, which shall reproduce flesh surface not the pigments for painting, which shall render light and darkness, atmosphere and colour, as they truly are" (vol. i. p. 214). But then, per contra, Mr. Symonds finds that "there is a Beauty which is never found in Nature, but which requires a working of human thought to elicit it from Nature ; a beauty not of parts and single persons, but of complex totalities, a beauty not of flesh and blood, but of mind, imagination, feeling. It is this synthetic, intellectual, spirit - penetrated beauty to which the arts aspire." He refers to the Panathenaic procession, and to the sculptures by Phidias on the frieze of the Parthenon, and says : " No procession could have made such music to the understanding as the sculpture does. In compensation for that which art must miss when matched with life, something has been added permanent, enduring, tranquil, inexhaust- ible in harmonies" (p. 216). Mr. Symonds states the positions of the Idealists in Art so well, that it is better to quote his words than to translate and comment on them. " The mind, reflecting upon Nature, and generalising the various suggestions of Beauty which it has received from Nature, becomes aware of an Infinity which it can only grasp through thought and feel- ing, which shall never be fully revealed upon this earth, but which poetry and art bring nearer to our sensuous percep- tions. ... It is the function of all true art to add 'the gleam, the light that never was on sea or land ' upon the 268 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CH. xn things which have been observed in Nature. It is the function of Art to give the world a glimpse and foretaste of that universal beauty by selecting from natural objects their choicest qualities, and combining these in a harmony beyond the sphere of actual material things" (p. 218). CHAPTER XIII THE PHILOSOPHY OF AMERICA i. 1815 to THE earliest discussion of the subject of Beauty in American literature would seem to be in the fifth volume of the Portfolio, published at Philadelphia in 1815, in which there are two articles entitled " Thoughts of a Hermit." It is an acute criticism of the association theory of Alison and Jeffrey. The writer maintains that the eye is " sus- ceptible of direct organic pleasure," that the " physical beauty of visible objects consists, first, in their power of reflecting soft light ; secondly, in certain colours ; thirdly, in particular outlines and forms ; and fourthly, in variety produced by a mixture of shade with light, or by combina- tion of different colours, or of different forms" (p. 150). These " principles of visual beauty " he illustrates in detail. (i) The beauty of the diamond is due to its "permanently reflecting a more vivid light than any other body " ; so with other gems, even with cut glass, and icicles. Lustre is intrinsically beautiful. (2) As to Colour, he maintains that no colour is beautiful everywhere, but that each colour is beautiful in its way, and in particular places and relations. (3) Under Form he analyses the beauty of the cone, the sphere, the cylinder, the circle, the oval, which are all superior to the triangle or the square. In the second article he affirms that though different persons judge differ- ently of the same object, and the same persons judge differently of different things in the same object, or of the 270 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. same thing in different objects, it does not follow that Beauty is not intrinsic, any more than that differences in physical tastes make what we perceive by means of them altogether relative. He also directs attention to the fact that the term " Beauty " has been extended from objects the presence of which gives pleasure to the senses, to other objects which give us similar pleasure, and so we come to speak of the beauty of a poem or of a theory. In the North American Review, No. XIX. (May 1818), there is an article on Beauty, in criticism of the discussion by Jeffrey in the supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, December 1816, but it is on the whole an echo of Jeffrey's teaching. The writer holds that we cannot resolve the elements of beauty into any one principle of our nature, that they are " essentially dissimilar and distinct." It does not follow that because we class the beautiful things that please us under a common term, they have anything in common ; any more than because the term " good " is applied to many things, they have necessarily anything in common. "When we seek for the substance, the very essence of beauty, we lose ourselves in abstract subtilties." " Beauty is not the same thing in a tune and a statue, in a theorem and a poem." " Indeed the difference between what is beautiful and not, is often but a difference of degree." " Of the beautiful in the abstract we can acquire no fuller knowledge than the progressive generalisations of the term. The subject only admits of philological research " ! From these extracts it will be seen that the writer merely adopts the doctrine of the Scottish associationalists with- out adding anything of value to it. Ralph Waldo Emerson discussed the subject of Beauty in two essays the first in his book on Nature (published in 1836), and the second in his Conduct of Life, issued in 1860. In his first essay, Emerson affirms that Nature " satisfies us by its loveliness," without any reference to its utility ; and that it utters itself at times in ways that " Homer or Shakespeare could not re-form for us in words." He recognises its changefulness " Every hour there is a picture, which was never seen before, and which shall never xin The Philosophy of America 271 be seen again." "Go forth to find it, and it is gone." Beauty is " a mark set upon virtue." " The creation of Beauty is Art." "A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world, an expression of nature in miniature." " Nothing is quite beautiful alone : nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful, as it suggests universal grace." " In its largest and profoundest sense, it is one expression for the universe. Truth, and goodness, and beauty are but different faces of the same All." In his second essay, in the Conduct of Life, Emerson says that it is to Winckelmann that we owe the rise of enthusiasm in the study of Beauty, " side by side with the arid departmental post-mortem science." He tells us that Beauty takes us out of surfaces to the foundation of things. He does not attempt a definition of Beauty, but prefers to enumerate its qualities. "We ascribe Beauty to that which is simple ; which has no superfluous parts ; which exactly answers its end ; which stands related to all things ; which is the mean of many extremes. It is the most enduring quality, and the most ascending quality." "All beauty is organic ; outside embellishment is deformity." " Beautiful as is the symmetry of any form, if the form can move we have a more excellent symmetry. This is the charm of running water, sea waves, the flight of birds, and the locomotion of animals." He quotes a saying of Michael Angelo that Beauty is "the purgation of superfluities." " There is not a particle to spare in natural structures. The art of omission is a chief secret of power." Beauty in Nature is but the shadow and forerunner of beauty in man. But nothing is truly beautiful until it " speaks to the imagination," and this explains how Beauty defies analysis. Wherever it exists, it lifts the object in which it appears out of its isolation, and unites it with the universal. In the first part of a work written by Samuel Tyler, of the Maryland bar, New York, 1848, and entitled Robert Burns, as a Poet and as a Man, we find the theory announced that "the sublimity of the material world is derived from association with man, and his spiritual characteristics ; 272 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. and the beauty of the material world is derived from association with woman, and her spiritual characteristics." " What I mean by the Beautiful," he says, " is whatever in the material world produces impressions within us analo- gous to those awakened in us by our intercourse with woman." " In fact I make woman the spiritual dispenser of beauty to the world." This, which is the most puerile of theories, is taken from Haydon. Haydon held that Beauty resided only in the female form, and that when we see it elsewhere, it exists in proportion to the resemblance of the beautiful thing to female beauty ! But surely the latter is a composite beauty, due to the union of many qualities or elements each separately beautiful. Women are beautiful because of the possession of certain qualities. The qualities are not beautiful, because we find them in women. 1 Mr. Hope, reviewing this work in the Princeton Review (April 1849), falls back upon an ultimate law of our nature, by which we receive pleasure from external objects which contain beauty. But he says : " The exercise of taste in man is complex, and includes other elements." "The human mind is not like a building made up of separate and independent apartments, each of which is appropriated to a separate mental faculty, but like a single chamber, into which light streams through various windows of differently coloured glass. There are not so many distinct images formed by each faculty, but one single image, formed by the blending of the several beams admitted through each aperture. In other words, Beauty is never seen through a pure aesthetic medium, but a medium that is tinged with the varied hues of human thought and feeling, which ema- nate from the intellectual and moral nature of the beholder himself. The sense of beauty is therefore a highly complex 1 A Dr. J. Fan, in his Anatomy of the external Form of Man, intended for the use of Artists, Painters, and Sculptors (London 1849), holds that the beauty of the human form is due to the concealment of the underlying physical structure by a surface raiment of smooth flesh. Dr. Robert Knox (Dr. Fan's editor) adopts his theory, and concurs with Haydon that ' ' the absolutely beautiful " is to be found only in the full-grown woman a most sectarian art-theory. xin The Philosophy of America 273 thing." Mr. Hope thinks that the attempts of philosophers to get at one single principle of Beauty have failed (i) because they have been too restricted and too artificial, and (2) because they have made too little of the ultimate fact that Beauty exists as a quality in natural objects, antecedent to and independent of all association. In 1856, Professor James C. Moffat wrote An Introdtic- tion to the Study of Aesthetics. It is slight, but it has the interest and the merit of being the pioneer work on the subject in American literature, so far as systematic con- struction goes. In 1867, Professor John Bascom, President of the Uni- versity of Wisconsin, issued at Boston an ^Esthetics, or the Science of Beauty. He maintained that Beauty was an uncompounded essence, which could not be analysed into simpler elements. We cannot define it, but we can state the conditions of its presence. It is " the utterance in visible form of some thought or feeling" (p. 14), and objects become beautiful in proportion as they express thought and feeling. It is the presence of vital force in the organic world that makes its products beautiful (p. 27), and in the natural world "the acceptance of the law of reason, the victory of the right in the midst of conflict" (p. 44). Expression is the first condition of beauty in objects, but a second is Unity ', or unity in variety. This is simply " the method of expression, the form which utterance assumes " (pp. 45, 46). Its third characteristic is Truth (p. 62). " This again is subordinate to, and modifies the expression. Unity was its method, Truth is its means. It is its utterance, through natural and real, not through artificial and arbitrary signs" (p. 67). As to the faculty by which Beauty is reached and discerned. It is not by the senses, nor is it by reasoning ; it is by " an internal intuition " (P- 95). 2. 1867 tO 1876 In 1867, President George W. Samson, at that time head of the Columbian College, Washington, published his 274 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Elements of Art Criticism. In the Introduction he tells us that " the design of the treatise is to present in their con- nection the elementary principles on which is founded a just criticism of Art, and to illustrate these principles in the history of Art execution." There are seven Books in this treatise. The ist is on the Principles of Criticism, the 2d on Drawing, the 3d on Sculpture, the 4th on Archi- tecture, the 5th on Painting, the 6th on Landscape Garden- ing, and the 7th on the Decorative Arts. " Art," says Mr. Samson, " addresses the mind through some one of the bodily organs. Its appeals are distinguished from purely intellectual or spiritual impressions, in that they are always accompanied by, and are produced through, a sensation of the bodily organs, as of sight or hearing " (p. 1 1 ). The world without us is made for the enjoyment of Art. All the inferior senses smell, taste, touch contribute indirectly to the impressions made by Art ; but the higher senses sight and hearing contribute much more. He considers the inquiry, " What is Beauty ? " however, to be as irrational as the inquiry, " What is Truth ? " " If any reply be given to the questions, What is Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Right ? it can only be stated thus. Truth is that in the essence of a thing which corresponds with the conviction of our understanding ; Beauty is that in the qualities of an object which affords pleasure to our sensibilities ; Goodness is that in the relation of one thing to another which secures the welfare or promotes the interest of the latter ; and Right is that in the act of an intelligent being which corre- sponds with our conviction of the responsibility of one moral being to another" (Book I. ch. v. p. 129). He defines Taste very vaguely as the power of the mind which gives rise to the idea of the Beautiful. His discussion of objective Beauty is not profound. He follows the more popular and conventional authors. ^Esthetic judgment is that " power of the mind by which we decide that an object is beautiful " not a very luminous definition certainly ! In his treatment of the Arts, in which Beauty finds expression, Mr. Samson is more successful than he is in his discussion of first principles. xin The Philosophy of America 275 Art; its Laws, and the Reasons for them is the title of a work by Samuel P. Long, published in 1871. He dis- cusses the principles of Beauty and of Art, and then of the works of artists. He holds that Beauty is an inherent element in objects, and hence that a standard of Beauty is possible, and real ; but he thinks that the evolution of Beauty is inconsistent with such a standard, and therefore opposes it. In the following year (1872), Professor Henry N. Day published The Science of ^Esthetics; or the Nature, Kinds, Laws, and Uses of Beauty. Mr. Day holds (i) that Beauty is objective and real, and (2) that it embraces three elements the first ideal, the second material, the third formal ; thought, matter, and form giving rise respect- ively to these three. (3) That the laws of Beauty are those of Production and of Interpretation ; and he dis- cusses them both intrinsically, and in their relation to the Fine Arts. A lecture originally delivered at the University of Ver- mont, by Professor Joseph Torrey, was published in 1874, under the title of A Theory of Fine Art. It discusses the characteristics both of Beauty and Sublimity, the relation of Beauty to Nature, and the several Arts in detail. It also treats of the cultivation of Taste. " The end of all the imaginative Arts," the author writes, "is to express the truth of things in sensible forms, and in such a way that their forms, so far as Art is concerned, have no other use or purpose than simply to serve as the expression of Truth in its unchanging nature." But while this may be ad- mitted, we surely require something more in a theory of Fine Art than the affirmation that the Beautiful is the True, reaching us through sense or imagination, and felt rather than understood. That seems rather an abandonment of theory, than an attempt to construct one. A lecture by George S. Morris on " The Philosophy of Art " is published in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy for January 1876. It is a criticism of M. Taine's Philo- sophie de FArt en Italie, and contains an effective defence of idealism as against the imitative theory of art. Art is not 276 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. " the representation of something seen, but the represent- ation of something which we would like to see, which is akin to our nature, towards which our truest being strives. The Apollo Belvidere does not interest us as the likeness of any one who probably ever existed, but as expressing a phase of noble humanity, a germ of divinity. The Sistine Madonna does not please us, as being a fair representation of the way in which the Virgin Mary looked, but as pourtraying the parent of divine qualities " (p. 9). But the true artist is the interpreter of true, real, and essential being ; and the " greatest strokes of genius, in all the arts, impress us as being the simplest and most natural things in the world. ... It is that our inner selves are at home, however unconsciously to ourselves, in an ideal realm of perfect being." In the succeeding number of the same Journal (April 1876), the editor, Mr. W. T. Harris, contributes a very suggestive paper on the relation of Art to Religion. Contributions by English writers to American journals must be regarded as American literature, and they occur frequently. In an article published in the Eclectic Maga- zine^ New York, March 1876, an English statesman, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, discusses " Science and Art, Utility and Beauty." In it he writes : " Here lay the secret of the paramount excellence of the Greek, that his Art was ever aiming at the ideal, and the infinite. And the true cause of this remarkable direction of the Artist's purpose was, and is to be found, unless I am much mistaken, in the specific character of his religion. Humanising the god, he was constrained to divinise the man, to invest his form, the central type and norm of Beauty, with the strength, the majesty, the beauty, and the grace of the superhuman. The effect was, that he was always seeking something more than he had reached ; like in this to the miser and to the saint, in both of whom the appetite grows with what it feeds upon " (pp. 293, 294). A very eloquent plea follows for the alliance of Beauty with Utility, the ideal with the useful, in all industrial work ; in other words, for the introduction of the fine arts within the useful ones. xni The Philosophy of America 277 3. 1880 to i8go In 1880, Professor John Steinfort Kedney (Fairbault, Minnesota) published The Beautiful and the Sublime, an analysis of these emotions, and a determination of the objectivity of Beauty. This is a constructive attempt to reach first principles in ^Esthetics. Mr. Kedney holds that Beauty is both subjective and objective, (i) The former (subjective beauty) is grasped by us in our pursuit of ideals, which we always objectify, or incarnate in some visible form. We succeed so far, in our pursuit of the ideal ; and in this we find the Beautiful. But when we also find that it is only very partially grasped by us, and that it transcends us, in this we find the Sublime. Sublimity is of two kinds, mathematical and dynamical. The moral ideal gives rise to moral beauty and sublimity. (2) Objective Beauty is a disclosure to us of the soul of the Universe, in its manifold- ness. It is always moving on, developing new phases ; while the actual approximates to the ideal. Professor Kedney's is one of the best books on the subject which America has produced. In 1880, Dr. James M'Cosh, President of Princeton College, published a work on The Emotions. In the third chapter of the 2d Book he discusses the aesthetic emo- tions, which he describes generally as the "emotions called forth by inanimate objects." He thinks the term " Kallology " would be the best to describe the science ; but it is too cumbrous, and the verdict of time is already against it. He arranges the theories of the Beautiful under three heads (i) those which represent it as a mental quality in objects, perceived by the mind ; (2) those which regard it as an objective quality in things themselves ; and (3) those which consider it to be the product of association. He admits that many of our aesthetic emotions start from sensation. Sweet sounds and rich colours con- stitute an earthly paradise, which may become the soil in which the plant of ethical beauty may grow. In this section Dr. M'Cosh seems to endorse the teaching of Mr. 278 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. Grant Allen, in his Physiological Esthetics. He rises from Physical to Intellectual Beauty, and under the latter head traces (i) sameness in difference ; (2) the relation of whole and parts, and means and ends ; (3) resemblance in co-ordinated classes; (4) space relations; (5) time rela- tions ; (6) relations of quantity ; (7) relations of active pro- perty ; and (8) the ideas raised in us by causality or power. He maintains that the sentiment of Beauty "may vary infinitely by reason of the mixture of its elements." He admits the truth in the theory of Association, and enlarges again, in a distinct chapter but quite superfluously on "the complexity of the aesthetic affection. " The pic- turesque, the ludicrous, and the sublime are all discussed ; but there is no thorough grappling with the difficulties of the problem. Though superior to Mr. Symington's dis- cussion of the subject, Dr. M 'Cosh's book is in some respects its American representative or equivalent. Part of the discussion is merely that of the topographical guide-book. The Nature and Function of Art, more especially of Architecture, by Mr. Leopold Eidlitz, 1881. In the first part of this book its author discusses the condition of Archi- tecture in his own time ; in the second part he deals with the nature and function of Art; in the third he returns to Architecture, and discusses its nature. He gives a sketch of Art theories, but he is not luminous in this, or in his estimate of Beauty. Qlts power of producing pleasurable emotion is the test by which we Judge a work of Art ! The book is crude and cumbrous.] Its character may be judged by the following quotation : " The nature of Beauty is to be found in the successful expression of an idea in matter. The idea itself may be the reverse of beautiful, or true, or moral. The objects selected for the purpose of representing the idea may' be ugly ; yet the result of all this is beauty, if the idea is successfully represented. Objective beauty consists in the capacity of an organism to perform a function, and in the clear expres- sions of this capacity in its form ; and beauty in art is the rendering of this form in matter for the purpose of ex- pressing the function " (pp. 1 8 6, 187). xiii The Philosophy of America 279 In two articles in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (April and July 1882) Mr. Meads Tuthill discusses "Use, Beauty, Reason ; or Science, Art, Religion." He thinks that Beauty rises from utility. It is born of use, yet is something quite independent of it its soul or spirit. "It floats in the ether, as a being apart and different." " Its use is for itself alone. It does not perish in the using, but lives in the thought which alone can use it." It is this that makes it universal. Its use always limits an object. It is only when every special or particular use has dis- appeared from an object, and ceased to limit it, that its beauty is universal, or for all men. It thus partakes of infinitude ; and, in pursuing it, we are identified with it. For the time being, it transforms the beholder. In discern- ing it, he discerns the Infinite, and his relation to it his oneness with it. But he does not do this always. It is not a permanent consciousness, but comes and goes ; and, in contact with the Infinite, man is cut off from the object of his knowledge, as well as united to it. Thus the con- sciousness of Beauty becomes a sort of two-edged sword, that divides the spirit from its object ; and, out of the intense craving to recover what is lost, Art arises. It is creative, because we desire to record, to externalise, and to preserve what we first perceive within, i.e. to create and to preserve it, not for ourselves, but for all The very principle which at first guided the artist to perceive the Beautiful impels him afterwards to re-create it, and guides him in the art of creation. Reference should also be made to the translations, in the American Journal of Specidative Philosophy, of portions of Hegel's Aesthetik ( i ) the transcript of the French version of Ch. Benard, by j. A. Martling, in ten sections (1867- 1869) ; (2) the sections on Chivalry translated from the German by S. A. Longwill (1872-1873) ; (3) those portions of the Aesthetik dealing with Symbolic, Classical, and Romantic Art, translated by W. M. Bryant (1877-1879). It need hardly be said that a translation from a translation is seldom satisfactory, and a translation of Hegel coming through the French into English though not quite so 280 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CHAP. bad as the filtration of Aristotle's Greek into scholastic Latin through the Arabic version of Averroes and his school is not conducive to the clear grasp of a system that is in itself somewhat obscure. In 1885, Professor Kedney, whose work on the Beautiful and the Sublime is referred to at p. 277, wrote "a critical exposition " of Hegel's ^Esthetics. It is partly a translation, partly a reproduction, in part a summary, and to a certain extent a commentary on the original. In the second part of Professor J. Clark Murray's Handbook of Psychology (Montreal 1885), on "Special Psychology," there is a chapter on Idealisation, and in it a section on " the ^Esthetic ideal." With many other writers, Mr. Murray begins by noting the disinterested nature of the aesthetic feelings. They are free from any alloy, either of egoism or altruism ; and he conjoins with this the play- impulse of Schiller. But it is more than feeling. It has an intellectual element also, and involves the consciousness of an object, viz. Beauty. By rearranging the materials received by the mind from sense, the plastic imagination creates new forms. The composite wholes which are decom- posed or analysed into parts, in order that they may be again recombined, are of two kinds, quantitative and quali- tative. The attribute of Beauty, which the intellect dis- cerns, and with which it clothes its objects, is unity in variety. The Fine Arts are distinguished from the useful and mechanical ones, but they are often combined, and enhance each other ; utility, or the adaptation of means to ends, being an illustration of unity in variety. Mr. Murray next deals with the several Arts in detail (i) those which address themselves to the eye, viz. Sculpture, Architecture, and Painting ; (2) that which addresses the ear, viz. Music ; and (3) that which uses language as its medium, and has its outcome in Poetry and the Belles Lettres. In 1887, John Dewey, Assistant-Professor of Philosophy in the University of Michigan, issued a text-book on Psy- chology, the fifteenth chapter of which is devoted to "^Esthetic Feeling." He first analyses aesthetic feeling into its various elements, and after considering it as a xni The Philosophy of America 281 spring to activity in the Fine Arts, he deals with aesthetic judgment, or taste. Both knowledge and character (i.e. the true and the good) are felt to be beautiful as well as objects in external Nature, when a sense of satisfaction is felt in them. There is, however, in all Art a sensuous element, which is the vehicle for presenting the ideal. Purely realistic and purely idealistic art are both equally impossible. Esthetic feeling is universal. The lower senses contribute nothing to it, and it excludes the feeling of ownership, as well as of utility, or subservience to ends external to itself. Its most general property is harmony, or unity in variety, and especially the harmony of the object recognised as beautiful with the nature recognising it. But aesthetic feeling is not merely passive, it also actively creates ; and the outcome of its creative activity is the Fine Arts. ./Esthetic judgment, or taste, has two sides, an objective and a subjective one. On its objective side it attributes Beauty to objects ; on its subjective side, it is admiration or delight in objects. We gather our principles of taste from a reflex study of the way in which our feelings spontaneously and naturally express themselves ; but our ideal of Beauty is not a fixed, but an ever-progressive ideal. Professor George Trumbull Ladd, of Yale University, has just issued an Introduction to Philosophy, the twelfth chapter of which is devoted to " /Esthetics." He considers that the problems which arise in this section of Philosophy are similar to those which meet us in Ethics. "The Beautiful is one form of the Good ; to be, and to enjoy, that which is beautiful is to share in the reality of the good." The beautiful must be agreeable ; but as an ideal it may be defined, as Hegel states it, " the sensible manifestation of the idea." All objects which are beautiful produce in us pleasurable feeling ; but, although it is difficult to draw a line of separation between them, the beautiful is distin- guished from the agreeable by two things (i) by its object- ive reality, and (2) by its ideal worth. It is probably the agreeable, and not the beautiful, that exclusively influences the life of the lower animals ; but, with man, each one of the lowest appetites may be transfigured by its aesthetic signifi- 282 The Philosophy of the Beautiful CH. xm cance. Besides, pleasurable experience may itself become beautiful. The standard of Beauty varies with individuals more than the standard of the Good. " It cannot be said that the voice of beauty comes to the soul in the form of a categorical imperative" (p. 333) ; and yet "the feeling for the beautiful is a very powerful stimulus and guide of human conduct." The life of the individual percipient of Beauty is projected into the life of the objects he perceives. Mr. Ladd seems doubtful of the possibility of determining the universal and real essence of Beauty. It might be easier to say what is the special essence of each of the separate Arts which disclose it. The final difficulty is partly due to the very nature of the subject. The feeling for the ideal, and its pursuit, are phases of the soul's yearning for some- thing higher than it has attained to ; ideal Beauty being the goal of all our varied strivings. As the sheets of this volume are passing through the press, a small book has been received entitled ^Esthetics j its Problems and Literature, by Fred. N. Scott, Assistant- Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan, in 1890. He divides the problems thus (i) Physiological, the question of the origin, and nature of the thrill of pleasure given by the objects which we recognise as beautiful ; under which he has twelve different subsidiary problems, relating to the nervous system and its stimuli, etc. ; (2) Psychological, the nature of aesthetic feeling, and of the correlated facts of consciousness ; under which there are ten subsidiary problems, referring to sensation, per- ception, imagination, will, etc. ; (3) Speculative, the nature of Beauty, and its aesthetic value, its kinds, and their relation to Nature and to Art. The literature of ^Esthetics he ranges in two sections, and gives a very ample catalogue of writers in English, French, and German. This is, however, given with greater elaboration and detail in A Guide to the Literature of Esthetics, by C. M. Gayley, Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of California, and F. N. Scott, Michigan, also just published at Berkeley, U.S.A. INDEX ADDISON, Joseph, 167 Akenside, M. , 204 Albani, Cardinal, 53 Albert!, Leon Battista, 143, 144, 145 Alfieri, 151 Alison, J. , 187, 202, 205, 213, 226, 232, 269 Allen, G. , 246, 249, 261 Alphen, H. van, 154 Amiel, H. F. , 120 Andr, Pere, 91, 93, 100, 102, 117, 170 Angelo, Michael, 145, 213, 237, 238, 257, 271 Anselm, St., 152 Apelles, 41 Apollonius, 42 Aquinas, Thomas, 4, 44, 45, 136 Aristippus, 22 Aristotle, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 39, 41, 132, 142, 266, 280 Arnold, Matthew, xi. 264 Arrian, 41 Ast, 67 Augustine, St., ix. 4, 43, 44, 91, IOI, 112, 117 Augustus, 40 Averroes, 280 BACON, F. , 164 Bain, A., 233 Balzac, 91, 92 Bardon, D., 97 Barni, Jules, 117 Barns, W., 234 Ban-owes, 173 Bascom, J. , 273 Batteux, 52, 101, 103, 155 Baumgarten, vii. 51 Bayliss, W., 249 Beattie, J., 184 Beaumont, Sir G. , 224 Begg, W. P., 264 Bell, Sir Charles, 195 Bellars, W., 248 Bellegarde, Abbe", 95 Bellori, J. P., 144, 145 Be"nard, Charles, 142, 279 Bergmann, J., 88 Berkeley, E. , 170 Blackie, J. S. , 232 Blanc, Ch., 128, 231 Bocchi, F. , 143 Bodmer, J. J., 53 Boileau, 87, 93, 94, 108, 132 Bolzano, B. , 65 Bosanquet, B., 263 Bouterwek, F., 64 Brewster, Sir D., 215 Brown, Thomas, 204, 205, 226 Browning, R., 112 Bryant, W. M., 279 Burner, Pere, 97, 100, 179 Buffon, 94 Burger (see There 1 ), 127 Burke, E., 175 Burns, R. , 213 284 Index Butler, G., 227 Byck, S. A., 142 CALKER, F., 64 Calkoen, J. F. van B., 156 Carlyle, Thomas, 216 Carneri, B. , 142 Carracci, the, 145 Carriere, M. , 77 Cassiodorius, 44 Castiglione, 145 Catullus, 37, 38 Cherbuliez, C. V., 122 Chevreul, M. E., 113 Chrysippus, 42 Cicero, 35, 39 Clemens Alexandrinus, 43 Cle'ment, M. , 257 Clito, 22 Cobbe, F. P., 234 Cohen, H. , 59 (note) Coleridge, S. T., 198 Collingwood, G. , 259 Comte, A., in, 142 Condillac, 146 Constable, 201 Cook, E. , 220 Corneille, 93 Correggio, 203 Coster, G. H. de, 133 Cottle, J., 198 (note) Cousin, Victor, 51, 106, in, 226 Crane, L. , 256 Crousaz, J. P. de, 95, roo, 102 Cunningham, A., 201 (note] D'ALEMBERT, 102, 196 Damiron, M., 114 Dante, 46 Darwin, Charles, 238, 257 Darwin, Erasmus, 193 Da Vinci, Leonardo, 144, 145, 203, 257 Day, H. N., 275 De Brosses, 100 Delfico, 146 De Quincey, Q. , 109 Descartes, 4, 91, 138 Dewey, John, 280 Dickie, 229 Diderot, 61, 87, 103, 104, 106, 196 Diodorus Siculus, 40 Dobell, S., 248 Dodsley, 172 Donaldson, John (1751-1801), 1 84 Dryden, 96, 164 Dubos, Abbd, 96 Dufresnoy, Chas. A., 96, 164, 182 Diirer, Albrecht, 48 EBERHARD, J. A., 55 Edelburg, E. von, 143 Eidlitz, L., 278 Eliot, George, xii. Eme"ric-David, T. B., 108 Emerson, R. W., 270 Epictetus, 41 Erigena, 80, 146 Euphranor, 36 FAN, J., 272 (note) Fechner, G. T., 86, 90 Ferguson, J. , 224 Ferrari, G. S., 152 Ferri, L., 152 Fichte, 66, 67, 69 Fischer, E. K. B., 76, 77 Flaxman, 201 Fock, A. L., 159 Formey, J. B. H. , 102 Foster, F. W., xii. Fouille~e, M. A., 139 Friedlander, 59 Fuseli, 96, 194 GALEN, 41, 42 Galuppi, P. , 146 Gautier, M. T., 128 Gayley and Scott, xii. 283 Gerard, A., 179 Gilpin, W. , 189, 197 Gioberti, V. , 146, 148 Giotto, 223 Index 285 Gladstone, W. E., 276 Goethe, xi. 60, 64, 105, 140, 266 Guizot, 112 Guyau, J. M., 138 HAMANN, 60 Hamilton, Sir W. , 206 Harris, J., 172 Harris, W. T., 276 Hartmann, E. von, 80 Hastie, W., 266 Hay, D. R., 144, 213, 226, 228, 231, 232 Haydon, B. W., 272 Hazlitt, W., 202 Hegel, 6, 43, 70, 74, 76, 77, 78, 95, 142, 263, 266, 279, 280, 2813 Helmholtz, H. L. F. von, 84, 261 Hemsterhuis, F., 153 Hennequin, E., 141 Hensde, Ph. W. van, 157 Herbart, J. F., 67, 69, 88 Herder, J. G., 59 Hettner, H., 54 Hippias, 23, 24 Hippocrates, 41 Hirt, 36 Hoare, P., 195 Hoffding, H., 90 Hogarth, William, 173, 196, 212 Holmes-Forbes, A. W., 255 Homer, 33, 37 Hope, 272 Horace, 38, 39 Horner, L. and J. B., 89 Horsfall, T. C, 259 Houssaye, M. Arsene, 128 Howard, Henry, 205, 206 Hugo, Victor, 142 Humboldt, W. von, 17, 64 Hume, D., 176 Hunt, Holman, 265 Hutcheson, F., 137, 169 IDDESLEIGH, Lord, 227 Imhoff, P., 116 JACOBI, 60, 64, 170 Jeffrey, F., 187, 188, 213, 226, 228, 232, 269, 270 Jones, Owen, 10, 13, 230 Jourrroy, Th., in, 114 Jungmann, J., 88 KANT, vii. 6, 56, 62, 64, 66, 67, 69, 78, 88, 90, in, 116, 136, 170 Kedney, John Steinfort, 277, 280 Kepler, 144 Ker, W. P., 257 Ke"ratry, 116 Kirkman, J., 142 Knight, Payne, 190, 191, 195 Knox, R., 272 (note) Kbstlin, K., 76 Krantz, E., 138 Krause, K. C. F., 69 LADD, G. T., 281 La Harpe, 108 Lamennais, F. R. de, 113 Land, J. P. N., 161 Lang, A., 9 Lauder, Sir Th. Dick, 190, 212 Laugel, M. A., 129 Lavater, 194 Lee, Vernon, 219 Leghe, P., 214 Leibnitz, 4, 50, 51, 67 Lessing, G. E., 54, 62, 77, 78, 97, 172, 266 L6vque, 6, in, 123 Lichtental, P., 148 Lindsay, Lord, 222 Long, S. P., 275 Longhi, G., 146 Longinus, 33 Longwill, S. A., 279 Lorme, M. de, 114 Lorrain, Claude, 210 Lotze, 68, 82, 121 Lucretius, 35, 36, 37, 38 Ludwig, H., 144 Lysippus, 41 286 Index M'CosH, 229, 277 MacDougall, P., 205 Mackenzie, G. S. , 201 M' Vicar, 208, 228 Magnus, H. , 250 Maher, M., 266 Malebranche, 101 Mamiani, Count Terenzio 146, iSi Mandeville, 168 Marmontel, Jean Fra^ois, 107, 108 Martianus Capella, 44 Martling, J. A., 279 Mason, W., 96, 182 Massano, M., 145 Maximus Tyrius, 42 Medici, Cosmo de, 46 Meier, F. , 52 Mendelssohn, Moses, 55 Mengs, A. R., 55, 195 Merz, T., 50 Mill, James, 205 Milman, H. H. , 200 Milsand, J., 126 Moffat, J. C, 273 Montaigne, 92 Montesquieu, 106 Morris, G. S., 275 Morris, W. , 254, 265 Mott, F. T., 253 Mozley, J. B., 246 Miiller, Max, 17 Murray, J. C., 280 NADEN, C., 260 Naville, Edouard, 14 Newton, Isaac, 213 Niccola Pisano, 223 Nicolai, F., 52 Nicole, P., 94 Niphus, A., 144 Nugent, T., 97 OERSTED, 37, 89 Omar Khayyam, viii. Opzoomer, C. W., 158 PAMPHILUS, 27 Parker, H., 260 Parrhasius, 27 Pascal, 132 Pater, W., 264 Patmore, C., 265 Pericles, 23 Perponcher, W. E. de, 155 Phidias, 15, 21, 39, 41, 145, 206, 267 Philostratus, 36, 42 Pictet, A., 118 Pietro, Sac. S. di, 152 Plato, ix. 4, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29. 30. 33. 4L 47. 67, 68, 72, 91, 100, 101, 142, 163, 165, 213, 219, 232, 257 Plautus, 36 Pliny, 27, 36, 41, 198 Plotinus, 30, 32, 33, 37, 199, 219 Polycleitus, 42, 206 Polygnotus, 41 Poynter, E. J., 236 Praxiteles, 206 Price, R., 178, 179 Price, Sir Uvedale, 189, 197, 212 Proclus, 33, 34, 37 Purdie, T., 226 QUILTER, H., 263 Quintilian, 27, 41 RABELAIS, 92 Racine, 108 Ram, F., 256 Ramsay, G. , 215 Raphael, 145, 203, 237, 257 Reid, T., 98, 185, 206 Reinhold, 56 Reni, Guido, 145 Repton, H., 190 Reynolds, Sir J., 180, 194, 196, 203 Richter, J. P., 63 Riedel, F. J., 154 Rig, Jules, 142 Index 287 Rio, M., 46, 120 Riviere, B, , 265 Rollin, 100 Rosa, Salvator, 210 Rosenkrantz, J. K. F. , 76 Rosmini-Serbati, A., 147 Rousseau, 87 Roy er- Collar d, in, 113 Rubens, 145 Ruskin, John, 216, 218, 238, 248, 259 SAINTE-BEUVE, 114 Saint-Hilaire, J. B. , 33 (note] Saisset, E., 114 Samson, G. W., 273 Sauvagart, D. , 142 Savonarola, 46, 47 Schelling, 6, 65, 67, 69, 70, 74, in Schiller, 8, 61, 64, 70, 77, 90, 95, 105, in, 137, 139, 235 Schlegel, Friedrich von, 63, 66, 67, 69 Schleiermacher, 70 Schnasse, C, 83 Schopenhauer, A., 78 Scott, David, 217 Scott, F. N., 282 Scott, William B., 218, 233 Seailles, G., 142 Seeley, J. F., 235 Sellar, W. Y., 37, 38 Seneca, 41 Shaftesbury, Lord, 87, 164 Shakespeare, 77 Shenstone, W., 183 Smith, Adam, 179 Socrates, 22, 23, 24, 257 Solger, U. W. F., 68, 70 Spence, J., 172 Spencer, H., 139, 239, 245, 250, 262 Spinoza, 69, 80 Stein, H. von, 87 Stewart, Dugald, 196 Sully, J., 243 Sulzer, J. G., 52 Superville, H. de, 156 Symington, A. J., 231, 278 Symonds, John Addington, M. D. , 231, 266 TADEMA, A., 265 Taine, M., 124, 275 Talia, 146 Tennyson, A., vi. Thore', T. (see Burger), 127, 129, 133 Thomson, William, 192 Tieck, L., 67 Todhunter, J. , 240, 259 Topffer, 108, 117 Torrey, J., 275 Tremblay, J. F. du, 95 Tucker, A., 183 Turner, J. M. W., 201, 248 Tuthill, M., 279 Tyaneus, A., 145 Tyler, S., 271 Tylor, Edward, 10 Tyrwhitt, St. J. , 247 VALLET, Abbe" P., 45, 133, 135 Vandyke, 145 Venanzio, G. , 146 Vdron, Eugene, 130, 142 Vico, 146 Vilete, M. C. de la, 100 Vinci, Leonardo da, 144, 145, 203, 257 Vinet, A., 121 Virgil, 35, 36, 37, 38 Vischer, F. Theodor, 74, 77, 85 Visconti, E., 146 Vitruvius, M. V. Pollio, 40, 48, 144 Vloten, J. van, 160 Voltaire, 103, in WAGNER, 84 Wallace, A. R., 252 Waterhouse, C. H., 263 Watts, G. F., 265 2 88 Index Weisse, Ch. H. , 76, 77 Weyland, M., 116 Wilkes, 173 Wilkie, D., 201 Wilson, John, 205 Winckelmann, Johann J., 53, 66, 95, in, 194, 196, 264, 271 Wordsworth, W., 224 (note] Wyndham, the Right Hon. W. 192 XENOPHON, 22, 27 ZEISING, A., 68, 86 Zeuxis, 206 Zimmermann, R., 68 Zuccala, G., 148 THE END Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION MANUALS A NEW SERIES OF USEFUL AND IMPORTANT BOOKS EDITED BY PROFESSOR WM. KNIGHT CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers PHIS Series, to be published by John Murray in England and Charles Scribner's Sons in America, is the outgrowth of the University Extension move- ment, and is designed to supply the need so widely felt of authorized books for study and reference both by students and by the general public. The aim of these Manuals is to educate rather than to inform. In their preparation, details will be avoided except when they illustrate the working of general laws and the development of principles ; while the historical evolution of both the literary and scientific subjects, as well as their philosophical sig- nificance, will be kept in view. 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