I THE ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY THE ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY SOME SUGGESTIONS UPON THE SOURCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ESTHETIC FEELINGS BY FELIX CLAY, B.A, ARCHITECT LONDON SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1908 [All rights reserved] Printed by RALLANTYNE, HANSON dr* Co. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh PREFACE A BOOK of these dimensions, with a title that seems to suggest many and heavy volumes, needs, if not an apology, at least an explanation. It may, there- fore, be stated at once that no attempt is made to investigate the highly complicated question as to what constitutes beauty in the various forms of art, or to formulate any kind of laws which have to be satisfied in order that an object may rightly be described as beautiful. The chief object of the book is to maintain that 'our artistic likes and dislikes, however difficult to explain, must be based upon instinctive preferences originally necessary for survival, and, as in the case of the other instincts, in some faculty that can be traced in a rudimentary form among the lower animals. That is to say, that taste the feeling by which we discriminate the beautiful from the ugly can no longer be considered an ultimate inexplicable faculty, sufficiently explained by the statement that we are born with likes and dislikes, beyond which fact inquiry is idle. However little conviction the suggestions put forward here may carry, the object of writing the book will have been attained, if it helps to the i Q-8 JL u t> vi PREFACE recognition of the fact that some reasons ought to be found to account for the aesthetic feeling as an actual and direct factor in the struggle for existence. The book begins with an introductory chapter discussing generally the nature of the beautiful, and stating the problem. This is followed by an account of simple sensations, feelings, and emotions and their origin ; after this an examination of instincts and their development, with special refer- ence to those that might be held to be the origin of the appreciation of beauty. Finally, a considera- tion of the art impulse and the higher intellectual faculties concerned in artistic feeling, imagination, and inspiration. An apology must be made for the introduction of a certain amount of elementary psychology ; but as the whole argument depends upon the gradual development of the higher intellectual pleasures from the rudimentary organic tendencies it is necessary that there should be in the mind of the reader a certain freshness of acquaintance with the method in which feelings and ideas arise, in order to discuss the psychological aspects of art apprecia- tion. Should the book fall into the hands of those already conversant with the facts set out, we hope they will pass, not too impatiently, over such details. FELIX CLAY. CONTENTS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL PAGE Need of a definition of beauty The aspect of beauty treated of in the book Pleasure the essence of life A world without feeling Appreciation of beauty a perception of immediate value Moral judgments and aesthetic judgments Feeling for beauty innate Lower and higher senses Disinterestedness of aesthetic emotion questioned Universality no criterion of beauty True and false opinions of the beautiful Many definitions of beauty Wide application of the word beauti- ful Objectification of feelings Beauty defined to be plea- sure considered as a quality of a thing Colour and form Beauty in repetition of parts themselves indifferent Taste and discrimination Origin of taste Naturalistic view of beauty Absolute beauty Beauty must be considered to be relative to the observer Art and utility Comparison be- tween art and play Music as an art useful to survival Origin of art forms Idealisation of primitive instincts Art and theories of aesthetic 1-34 CHAPTER II THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SENSATIONS AND FEELING Growth of psychology Need for knowledge of physiology Physical and psychical processes The nervous system The muscles Development of the nervous system Brain of child and adult Sensations as psychical elements Sensations not necessarily simple Sensation and percep- tion Sensations and the subconscious mind The sense viii CONTENTS PAGE organs Higher and lower Sensations diminish in intensity with age Organic sensations Sensations of the skin Kinsesthetic sensations Visual sensations Spatial relation- ships Simple forms ....... 35~6 CHAPTER III THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SENSATIONS AND FEELING (continued) Colour sensations Feeling tone of sensations Organic sensa- tions in art appreciation Effect of physiological condition upon feelings Pleasure Pleasure and pain Physical and intellectual pleasure /Esthetic pleasure Relativity of sen- sations Revival of sensations Marginal sensations Per- ceptions Perceptual systems Instincts, their relation to perceptual habits . ....... 61-85 CHAPTER IV EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS Inherited nervous disposition Instinctive reactions Feelings and emotions Emotions in animals and in human beings Bodily changes accompanying emotions States of feeling Primitive instincts the basis of emotions Rise of the ideal I instincts Complex nature of emotions ^Esthetic emotion Relation to other emotions Unity in variety as a cause of pleasure Pleasure in the recognition of the familiar Curiosity Love in relation to aesthetic emotion Imitation Sympathy Self-assertion Innate response to harmony The fundamental problem of the aesthetic emotion . . . . . . . . . 86-109 CHAPTER V THE ORIGIN OF INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES Irritability a property of all living matter Reflex action Cen- tral nervous system Relation between reflex action and the central nervous system Use and function of the gang- lion Instincts cannot be considered a lapsed intelligence CONTENTS ix PACK Tropisms and their part in reflex and instinctive action Spontaneous movements Rhythmical movements Re- actions in plants Consciousness When first present Memory and reason Proof of mental action Associative memory Instincts and tropisms Examples of instincts explained by tropisms Experiments upon Amphipyra and Nereis Stereotropism Instinctive reaction modified by memory Relation between primitive reflex action and taste Like and dislike Pleasure in suitable environment Desire for the familiar as necessarily the safe . . 110-137 CHAPTER VI COLOUR AND RHYTHM Colour Reason for pleasure in different colours Insects and colour Colour in birds Emotional effect of colour Choice of male bird by female Pleasure in sensations can be in- creased by practice and variety Appreciation previous to production Art differs from skill by the result Early forms of art instinct Modification of environment Workmanship in animals Artistic spirit Creative, or making, instinct Constructive activity useful in the struggle for existence Origin of art production Pleasure felt in doing things that were once useful Conscious recognition of utility unneces- sary Utility determines form Rhythm . . . 138-154 CHAPTER VII THE ARTIST Double nature of the problem Impulse to create and reason for enjoyment M. Hirn and the art impulse All desires and needs are motives to production No one specific impulse to art creation Universal nature of art feelings The emotion of sex and art Natural desire to stimulate any emotion Love as an incentive to works of art The desire to attract by pleasing The self-exhibiting impulse The play impulse theory Art essentially creative Art as relieving pain and enhancing pleasure First beginnings of art Expectancy as a cause of pattern Magic and art Pictographs and ideo- grams and design 155-186 x CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII MEANING AND EXPRESSION PAGE Feelings in man and animals Esthetic emotion and animals Animals unable to perceive relations The perception of relations Subconscious awareness of relations Perception of relations makes language possible Leads also to the formation of abstract ideas And concepts Reasoning power in animals Are concepts possible without words ? Function of art to embody concepts that have not yet been embodied in a word Tactual concepts Trial and Error Immediate in- ference Intuition Sudden irruption of ideas The artist and logical process Artists need not be intellectual Music and the imparting of ideas Form Definite and indefinite form Pleasure in the indeterminate Apparent profundity of the indefinite Importance of the pleasure felt in the in- definite Some of the advantages and the disadvantages Infinite perfection Fallacy of the idea Vague states of consciousness that give the impression of great meaning ^Esthetic delight and practical advantage Beauty cannot get away from the useful Form and colour Appreciation of novelty The artist and the feeling for the beautiful . 187-223 CHAPTER IX IMAGINATION Importance of imagination Reason and imagination Ruskin and the imaginative faculty Constructive imagination The motor element in imagination Imagination involves disso- ciation and recombination Imagination as a substitute for reason The use and value of imagination Scientific and artistic imagination psychologically the same Mystical imagination Mysticism Symbolism Mystic poetry Symbolism carried to absurdity Value of a sense of mystery Genius and the power of prolonged attention The sway of the idea fixed Imagination in animals Voluntary activity and creative imagination Will and imagination Cause of the creative imagination Abstraction and language Ideas and movements Savages and the early forms of imagination 224-243 CONTENTS xi CHAPTER X INSPIRATION PAGE Creative imagination and the emotional crisis Inspiration con- sidered supernatual Inspiration and the subconscious mind Artists and the emotional nature Genius and de- generacy Moreau, Lombroso, Nordau, on the pathological character of genius Untenability of the theory States of mind and organic process Inspiration must be judged by the results produced Visions and trances Fallacy of con- necting art with morbid excitement The suddenness of in- spiration Parallel between artistic and religious inspiration Is the sudden appearance a proof of value ? Inspiration and the subconscious mind Marginal ideas Association of ideas according to temperament Hypnotism Details and theories of hypnotism Dreams Sudden conversion The subconscious mind does not involve new qualities . 244-274 CHAPTER XI ART AND LIFE CONCLUSIONS Man and his environment Emotional basis of philosophy Imagination in science and religion Beauty and reality Industry and art Art and nature Harmonies and dis- harmonies Art and religion Early stages of religion Conservation of value Mediate and immediate value Beauty and happiness Physical and ideal instincts Art and everyday life The artistic spirit Value of the arts in registering and handing on experience Beauty arising from industrial art Art and truth Self-realisation . 275-298 INDEX . . 299 LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS Referred to in the text directly or indirectly ALLEN, GRANT. 1877, Physiological ^Esthetics. 1879, The Colour Sense. ANGELL. 1905, Psychology (Chicago). ARNOLD, R. B. 1904, Scientific Fact and Metaphysical Reality. BAIN, A. 1875, The Emotions and the Will (3rd Edition). 1894, The Senses and the Intellect (4th Edition). BALDWIN, J. M. 1895, Mental Development in the Child and the Race (New York). 1902, Development and Evolution (New York). BALFOUR, H. 1893, The Evolution of Decorative Art. BERENSON, B. 1896, Florentine Painters. BETHE, A. 1898, Pfl tigers Arch., Bd. 70, S. 15 : Durfen wir den Ameisen und Bienen psychische Qualitaten Zuschreiben ? BOGGS, L. P. Psychological Review, vol. xi. Nos. 4 and 5 : An Experimental Study of the Physiological Accompaniments of Feeling. BOSANQUET, B. 1892, A History of Esthetic. BROWN, G. B. 1902, The Fine Arts (2nd Edition). CARPENTER, E. 1898, Angels' Wings. CLAUSEN, G. 1905, Aims and Ideals in Art. COLLINGWOOD, W. G. 1891, The Art Teaching of Ruskin. CROCE, B. 1902, Estetica come scienza dell' Espressione e Linguistics generale (Milan). CUYER, E. 1902, La Mimique (Paris). DARWIN, C 1888, On the Origin of Species (6th Edition). 1890, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (2nd Edition). DEWEY, J. Psychological Review, vol. ix. No. 3; Interpretation qf Savage Mind. xiii xiv LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS ETTLINGEN, M. 1900, Zeitschrift fiir Psychologic und Physiologic der Sinnesorgane, Bd. xxii. Heft 3. Zur Grundlegung einer ^Esthetik des Rhythmus. FERE, CH. 1899, The Pathology of the Emotions (Trans. R. Park). 1900, Sensation et Mouvement (2nd Edition). FOREL, A. 1908, The Senses of Insects (Trans.). FRAZER, J. G. 1890, The Golden Bough. FROMENTIN, E. 1904, Les Maitres d'autrefois. GROOS, K. 1898, The Play of Animals (Trans. E. M. Baldwin). GROSSE, E. 1894, Die Anfange der Kunst. GURNEY, E. 1880, The Power of Sound. GUYAU, J. M. 1884, Les Problemes de 1'Esthetique contemporaine. 1889, L'Art au Point de Vue sociologique. HADDON, A. C. 1896, Evolution in Art. 1898, The Study of Man. HAINES and DAVIES. Psychological Review, vol. xi. : The Psychology of ^Esthetic Reaction to Rectangular Forms. HALDANE, R. B. 1903, The Pathway to Reality. HAMERTON, P. G. 1873, Thoughts about Art. 1889, Notes on ^Esthetics. 1870, A Painter's Camp in the Highlands. HAMILTON, A. 1903, Maori Art. HAMLIN, A. J. 1897, An Attempt at a Psychology of Instinct: Mind (Jan.). HIRN, YRJO. 1900, The Origins of Art. HIRTH, G. 1891, Aufgaben der Kunst physiologic, vols. i. and ii. HIRSCH, M. 1896, Genius and Degeneration (Trans.). HOBHOUSE, L. T. 1901, Mind in Evolution. HOFFDING, H. 1904, Outlines of Psychology (Trans.) The Philo- sophy of Religion (Trans.). HOGARTH, W. 1753, The Analysis of Beauty. HOLMES, W. H. 1882, Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art. HOLMES FORBES, A. W. 1889, The Science of Beauty. HOUSSAY, F. 1890, The Industries of Animals. JACKSON, T. G. 1903, Reason in Architecture. JAELL, M. 1904, L'Intelligence et le Rhythm dans les Mouvements Artistiques. LIST OF BOOKS AND PAPERS xv JAMES, W. 1890, The' Principles of Psychology, vols. i. and ii. 1902, The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1907, Pragmatism. JENNINGS, H. S. 1904, Contributions to the Study of the Behaviour of the Lower Organisms. Carnegie Institute Publications. JERUSALEM, W. 1900, Einleitung indie Philosophic. KIDD, W. 1907, The Sense of Touch in Mammals and Birds. KNIGHT, W. 1893, The Philosophy of the Beautiful. LANG, A. 1898, The Making of Religion. LECHALAS, G. 1902, Etudes Esthetiques. LE DANTEC, F. 1907, The Nature and Origin of Life. LEE, V. 1905, Revue Philosophique de la France et de L'Etrangere. The Individual in the Presence of the Work of Art. LEE and THOMPSON. 1897, Contemporary Review, vol. Ixxvii. Beauty and Ugliness. LESSING, G. E. The Laocoon. LIPPS, T. 1897, Raumaesthetik und geometrische Taiischungen. LOCK, R. H. 1907, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution. LOEB, J. 1905, Studies in General Physiology. 1900, Comparative Physiology of the Brain and Comparative Psychology. LOMBROS, cit., p. 128, 68 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY drawing us again and again to works or objects of great beauty, under the impression that we shall always learn more ; and as we can never see it twice in identically the same physiological conditions, the resulting impression is always a little different, causing perhaps new lines of associative ideas. There is little doubt that the key to much that is curious in character and action, in pleasures and dislikes, may be found in the cumulative effect of a large number of sensations below the level of con- sciousness, each one of which exercises an inappre- ciable effect. The feelings that arise immediately from sensa- tions form a continuous series from the simple general feeling up to the finely differentiated shades of feeling that accompany the qualitative sensations of the higher senses. It is easy to imagine that these stages represent the course of development. Before the appearance of special organs and func- tions, feeling could only have been a chaotic mass, a mere expression of impulse as to the course of life, but of the highest importance as a motive for movement. In general the relation between feeling and sen- sation is in inverse ratio to their strength ; the stronger the feeling element becomes, the more the cognitive element tends to diminish. The sense impressions which excite the strongest pleasure and pain teach us least as to external relations, although they may be of the highest importance as warnings or sources of attraction. In its most primitive form the strength of a feeling is mainly determined by PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 69 the degree in which it affects the course of the organic life. This is especially the case with those sensations that call out instinctive movements ; the stress of feeling aroused entirely dwarfs their quali- tative character. When, however, the qualitative aspect of the sensation is able to make itself felt, the feeling answering to the sensation is differen- tiated and specified. It gains in richness and varied gradation what it loses in force, and becomes also more independent of the immediate stress of the struggle for existence. ^Esthetic sensations being principally received through the eye and the ear, are therefore naturally outweighed by their qualitative properties, since the actual strength of the sensation is structurally limited, and therefore cannot be of sufficient inten- sity to obliterate the cognitive faculty in favour of pure sensation. It is clear enough how ideation and the connec- tion of ideas helps to stimulate the development of the feelings, but the effect of feeling upon ideation is of a far more fundamental character indeed, so profound and far-reaching is its influence that, to a large extent, we may say that it is feeling which not only settles about what we shall think, but to a large degree determines the conclusion to which we shall come. It is important to bear in mind the "inertia of feeling," which is a fruitful source of much of the inconsistency of action in history and everyday life. A new thought, or new point of view, however logically unassailable one which, to those who perhaps are reading of it subsequently 70 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY in history, appears as a self-evident fact may require long periods of time for its general adop- tion ; a valuable safeguard doubtless, however foolishly it appears to act in individual instances, for it has, of course, its corresponding value in strengthening the hold upon the new truth when once adopted. We hold a theory, or an idea, with an extra- ordinary intensity when it is one that coincides with our feeling, and in our everyday experience only regard that which supports our cherished belief, disregarding or giving but scant weight to adverse facts or arguments ; and ideas that do not harmonise with it are apt to be suppressed. Love is blind, it is said in some respects perhaps so but really it is the keenness of its sight in discover- ing the pleasing attributes of the loved one that helps the reason not to give any weight to disagree- able traits. We come here to the line between feeling and will ; for a man urged on by a pas- sionate longing can will to delude himself, he can repress his more sober reflection, and can set all his faculties to work to prove that what he wants so strongly is veritably the right and proper course ; he cannot stand the contradiction in himself, and must make inclination and duty coincide. So in a milder way we cling to some favourite opinion ; we act upon it and assert it, conscious perhaps that we have no adequate reason to support it, but are quite undisturbed by that if we have the feeling that it is right ; for most people are not given to dealing strictly with themselves, and will be found PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 71 to make up their minds first, and then look about for reasons in order to justify the opinion. So strongly indeed may this effect of feeling be carried that it affects even the senses, so that in a moment of strained attention we seem to see the signal, or hear the expected sound before they occur. The difference between memory images or imaginations, and real objects of perception, is apt to become lost where feeling is strongly excited, so that ideas become actualised. This is even more strongly evident in the sphere of thought, where feeling anticipates the result and decides the ques- tion at once, instead of going through the tedious process of logical reasoning. Feeling is apt to dispense very quickly with distinctions, conditions, limitations finding or insisting upon things being perfect and absolute, leaving to cognition the subse- quent task of the determination of conditions, or of the possibility of practical steps ; and if it con- tinually and strongly permeates the thoughts, it soon drives the mind further on, and so leads to the formation of an ideal world from which the imperfections and sufferings of the actual world are removed. It is, no doubt, because of the obscurity of its action, and the inexplicable nature of its effect, as well as its strength, that feeling exercises so strong an influence upon process of thought. It is gener- ally possible to trace the steps by which a reasoned truth or logical conclusion is reached ; but feeling has its source in the natural instincts, modified perhaps and largely affected by the sum of the 72 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY innumerable small experiences of everyday life and environment ; the effect of which is only apparent after long intervals, so that we can at the best see but a very small part of its course. However obscure the way in which feeling is determined, its influence is clear and strong, and not only does it tend to expand and dominate consciousness, but it insists upon the reason finding not only an explanation of, but a justification for, its particular bent or point of view. That this should be so, follows naturally from the instinct of self-preserva- tion ; for the very fact of survival and development is a proof that in the long run man must have cared for the things that were beneficial, or he would have been speedily eliminated. Again some explanation is necessary, for whether his feeling be pleasurable or the reverse, it is an experience of the external world ; and man must interpret the signs, and, if he can, find the causes, in order that the best advantage may be gained to help him forward. As development proceeds, he finds his innermost nature seems to be revealed by feeling, and he at once proceeds to look for justification of his feeling, and his conceived meaning of the universe. Feeling is not, however, in any real sense a source of knowledge, and all discussion ceases when an appeal is made to simple feeling ; but it is the cause that starts and induces inquiry, and spurs the individual to every kind of active investigation, though it can bring no answer itself. As Professor Hoffding l points out, feeling, as purely 1 " Outlines of Psychology." PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 73 individual and incommunicable, isolates indivi- duals, but at the same time, from its needs of explanation and justification, it brings them to- gether, for only in union can they find a hope of explanation. Art, chief of all the means of expres- sion,: is naturally made use of to describe and impart to others the various feelings ; indeed, so strong an impulse to art lies in this, that some writers have found the sole cause and raison d'etre of art to lie in the need of self-expression. 1 Feeling also affects ideas ; by what Wundt has called the analogy of sensations, it has as it were an attractive power not only over the ideas of the same kind as that which originally gave rise to the feeling, but also over other ideas which excite similar feelings, and thus the feeling itself becomes the link between different kinds of ideas. The common element of feeling accompanying free and easy respiration, light after dark, pure tones and rhythmical melody after noise and discordant sounds, comprehension and order appearing in an apparently tangled maze of facts all form an analogy of sensations. It is in music perhaps that this is peculiarly evident, and perhaps most strongly so in those persons that have least know- ledge of, or technical training in, the art. Some events, or experience, may serve as a concrete- image of the general mood ; and though in such dreaming the specific effect of the music be lost, it is difficult not to give way to it, at least to some degree, and much of the power that music has over 1 See p. 167. 74 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY men lies in this quality by which the memories that it arouses spread out to touch all the experience of life and all sides of our being. If a sensation be considered carefully, it will be at once noticed that in nearly all cases it has two elements, or aspects, which can be clearly con- trasted. Thus, if some substance, say a piece of chocolate, be placed in the mouth, there is at once a characteristic sensation which enables us to pro- nounce it chocolate ; at the same time there is another and distinct sensation of agreeableness or pleasantness, in consequence of which it is liked or disliked. Of the two, the recognition of the characteristic taste requires memory and previous experience ; the liking is a natural faculty, and, putting aside for the moment likes and dislikes acquired by habit, is unaffected by any process except the simple pleasurable response. The feeling of pleasure has been referred to frequently, and it now becomes necessary to consider in more detail what pleasure is, and how it arises ; since in all questions of aesthetic enjoy- ment it is fundamental. The whole aim of art and the whole meaning of beauty lie in pleasure pass- ing from the mere pleasing of sense up to the highest intellectual enjoyment. Pleasure, using the word in its widest sense, is in some form or other the spur of all activity and the goal of all effort. At the present moment, however, it is only proposed to consider it in its simplest physical form as accompanying certain sensations. A feeling of pleasure determines and accom- PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 75 panics appetition, or a tendency to seek or prolong the pleasant sensations, while an unpleasant one produces or at least accompanies an aversion, or tendency to withdraw from or alter the conditions. The fact is also well known that pleasure causes an increased energy, or enhancement of all the vital functions, while the unpleasant produces a depression of activity ; although to be on safe ground, and in order to avoid any conclusion as to which is cause and which is effect, it would be more correct to say that increase of energy or activity is accompanied by or goes with a feeling that is described as pleasurable, and that an un- pleasant feeling is found with a depression of vitality. Is pleasure the opposite of pain ? This is a natural and almost universal antithesis, but a careful examination will show that they cannot be really contrasted, unless carefully defined, in this way. As a matter of fact, pain is a sensation, pleasure is a feeling ; but as pain is invariably accompanied by unpleasant feelings, 1 the word has come to stand for both the sensation and the feel- ing, and so for practical purposes for the feeling itself. This is a point of considerable importance in the whole question of motives and tendencies, and requires a little further consideration. 1 This statement may be allowed to stand, although there are, no doubt, certain kinds of pain accompanied by feelings that are in a way pleasurable. This phenomenon of " pleasure-pain," of course, makes it quite clear that pain is a sensation, which gives rise to feelings, according to its quality and intensity, as do the other sensations. 76 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY There are, as we have seen, definite nerve endings, which have apparently been found all over the body ; nothing of the same nature has been discovered or even suggested for pleasure. Frey l states that pleasure is the absence of pain, and therefore requires no special nerves. Pleasure is too obviously more than the absence of pain to make this conclusive. Pain is a vital warning, pleasure is as it were a luxury ; the pleasurable feeling is not even necessary to the appropriate reflex actions, though without it as an inducement human activities would soon languish. We have good reason to believe, and the point is elaborated in the chapter on primitive instincts, that pleasure does not arise until consciousness is developed that is to say, that pleasure is not existent until the different nerves have carried the sensation to a brain. We see arising and developing in the early organism various reflex actions and co-ordinated movements of a considerable degree of complexity that are produced in direct response to stimulus, without the necessity of any central nervous system, in which it would be as out of place to talk of pleasure as it would be in the case of a flower turning to the sun. Why, then, should pleasure have been developed if it is only, so to speak, an epiphenomenon of action or sensation ? The answer seems to be, that it is a necessary corollary of consciousness and the power of choice. If an animal of increas- ing intelligence is to have any power of adaptation, l " The Psychology of the Emotions," Ribot, p. 51 (1897). PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 77 he must have a power of choice ; if he is to choose correctly, i.e. in such a way as to be of benefit to himself or his race, it is necessary that something should appeal immediately to his consciousness, in addition to the unconscious impulse or the remote advantage to be gained for the race some- thing which would lead, later on, to a conscious direction of his activities in the best direction. Whenever the appropriate action was performed, function duly exercised, suitable environment or food procured, we may suppose an increase of general vitality, or some similar phenomenon the conscious mind had to be made aware of this, and so made aware that it should tend to its re- petition ; such activities would be accompanied by a general feeling, and this feeling would be plea- sure. Any animal that by chance variation found more pleasure in things less useful would be elimi- nated ; and though we can hardly follow this out completely, we see very clearly that the strongest instincts have the keenest pleasures or the strongest feelings of discomfort. Pain, being a sign of something detrimental to life, would be accompanied, in addition to the sensation, by a strong feeling tone of discomfort ; and pain, being the most unpleasant thing we know, is applied naturally to the extreme of mental dis- comfort in accordance with the invariable rule by which every physical sensation has its mental counterpart. Pain, too, certainly makes a stronger impression than any of the sensations causing pleasure or joy, perhaps because it is primarily 78 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY a motive to activity to remedy something that is wrong, while pleasure is an indication that, at all events for the moment, things are as they should be. If a strong instinct of any kind is thwarted or prevented, we do not get a sensation of pain, unless we use the word metaphorically, but we do get what may be called the opposite of pleasure ; and this, although different in kind from pain, may amount to such a degree of unpleasantness as to make a very considerable amount of pain prefer- able. All forms of pleasure are accompanied by, or rather perhaps accompany, the organic modi- fications previously described. Primarily it is physical, attached to a sensation, a soft warm contact, the satisfaction of hunger, and so on ; then it becomes an anticipation e.g. a dog seeing his food being prepared ; then ascending, the plea- sure becomes attached to pure representation. This forms the main group of pleasures, and pro- vides the varied and numerous joys of humanity, as it becomes divided into many varieties, egoistic, sympathetic, &c.; still rising, it reaches the highest and rarest manifestations attached to pure concepts, the pleasures of aesthetic creation, of the meta- physician, the scientist, and the religious thinker. It is interesting to note that at every stage we see the means devised by nature to secure her ends converted into the end in itself, even when the intellect clearly realises the ultimate aim of the instinctive pleasure ; and the pleasure, originally the criterion, becomes regarded as the end to be aimed at. It would be an interesting and not a PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 79 difficult matter to trace the transition from a strictly physical pleasure, such as that of a cool drink to a thirsty man, step by step to the most intellectual and ideal pleasures, showing how the two qualities sensory and representative are always co- existent, and that we qualify any given pleasure according to the prominence of one or the other. In aesthetic enjoyment we find a simple sense feeling of pleasure in forms, colour, and sounds ; certain colours, certain qualities of sound, a certain arrangement of objects, produce at once a pleasurable impression. tl Agreeable states," says Herbert Spencer, " are the correlatives of actions which conduce to the well-being or preservation of the individual." Instinctive desires and aver- sions are, as we have seen, inextricably bound up with the action necessary to preserve the individual and the race in the long struggle for existence ; and we hope in Chapter V. to make some suggestion as to the possible basis of our pleasures that are usually classed under the head of aesthetic. It must always be remembered that there is no such thing as an absolutely independent sensation ; every sensation is determined by its relation to the one experienced immediately before it, or at the same time. This is, of course, a matter of com- mon knowledge the same water will feel hot or cool to the hand previously dipped in a colder or hotter liquid. Colours are determined very largely by their neighbourhood. If one colour is placed by the side of another which is not its comple- mentary colour, the one will always be affected by 8o ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the complementary colour of the other. A grey strip of paper can, by being laid upon various coloured sheets, be made to partake of the colour of each in turn, the two being covered with trans- parent paper to soften the outline. If the eye be turned from a strong red to a white surface, a greenish gleam will appear. These effects, un- noticed as a rule, enter into all sensations of colour. We cannot regard this as due to illusion, or erroneous inference, since it is the rule, not an unusual effect appearing only in exceptional cases. Every sensation is determined by its relation to other sensation, and its existence and properties are thus decided. If any object has once been presented to any sense organ, it is possible subsequently to recall its appearance. Such a recalled image cannot be kept constantly in the focus of attention, but it can be continually summoned back again, be- coming more vague, uncertain, and lacking in detail according to the time that has elapsed since the original impression, and also to the intensity of the first sensation. This is the idea of an object, and differs from the original in being less intense, less constant, and in attracting the attention less forcibly. In normal conditions we are able to distinguish an idea, or image, of a thing, from the original of which it is a representation, by a pecu- liar vividness attached to the actual sensation. This is something more than a difference of in- tensity, for a sensation may be far less intense than the image or idea of a sensation, and yet PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 81 possess the peculiar quality by which we at once pronounce it to have a real objective existence. This sensory vividness seems to be a fundamental character of experience. In cases of abnormal condition of the brain, hallucinations and imagi- nary images may so acquire this vividness as to produce a complete illusion of actuality. Most people, while able to call up images of all kinds with readiness, find that some classes of sensa- tions are more readily reproduced than others. For the majority it is the visual imagery that is predominant, though there are many people who have a keen auditory imagination. If a person is lacking in any of the sense organs, or has lost one at an early age, probably before the third year of life, he loses the power of experiencing the corresponding imagery. If a person has en- joyed normal vision for the first few years of his life, he continues able to call up visual images even though the eyes may have been actually removed. Images, therefore, do not involve the activity of the sense organs. If, however, one of the sensory areas of the brain be destroyed, the subject becomes incapable of experiencing not only the sensations normally excited by the pro- cesses of that area, but also the corresponding images. An important point to notice is that the feeling tone which is produced by images or ideas of sensation do not differ from those produced by the sensation, except perhaps in intensity, although often indeed the feeling produced by a revived idea of some occurrence may be actually stronger F 82 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY than that felt at the time. We shall return to this point in dealing with emotions. It is, of course, of great importance to the artist, who can, by his power of arousing ideas and images, cause as strong a feeling as the actual thing he repre- sents, or perhaps even stronger, by accentuating a particular aspect of it. The feelings which are linked with the sense of sight and hearing, and with free ideation and activity of thought, are more easily reproduced than those which we owe to the lower senses, and especially than those which arise from the organic functions. They are consequently more freely at our disposal, and less easily interfered with by ex- ternal considerations, a fact which is of the more importance since to this class belong the intel- lectual, moral, and religious feelings. The immense variety of our sensory experience is due to the complex fusions of these elementary qualities in different proportions. This is true also of the lower senses, such as those of taste. There are innumerable sensations always falling on the various sense organs which are giving rise to various reactions producing feeling tones. These are again mixed up, modified, and altered by ideas of previous sensations also producing feeling tones, all of which at any moment form in consciousness a unitary whole which is not, however obviously complex, a mere agglomeration of parts or features which could by sufficient introspective power be analysed and distinguished, but is a distinct and complete state of mind. PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 83 We have so far avoided the use of the word " perception/' in order to keep in view as far as possible the assumption that sensations and the corresponding images, with their accompanying feelings, are psychical elements, and that all states of consciousness are syntheses of various forms of these elements. When the attention is drawn to any object, we are said to perceive that object, while all the other impressions that are exciting sensations at the same moment fall into the field of inattention. We may say of them that they are sensed, but not perceived. These so-called marginal sensations largely affect our conduct; stimulate various routine adjustments in our movements, e.g. as we pick our way over rough uneven ground ; while the attention is fully occupied otherwise. The object that is in the focus of consciousness, that is " perceived," arouses not only the particular sensation proper to itself, but also images of sensations previously experienced ; and the degree to which this takes place may vary to an indefinite extent, depending upon the expe- rience, training, habit, temperament, &c., of the person. Perception involves the synthesis of sensa- tions and images of different senses and in the establishment of relations. As the greater part of the book deals with various forms of perception, we need not stop now to de- scribe the many different varieties ; we have seen roughly that the perception of object is, so to speak, the method in which the perceiver is affected by any sensation or combination of sensations upon 84 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY which his attention is fixed due to his whole in- herited disposition, character, training, education, and previous experience. We have to regard the brain of the adult as consisting of a great number of circuits or sub-circuits of nervous systems ; organised with various degrees of completeness and stability, more or less closely interconnected. Some of these perceptual systems are congenitally determined ; inherited, developing naturally at some stage in the individual's life ; others are built up by the course of experience. The perceptual life of most of the animals must be regarded as almost completely controlled by congenitally organised perceptual systems. Man differs from the animal in his power of greatly modifying his inherited systems by experience, and power of developing new systems peculiar to each individual. Such congenital perceptual systems are called instincts, and the action which the appropriate object calls forth we call instinctive actions ; and although man's capacity for learning by experi- ence, and modifying inherited tendencies, largely obscures the simple manifestations of instinct by acquired modes of action, nevertheless they form the groundwork of his nature, determine the nature of his activities, and settle in what directions he will find his pleasures in life. Even under the present artificial conditions the old hunting instinct is strong, and forces the majority of men to find in some form or other methods of gratification. The rivalry and sense of success in getting the better of others, the natural outcome of the struggle for PSYCHOLOGY OF FEELING 85 existence, forms the basis of many of our strongest feelings of pleasure or the reverse. Ambition, the last infirmity of noble minds, is but one branch of the same tree. Deep down in the heart of all lie these old tendencies and instincts that find their gratification in many ways that seem so far removed from their original purpose. In speaking of the pleasures accompanying instinctive tendencies to action, we are really touching upon the emotions; and although there may be no more difference between a feeling and an emotion than that of a degree of complexity, it is useful in considering them to draw a distinction, if only an arbitrary one. Feeling has been treated simply as a state of consciousness, pleasurable or distasteful, directly responding to some peripheral stimulation, while an emotion always involves some perceptional or ideational activity. The important point to emphasise here is that the senses do, apart from and previously to any intellectual or perceptual additions, respond by a distinct feeling tone to form, colour, rhythm, and harmony, since in this response lies the innate pleasure in beauty. We now pass on to consider the question of the feeling tones associated with the more complicated instinctive tendencies. CHAPTER IV EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS IT is due to the possession of an inherited nervous disposition that it is possible for a person to have a distinct attitude of perception towards, and a tendency to act in a particular way with reference to, certain objects without having had any previous experience of such or similar things, the action being adapted more or less completely to secure the advantage of the individual or the species. Such congenital perceptual tendencies are instincts. Whenever an appropriate object arouses in us an instinctive response of any kind, we notice that is, if it is of a sufficient degree of intensity not only an impulse to a certain kind of action or certain motor manifestations ; movements, gestures, atti- tude of the body, changes in the voice, blushing, pallor, trembling ; alteration in the secretions, re- spiration, circulation, and so on ; but at the same time are aware of an emotional state of conscious- ness which is either pleasant or unpleasant that is, it is similar to the state of consciousness that we have described under feeling, but more diffuse, and not referred, as a rule, to any particular part of the body, or connected with any sense organ. 86 EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 7 An emotion may be considered to be a more com- plex form of feeling, standing in the same relation to simple feeling as the simultaneous association of ideas stands to simple perceptions on the mental plane. That is to say, that in an emotion it is the pleasantness or unpleasantness of a total situation or predicament that is felt the whole complex of ideas which represent a certain concurrence of pro- cesses or collocation of objects in the outside world. An emotion contains an ideational or representative factor. A man, let us say, is suddenly confronted by some one pointing a revolver : he supplements this by the idea of the effect of a pistol ; the fact that the man is an enemy; that he is alone and unarmed, &c.; at the same time he feels the scene in its totality as dangerous, the feeling tone of his recognition of this fact is determined by certain internal adjustments that are very highly unpleasant, giving him the feeling he calls fear and driving him to every expedient to get rid of. An emotion, then, arises in this way ; the stream of consciousness is interrupted by an idea to which the attention is forcibly attracted ; this idea is im- mediately supplemented by other ideas, and a simultaneous association is formed, reflecting a scene or situation in the physical world. An organism thus brought face to face with a particular situation has to meet it by a particular set of movements and bodily adjustments which, with the corresponding visceral changes, determine the feel- ing tone. Feelings pass into emotions with such extreme rapidity that it is as impossible, practically, 88 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY to distinguish between an emotion and a feeling as between perception and sensation, but for the purpose of discussion, the distinction, if arbitrary, is convenient in order to keep the development of the emotion in a clear sequence ; but it is as doubtful whether an adult ever has a pure feeling as it is whether he can have a pure sensation. Instinctive reaction and emotional expression shade imperceptibly into one another. " Every object that excites an instinct excites an emotion as well." 1 Emotions are not occasioned merely by the perception of certain objects ; they are occa- sioned only by occurrences or ideas which run counter to or help to further pre-existing tendencies. This is obvious enough in the case of the coarser emotions the anger of a dog at being deprived of a bone involves a pre-existing need or desire for food : we can trace the same principle through many of even the subtler emotions, and we can fairly assume it true of all emotional response, how- ever intellectualised the original instinct may have become. In the case of the higher animals we observe similar tendencies to action, bodily movements, &c. ; these are usually allowed to proceed unchecked, while in human beings governed by reason, the action that would naturally follow is commonly prevented or modified by the will, in accordance with previous experience or reasoned policy. Thus it happens that in our own case we attach the greater importance to the state of consciousness of 1 W. James, " Principles of Psychology," vol. ii. p. 442. EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 89 emotion peculiar to each instinct, and characteristic of it, while in the case of animals we notice chiefly the resulting actions and movements. The result of this is, that it is common to speak of the " instinctive actions " of animals, and of the " emo- tions" of man as though they were something different, whereas they are but two sides of one process, the objective and subjective effects of the excitement of inherited perceptual dispositions. Certainly it is difficult to trace the relations of the more subtle or derived emotions to instinctive modes of action, but even these can by a careful analysis and classification with reference to bodily activity or tendency to action be shown to have their basis in some originally useful instinct. In the case of the primary emotions, as in anger, fear, love, the relation to instinctive life-preserving action is clear enough. In order that the bodily system may be in the best possible condition for effective exercise of the necessary activity, certain adjustments of the visceral organs, circulation, respiration, &c., are necessary; these adjustments follow, like the bodily movements, immediately from the excitement of the instinctive conative tendency forming "ser- viceable associated habits " to the instinctive actions. Since these visceral adjustments cannot, or can only to a limited extent, be controlled, while the instinctive bodily actions can generally be pre- vented or modified, and as they are moreover peculiar to, and have a recognisably different feel- ing tone for, each form of instinctive impulse, they 90 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY have not unnaturally come to be regarded as determining the emotion. In the case of emotional excitement that is of a very high degree of intensity, there are other specific symptoms due to the great amount of nervous energy liberated, which then tends to diffuse itself through the system. This free nervous energy which sur- charges the nervous system tends to escape along all efferent channels, and, if too intense, may, end in convulsions that upset all power of co-ordinated movement, and so prevent the performance of even the instinctive actions. If of less intensity, it shows itself in the trembling of the muscles, ejaculations, cries, screams, weeping, laughter, &c. As already remarked, these organic sensations are accompanied by certain states of feeling which are agreeable or disagreeable, or mixed in every possible variety of quality and degree of intensity. Now of these two groups, the motor manifestations and visceral adjustments on the one hand, the pleasures and discomfort on the other, which is fundamental ? This has already been discussed with regard to simple feeling, and again it must be concluded that the feeling of pleasure and displeasure is superficial ; the deep element lies in the tendencies, appetites, needs, desires, which express themselves in motor tendencies, and it is not difficult to conceive the whole process passing completely through with no sensation of pleasure or pain. "These agreeable or painful states are only signs and indications ; and just as symptoms reveal the existence of a disease which must be looked for deeper, so pleasure and EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 91 its opposite are only the effects which must guide us in the search for causes hidden in the region of the instincts." l We need not stop to discuss which of the in- stincts is the most primitive or the earliest to be developed they are all necessary, or at any rate useful, to preservation of life in the individual or the race ; but we can accept the fact that at the root; of each of the primitive emotions there is an instinct or tendency, and that these instinctive de- sires and emotions are developed as life and mental power grows more complex, being subdivided and recombined in ever varying ways, rising gradually from mere unconscious impulses to higher and higher intellectual forms, until the early tendencies become the highest aspirations of science, art, and religion. At the base of our intellectual life, the spur to further action, as that which gives value to the result, lies in some form or other an old instinctive craving or tendency born of the struggle for existence, all of which are, or were, in some way or other useful in determining survival or continua- tion of the race some have dropped out, useful only in the earliest stages, but still leaving traces behind them in rudimentary organs, in curious longings and ill-defined wants, in unexpected feel- ings of pleasure and delight, or vague dislike and discomfort. With the development of intellectual power and reason, the necessity for instinctive action is replaced 1 Th. Ribot, " Psychology of the Emotions," p. 3. 92 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY by a higher and more effective guidance. The old desires and tendencies are with the growth of the mental power translated into the terms of the ideal, always in the direction of leaving the mere physical satisfaction as of less importance than their intel- lectual counterpart. Take, for example, the com- monest emotion, love ; starting from a simple physical impulse, it becomes more and more pene- trated with psychical feeling, reaching in the average man a fair mixture of organic and psychic elements ; becoming again more and more intel- lectual, the idea appearing first, being perhaps for a long time free of the physiological side finally in the latest stage the personal concrete image is replaced by a vague impersonal concept, a kind of mystical love in which the organic stimulus is so slight as often to be denied altogether. /We have now seen that any physical tendency or craving, and the pleasurable feeling that accom- panies it, always have their parallel in a corre- sponding intellectual process ; an emotion, as we have seen, is the accompaniment of an instinctive reaction, and can be revived as strongly, or nearly strongly, by an idea of a sensation as by the original sensation itself. We cannot revive an emotion we can only remember that we felt glad or sorry or pleased ; but by reviving the causes in memory we can reproduce a similar but new emotion. We found that a pleasurable emotion is felt upon due performance of instinctive reaction ; and, though originally developed to meet certain ends, these ends need not be fulfilled, or even EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 93 apprehended, in order to produce the pleasurable feeling ; consequently the pleasurable means tend to become sought as an end in themselves. We see this in all the instinctive tendencies : the sportsman enjoys his hunting though he does not want the quarry ; it is not the thought of preserving the race that makes men fall in love ; this reaches an absurd exaggeration in the miser who hoards and loves the gold, no longer caring for the things which make gold desirable. The scientist enjoys his research, and pursues it with an almost passionate ardour, spurred on by one form of the valuable instinct of curiosity which in another shape leads a gossip to listen at keyholes. Games are played in which the joy and grief come from the old instincts of rivalry, righting, and hunting. We need not pursue these illustrations ; we find everywhere that keen intellectual enjoyment is possible, rising to emotional degrees of intense pleasure or the deepest distress, quite apart from the end to be gained. In discussing the simple feelings we found that there was in all sensations an affective, or feeling, tone, that was either pleasurable or the reverse, which reached a considerable pitch of intensity accompanied by bodily changes, and broadly speaking only differed from a full emotion by being simpler and less diffuse ; that these feelings which determined our likes and dislikes were directly traceable to the absolute need for the discrimination, and the power to take advantage of the conditions surrounding the developing organism. It is by these sensations, actual, or 94 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY revived in idea, and the feeling that accompanies them, that we place or name the total emotion, and call it higher or lower according to the sense involved. The higher are again divided into many branches moral, scientific, aesthetic, religious, &c. When the total effect due probably to its appeal to sensation in the eye or ear, by colour, form, rhythmical sound, or movement arouses a parti- cular and easily recognisable emotion, always con- nected with the beautiful in some form, we call it an aesthetic emotion, although the actual intellectual process may be similar to that rn many other of the intellectual pleasures. Emotions, as we now experience them, are so complicated that it is never possible to say of any particular state of feeling that it is only a simple emotion, say of love, anger, jealousy, &c. Love, according to Herbert Spencer, is often a compound of physical attrac- tion, aesthetic impressions, sympathy, tenderness, admiration, self-love, love of approbation, love of possession, and desire of liberty ; it is indeed im- possible to say in any case how a composite feel- ing is constituted. A man in love tinges all his feelings with a rich vein of feeling that stimulates all the other emotions ; and it is well known that the excitement of any one emotion tends to spread over the whole life of consciousness, and seeks to impart its own colouring to all the elements of life indifferent as to whether they are connected or not with the original cause, it overflows and enhances all the emotional life. Much misunder- standing and unnecessary difficulty has been EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 95 caused in the consideration of the aesthetic emo- tion by an attempt to shut it off and treat it as though it were a separate whole, whereas it is compounded of many branches of the primitive emotions, probably, at one time or another, of all that the mind has succeeded in raising into the intellectual and ideal regions. For example, we find it repeatedly stated from Aristotle onwards that the characteristic of beauty is unity in variety that is to say, that there is a feeling of pleasure in being able to apprehend as a whole a number of different objects or ideas. The mind or the eye, brought face to face with a number of disconnected and apparently different facts, ideas, shapes, sounds, or objects, is bothered and uneasy ; the moment that some central con- ception is offered or discovered by which they all fall into order, so that their due relation to one another can be perceived and the whole thus grasped, there is a sense of relief and pleasure which can be very intense. In an earlier stage this may be simply the finding of a practical way out of a difficult position, and, we may well imagine, need not be more than a half-conscious sense aware- ness for practical action of the general meaning of a particular seUof circumstances. This quality of the brain would have in the struggle for existence a value hardly to be over-estimated ; but whether it is the metaphysician reducing the universe to one great conception, the man of science discovering a great law of nature that reduces the complicated series of isolated facts to a single apprehensible unity, 96 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY an architect who by a careful ordering of parts and repeated detail makes a whole of which the complete intention can be grasped at once by the eye, or the musician working out his complicated series of sounds so that an obvious order and arrangement can be perceived, the intellectual process is psy- chologically the same, and the pleasure that results in part is due to this sense of comprehension and in part to the feeling tone of the particular sensations that are connected with the whole result if aesthetic, to sound, form, and colour. The more sensations that are appealed to, the richer and more intense the corresponding emotion. How intensely "plea- sant the scientific discovery of a satisfactory proof of some theory, or, if we like to call it so, a striking case of unity in variety, can be, is well shown by stories of scientists, such as that of Sir Humphry Davy dancing in his laboratory for joy on making some successful experiment. If we choose to label this feeling aesthetic when it is brought to our notice in connection with cer- tain sensations, there is no objection, provided that we keep in mind that the fact that pleasure in re- cognising unity in variety, or similar qualities, is common to many other intellectual pleasures. We shall find this equally true of any of the other attri- butes assigned to beauty as the cause to which our pleasure is due. They are intellectual pleasures common to all branches of mental action deter- mined in a particular direction by the peculiar feel- ing tone that accompanies pleasing sensations of colour, form, &c. EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 97 Another instinctive feeling that has a far-reaching influence, and which plays a larger part than is always acknowledged in our enjoyment of works of art, is that which may be described as the recog- T nition_iaslinct, the pleasurable response with which } we greet something that is known or familiar. In J the next chapter we discuss this instinct in its primi- tive form, in which it appears as a simple life-pre- serving faculty. In its more advanced form it is shown in all kinds of ways in the desire for the accustomed, in home-sickness, in the love of the country and place of our childhood ; in any trouble or distress it is to the familiar that we turn instinc- tively. The feeling of fear or dislike of the new or strange is most marked in the ill-educated and those wanting in power of reasoning. It is par- ticularly noticeable in young children, who are afraid of a strange face, cannot sleep in a strange bed or in unfamiliar surroundings, dislike a new taste or, indeed, any novel sensation ; while the simple joy in recognition is very clearly shown in the delight with which they acclaim anything that they are able to recognise an animal in a picture-book, a horse or a cow in a field. It was of obvious im- portance to animals developing in a keen struggle for existence to have a quick discrimination be- tween the safe and the dangerous the environ- ment and objects in which they were developed, and to suit which they have become adapted ; to feel strongly the absence of such, and to have a keen feeling of pleasure in the familiar sensations. Pleasure in the familiar, of course, involves the G 98 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY converse fear of, or dislike to, the unfamiliar or strange, which has to be regarded as, at all events possibly, dangerous. This requires some modifi- cation, because if all new objects were avoided and retreated from as perilous, there could be no advance ; so we get a further instinct of curiosity and interest in things that are strange. This is usually coupled with a considerable degree ^6f fear. Watch a dog approaching a piece of news- paper caught on the ground and moving in the wind ; the cautious steps, the frequent halts, the limbs braced for quick and immediate flight, well show the impelling curiosity to investigate over- coming the distrust and desire simply to run away. We find in ourselves that things sufficiently strange cause fear if we cannot in any way understand them, as, for example, if we think we see a ghost or something uncanny ; as Professor James says, there is no one whose heart would not stop beating if he suddenly found his chair moving across the room without visible cause. In a lesser degree we find simple dislike, distrust, or doubt, unless the difference from the familiar or the normal is suffi- ciently slight to be easily fitted in with previous knowledge. A new fashion in clothes must not deviate too startlingly from the- prevailing habit. We are satisfied by the small steps by which we pass from one to another. Two fashionably dressed people of perhaps fifty years apart will each think the other's dress silly and ugly. Any novelty to be pleasing must not, as a rule, differ by too large a degree from what we are accustomed to. Curio- EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 99 sity and the need for gaining increased knowledge and experience are as necessary for development as the safer instinct of avoidance of the unknown. This makes, as it were, a compromise a curiosity as to anything new, and the acceptance of it pleasurably if it does not do more than accen- tuate some feature already familiar by habit or pleasing by congenital tendency. It is to this quality of taking pleasure in the familiar that we grow by custom to tolerate, and then even to like, something that was initially un- pleasant. This does not refer to the formation of habit, which involves other considerations, such as power of adaptability, &c., but merely of the finding pleasure in and feeling the want of things that have, as the saying goes, grown dear by habit. The same holds good with regard to abstract ideas : a new conception of matter, of motion, of electricity, a new theory of anything, will cause us great pleasure if we can graft it on to our previous conceptions of the things, if we can accept it without doing violence to any of our pre- conceived notions. If, on the other hand, it runs counter to, or upsets some cherished belief, we either refuse altogether to agree, or we are much troubled until we have so succeeded in readjusting our views as to take it in. A good illustration of this is the position of the orthodox and the prin- ciple of evolution. At first the idea was scouted, and, as far as possible, its existence ignored ; when the proofs became irresistible, and it had to be accepted, it was somehow worked into the old ioo ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY religious forms, and found not to be incompatible with them. It is indisputable that this pleasure in recognition plays an enormous part in all questions of pleasure in art. Many people judge a portrait entirely by the degree to which it recalls the subject ; sight- seers at a picture gallery are delighted to recognise a bit of country or something they know themselves. Imitation is the very basis of art work, and appeals primarily to this strong instinct that gives such pleasure in simple recognition. Of course this does not for a moment mean that imitation is the end of art it is only the beginning ; but the mere fact of the spectator recognising a slightly novel, and so pleasing and interpretable, aspect of a familiar object, touches an emotional impulse which puts him into a favourable and receptive condition, thus adding its quota to the effects of harmonious colour and line, and all the other appeals to emotion which the particular work of art may have. Realism, or the literal presentment of the familiar, is a direct appeal to recognition, generally with the slight but piquant addition of a novel aspect, but not too novel for easy and satisfactory adjustment. It should be remembered that many a scene or object of striking novelty may at the first sight strike home with a wave of strong pleasure ; in such cases we may fairly assume that it has a direct appeal to some con- genital tendency, some inherited faculty that has not previously had an opportunity of exercise. We shall try to indicate later how this demand EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 101 for the familiar would lead directly to pleasure in symmetry, in balance, proportion, when dealing with the simpler instinctive reactions, for an or- ganism would naturally crave for the conditions to meet which it was developed. The emotion of sex is one of the emotions that plays a highly important part in art feeling. To the person in love everything is beautiful, the whole emotional condition is unstable, and can be touched off by almost any object, which is then called beautiful ; the feelings are irradiated with a joy in life, in existence, in everything ; pictures are more beautiful, scenery more enchanting, all the feelings are strengthened, righteous anger blazes forth, in- finite tenderness every function and part of the body shares in the all-pervading influence. It is impossible to say where the emotional effect begins or ends. Those who have renounced love, and devoted their lives to religion or art, have still this powerful instinct acting as an impelling force, though it may take forms in which the direct con- nection is difficult to trace. It is perhaps the strongest of all the instincts, and in some subtle way is probably producing some effect whenever any of the other emotions are touched. The in- fluence it exerts may be absolutely removed from any idea of sex, and of any conscious idea of the cause of the general feeling of pleasure. There is an exhilarating fascination in talking to, or even seeing, a beautiful woman, that is in a way not unlike the effect of a work of art. There is, of course, a great deal of art work, 102 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY certainly in the primitive and early forms, that aims directly at exciting the sex feelings ; but quite apart from this there is in many works of art something that does appeal to the intellectual and idealised side of love which heightens the general emotional effect, the source of which is not consciously recognised. Another instinctive emotion, which in its latejr form plays a part in the aesthetic feelings, is that of sympathy. In its primitive form it is a reflex, automatic tendency to imitate, in its rudest form. According to Bain, it is a tendency to reproduce an attitude or bodily movement seen in another. We see this tendency illustrated most strongly in animals that are gregarious, such as a flock of sheep ; we see it in ourselves in a crowd ; in our tendency to yawn when seeing another do so ; to laugh when others laugh ; in our half-conscious movements when we watch a person jumping or doing something difficult. There is a story of a famous detective who tried to read the thoughts and feeling of those he was watching by closely imitating their movements ; to what an extent an unconscious imitation of frown or a laugh, or more elaborate movements, does give the feeling which those movements usually accompany, must be within the experience of every one. In the early stages of life such imitative tendency was, of course, an absolute necessity ; the young learnt in this way the acquired habits of its race ; it also made pos- sible the communication of information. Thus arose the power of feeling another person's emotions ; EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 103 for even if the movements were not actually copied, the idea of the sensations that such movements would arouse would produce in the person looking on a similar if fainter emotion : an actor can rouse an audience to tremendous heights of emotion by his clever representation of an emotion which he can himself hardly help feeling as he goes through its usual manifestations. The artist can make a spectator feel the emotion he wishes by suggesting the outward signs, and the person looking can often by careful introspection actually feel a tendency to copy by muscular adjustment the position and rriovement suggested. This form of sympathetic sharing with the pain or 'joy that we see is not primarily an intellectual appreciation that can be controlled ; many people will as far as possible avoid the spectacle of pain and suffering by which they cannot help being sympathetically affected ; so that in many cases they are impelled by the most selfish motives to try and alleviate the pain of others, in order to save themselves. When this sense becomes raised into the ideal regions, it becomes the motive of much of the noblest and most disinterested work of humanity, but, like all our instincts, was developed simply as a help to the individual and the race. An instinct that plays a very large and important part as a motive for actions, and as determining pleasure and pain, is that which may be described as the assertion of self: an instinct that is a direct outcome of the struggle for existence. When feel- ing at any particular moment is determined by the 104 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY idea of what promotes or hinders self-assertion (self- preservation and self-development) it will appear as a pleasurable feeling of power or an unpleasant sense of powerlessness, according to the degree with which we think we have, or have not, at our disposal sufficient means of self-assertion. Under self-assertion must be included not merely the maintenance of physical superiority, but mental freedom and power, the sense of making oneself felt by others. 1 We can easily see in this instinct the spur to a large amount of artistic effort, which illustrates the desire for self-realisation, the wish to impose their own personality on others ; by its suggestion of power it is a valuable incentive to effective activity ; when exaggerated, it leads to the intense egoism that is not infrequently found in certain types of artistic genius. The creative instinct we deal with subsequently, and need not discuss further here, but there are many of the minor instincts that will be found adding their share to the total aesthetic effect. The desire for the approbation or applause of our fellow-men, that delightful proof of success in competition, direct outcome of the struggle for existence, is no mean spur to artistic effort. The sense of owner- ship, traceable easily to a valuable instinct, adds a strong and subtle charm to any work of art we may happen to possess, and most of us are apt to con- sider our geese swans. To some people their plea- sure in art works is certainly strengthened by the feeling that only a few people are really capable of 1 See H. Hoffding's " Outlines of Psychology," p. 243 (1904). EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 105 appreciating those particular forms, and a slight background of satisfaction in their own cleverness adds something to the total enjoyment ; others enjoy things, and really enjoy them, because every one says they are good. To many people a picture by a great artist, music by a great player, the poetry of a master, are really far more pleasing and im- pressive because they know of the fact. It is not uncommon to call this humbug, but it is really a perfectly natural result. When brought before a work of art or scenery, we, in this sophisticated age, instead of simply trusting to our feelings, and praising or abusing, are too careful of our reputa- tions as connoisseurs of art, and we hold our emotional feelings in check until we have ration- ally and intellectually examined it ; having decided that it complies with all the rules, and that it must be good, we give rein to our ecstasies, and the object then becomes more and more beautiful. If we are approaching the work of an acknowledged master our critical functions are in abeyance, and we come ready to let the emotions have full play unchecked. Although a tinge of aesthetic feeling may very likely be always at work colouring and influencing our thoughts and judgments, it forms, as a rule, an indistinguishable part of our general attitude of mind, and only when this aspect becomes promi- nent do we realise an object as beautiful. The amount of such feeling, and the frequency of those moments in which it makes itself really obvious, vary, of course, according to the individual tern- io6 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY perament, within very wide limits, but except in those of an unusually emotional nature these moments of strong aesthetic feeling are not numerous. It is at such moments when they do occur that our standards of taste at least those that we make our- selves, not those that we are merely taught are formed ; preferences and likings thus felt as distinct and massive emotions will remain, forming pre- judices and standards by which other beauties will ' in future be judged. A period of life in which there has been a free play of the emotional faculties may be, for many, the time in which, as far as the fine arts and poetry are concerned, their stock of opinions and taste is formed for life ; and, since they are probably never so deeply moved again, they remain convinced that no other and no later beauties can ever really compare with those, of which they still cherish the recollection, though these very likely only owe their supreme attraction to the especially propitious moment in which they were first seen. It is not necessary to discuss in further detail all the varieties of different emotions and feelings that may play a part one time or another in the complex total of the pleasing frame of mind pro- duced by some effect of beauty. Enough has been said to show that a great part of what is commonly described as the aesthetic emotion is made up of feelings that are common to all phases of life, with their natural basis in instincts that have, or had in their original form, a value in the struggle for existence. The feeling becomes aesthetic when, in EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 107 addition to the intellectual delight due to associa- tion, suggestion, &c., there is a diffuse feeling of general pleasure from the direct sensuous appeal to the eye or ear a pleasure which we are able to consider as due to some quality of the object independent of ourselves, and detached from im- mediate advantage or utility ; that is, it must not be dependent for its effect upon the conscious recog- nition of its practical utility. Emotion, ther^Js simply a state of feeling dereclmbre complex^by the addition of numerous ideatimiajj^ctors. We have already seen that in the earliest stage of life there is a simple motor response to stimulus, that this response becomes more ela- borate ; at some period the adjustment to external stimulus is accompanied by a feeling of pleasure and pain, i.e. consciousness, and that presumably this must be at a fairly early stage ; then the re- action is guided by previous experience, i.e. memory, and this no doubt synchronises with as it makes possible mental action, not in the form of reason- ing, but by utilising the successful results of trial and error in sense experience. We can easily suppose that the gradual differentiation of organs, with their specific sense feelings and consequent power of dis- crimirJation, was of great survival value, and would consequently tend by natural selection to be in- creased and strengthened. From the process we find that certain sense organs eye and ear (chiefly) respond with an accompaniment of sense feeling, pleasurable or the reverse, to colours simple and in combination, to harmony in sound, to rhythm ; io8 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY and that in these things there is a choice, i.e. one is preferred as pleasant, that presumably this power of discrimination must have been advantageous in the conditions that surrounded life in an early stage. This feeling response is the cause of our aesthetic preferences, however complicated by other issues, and is the fundamental problem in the inquiry into the sense of beauty. How could such reactions have been of use to the primitive organisms ? The reasons of our likes and dislikes in the other senses are obvious enough. The sense of taste grew from the need to discriminate between wholesome and unwholesome food the animal or organism that could not distinguish such was naturally eliminated ; a moderate degree of warmth, with its pleasant sensation, was obviously a useful thing for the organism to desire ; a feeling of thirst impelled a search for the necessary liquid, instead of waiting to die for the want of it ; and so on, in all our feelings, all our instinctive cravings and longings, we see clearly and easily how the all-impelling need of survival or perpetuation of species lies at the bottom of the pleasant or unpleasantness of the feelings aroused by an object. The aesthetic pleasures are deeply ingrained and strongly felt ; there is hardly any phase or part of life that is exempt from their influence, either in increasing our pleasure, or, on the other hand, de- tracting from our enjoyment ; the delight of the eye and the charm of the ear are all pervasive. Can we, in the face of the obviously innate char- acter of this instinctive reaction, accept the view EMOTIONS AND INSTINCTS 109 that it is of a secondary or derived source, and not an original factor in the struggle for existence ? We have already given reasons for the assertion that some explanation is required that will suggest in what directions such faculties could have been of direct utility even in the earliest stages of life, and that therefore we should be able to find in quite primitive organisms certain reactions or in- stinctive activities that by a process of differentia- tion and development could ultimately determine aesthetic feeling, as far as the simple sense response to harmonies of colour, line, and sound are con- cerned. In the next chapter, therefore, the origin and growth of instincts is discussed, especially with regard to the earliest forms in which they show themselves, in order to make some suggestions upon this point. CHAPTER V THE ORIGIN OF INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES IN discussing sensations and the feelings that accompany them, allusion was made to the fact that the nature of the feeling, pleasurable or the reverse, or, if we prefer to call it so, the sense of like or dislike, arises ultimately from the relation between the organism and the object causing the stimulus. It now becomes necessary to examine in more detail the origin of this instinctive re- sponse, in order to see how the various reflex actions gradually arose, and how, as they became more complex, they developed into various in- stinctive series of actions, forming the mass of tendencies, desires, aversions, impulses, &c., which form the basis of the life of feeling and emotion. It has already been pointed out that we ought to find aesthetic taste, i.e. appreciation of colour, form, rhythm, arising from the same sort of primi- tive, perhaps preconscious, affinities for favour- able reactions ; just as those of taste, which are a criterion of suitable food. The simplest living matter, a mass of protoplasm, has the quality generally described as irritability that is to say, it is capable of responding to a stimulus by contraction, and thus can withdraw, INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES in in whole or in part, from a hurtful object or move towards a suitable one. From this irritability or sensibility arise reflex actions. A reflex is a reaction in which certain co-ordinated movements follow directly upon an external stimulus ; such as the involuntary closing of the eye at the approach of a foreign body. The most cursory examination of reflex actions at once brings into prominence the purposive and useful character of the great majority of them. The closing of the eye when an object approaches it, and the narrowing of the pupil in a strong light, are well adapted to pre- serve the delicate mechanism from harm. So well planned and co-ordinated are the movements, that it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are guided by intelligence. This idea is, however, incompatible with the fact, to which attention has already been drawn, that the existence of the brain is not necessary for their due performance. It has been maintained that reflex actions, and, conse- quently, the more complicated instinctive perfor- mances, must be considered as the mechanical effects of acts of volition in previous generations. For any explanation of this kind it is necessary that there should be some place where the mechanical effects could be stored up, for the nerve-fibres must be regarded merely as conductors. Reflex actions have therefore been regarded as a fruitful basis for the analysis of the functions of the central nervous system, and great attention has been devoted to the underlying processes and mechanism. In spite of very divergent theories as to the actual method, ii2 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the ganglion cells have been widely accepted as the principal source and agent of the compli- cated movements in reflex action among the lower animals. The assumption that the possession of a central nervous system was essential for the production of reflex action has been challenged by Professor Loeb, who was led to doubt the correctness of this theory by the fact that in the case of certain reactions, such as that to light, the process was identical in animals and plants ; and as plants certainly do not have a central nervous system, it was obvious that such phenomena as, for example, the heliotropic movement towards light, had to be attributed to some conditions common both to plants and animals. Professor Loeb, by a series of ingenious experiments, showed that neither the ganglion cells nor a central nervous system were necessary for the production of reflex actions. Certain difficulties arose in the proof of this ; for the well-known fact had to be met that in many cases destruction of the ganglion cells does in- terrupt the reflex process. But this objection is not sound, because in the higher animals the nervous reflex arc forms the only protoplasmic bridge between the sensory organs of the surface of the body and the muscles, so that in such cases, if the ganglion cells or the central nervous system be destroyed, the continuity of the protoplasmic conduction between the surface of the body and the muscles is interrupted, and a reflex is no longer possible. A further objection has been raised that INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 113 although these reflexes do occur in plants with no central nervous system, yet in animals the very existence of ganglion cells necessitates in them special reflex mechanism. It was therefore neces- sary to find out if there were not animals in which co-ordinated reflexes still continued to exist after the destruction of the central nervous system. Professor Loeb experimented upon certain worms and ascidians, in which, in addition to the trans- mission through the reflex arc, there is direct transmission of stimuli from the skin to the muscles, and succeeded in demonstrating in Ciona intestinalis that the complicated reflexes still con- tinue after the removal of the central nervous system. 1 It is impossible here to give details, but the result of the various experiments brings out clearly the fact that irritability and conductibility are the only qualities essential to reflexes, and these are both common qualities of all protoplasm. But although the ganglion cells or the central nervous system are not the bearers of reflex mechanism, they are of immense help to the organism. Their value lies in the fact that they are quicker and more sensitive conductors than simple protoplasm. By means of these nerves and their qualities, an animal is better and more quickly able to adapt itself to changing condi- tions ; this adaptability is particularly necessary for animals that are capable of moving from one place to another. It is not uncommon to find instincts explained as 1 " Comparative Physiology of the Brain," Professor Loeb, p. 5 (1900). H H4 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the result of a psychical process, while leaving reflex actions on the simpler plane of physiological reaction. The instincts appear so purposeful and so complicated that it seems as if nothing short of intelligence and experience could have produced them that one generation must have discovered by skill or by chance the way of doing things, and that this is then perpetuated by practice and handed down by inheritance. This is the so-called " lapsed intelligence " theory of their origin. Instinct is, ac- cording to Wundt, inherited habit. "We may, accordingly, explain the complex instincts as developed forms of originally simple impulses which have gradually differentiated more and more in the course of numberless generations, through the gradual accumulation of habits which have been acquired by individuals and then transmitted. Every single habitual act is to be regarded as a stage in this psychical development." * This theory requires for its acceptance not only belief in the inheritability of acquired characteristics, but also in a perfectly incredible degree of intel- ligence and foresight in animals comparatively low in the scale. The Sitaris muralis beetle, for example, lays its eggs close to the nests of the anthophora, a hymenopterous insect that lays up a store of honey in a small excavated chamber in the ground, in which it places its egg. The young sitaris, as soon as it emerges from the egg, seizes hold of the first male anthophora that comes near enough, hanging to the hairs on its thorax ; passes from him to the female ; and, when the latter lays 1 Wundt, " Principles of Psychology," p. 319 (1907). INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 115 her egg in the prepared chamber, drops exactly on to the egg, which floats on the honey. It must fall exactly at the right moment, as it would perish if it fell into the honey. It then eats the egg, after which it develops digestive powers enabling it to eat honey, which it could not assimilate before. It then occupies the cell, and turns finally into the perfect insect. As all these operations are only performed once in the life of each individual, there seems no possibility for the formation of habits. Similarly in the case of a fly, which lays its eggs on the right substance to provide food for its young, and upon that only, it cannot have formed the habit by noticing the success of the experiment, for no attention whatever is paid to the eggs after they are once deposited. It is inconceivable how any kind of intelligence could lead even to a comparatively simple action of this kind. But, however the actions were originally de- termined, it seems very hard to understand how they can be inherited and carried on without some central structure of a mysterious and marvellous nature, and that this can only be located in some such form as the ganglion cells. If these are only 'to be taken as more efficient conductors of stimuli, what explanation is there left ? Professor Loeb answers this question very ingeniously, pointing out how difficult it is to make a satisfactory theory of the mechanism of instincts, or explain their inheritance on the assumption of stored up memories. Among the elements that go to make up these n6 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY complicated instincts are certain simple reactions of the whole organism, or tropisms (heliotropism, chemotropism, geotropism, stereotropism), which play a part of great importance. Their action depends upon the specific irritability of certain elements of the body-surface, and secondly upon the relations of symmetry of the body. When the elements at the surface of the body are symmetrical, they have the same degree and kind of irritability ; it can further be easily shown by experiment that those near the oral pole (or the mouth and head) possess a higher degree of irritability or sensibility than those at the aboral pole. This will obviously result in an animal orienting itself towards a source of stimulation in such a way that the symmetrical points are stimulated equally. Thus the animal is led either to, or away from, the source of stimulus without any will of its own. All that the ganglion cells have to do is to conduct the stimulus. For the inheritance of these instinctive reactions, it is, then, only necessary that the egg should contain the substance for determining the different tropisms, i.e. particular sensibility to light, heliotropism ; re- action to one particular chemical stimulus, chemo- tropism ; and so on, as well as the conditions for producing bilateral symmetry. For example, the right substance to feed the larva would set up a chemical action in the fly leading to a series of actions ending in the deposit of the eggs ; only that substance would have the effect, and only when owing to the internal conditions the organs were ripe for egg deposition. INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 117 We might quite well use the expression that the fly likes the particular substance and chooses it, so that here we have a case of apparent selection and preference, which would be correctly described as unconscious chemical affinity : we may suppose something of the kind as the origin of our likes and dislikes. It is not possible to draw any real distinction between reflexes and instincts, but in common language the word reflex is used when there action of a single part or organ of an animal is referred to, while instinctive is applied to the movement of the animal as a whole. The question of spontaneous movements must be considered, i.e. those which are apparently de- termined by internal conditions. These can be divided into rhythmically spontaneous or automatic processes, such as respiration and the beating of the heart, and a periodic spontaneous movement. It has been proved beyond doubt that automatic activity can, in the case of respiratory movements, arise in the ganglion cells, and from this the con- clusion has been drawn that all automatic move- ments are due to specific structures of the nervous centre. Recent investigations by Professor Loeb have, however, shown that this question is really one of the chemical condition of the tissue, and by changing these conditions the properties also alter. " If in the muscles of the skeleton the Na ions be in- creased and the Ca ions reduced, the muscles are able to contract rhythmically like the heart. It is only the pre- n8 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY sence of Ca ions in the blood which prevent the muscles of our skeleton from beating rhythmically in our body." l Another character noticed in automatic move- ments is their high degree of co-ordination, which seems to require a centre, as it were, of co-ordination to keep them all moving in the right order. Ex- periments on the lower animals show clearly enough that the co-ordination of automatic movements is caused by the fact that the element that beats most quickly forces the others to beat in its own rhythm. The problem as to the exact moment in the pro- cess of development at which psychic or conscious processes appear has given rise to endless contro- versy. Are we to consider obvious purposefulness of action a proof of presenter past psychic activity ? Because an animal responds, under particular cir- cumstances, very much as the observer would, judg- ing from his reason, expect it to, are we to consider it necessarily conscious ? Many instinctive reac- tions of a distinctly purposeful type occur in the vegetable kingdom, especially noticeable in the fly- catching plants and some of the climbers : shall we, then, attribute consciousness to them ? If we cannot say definitely at what moment con- sciousness is first present, we can at least point to the moment at which it first begins to be of any value to the organism ; and in view of the extreme economy of natural process, it is not unreasonable to assume that it is not present until the time that it can be of advantage to its possessor. As soon as an organism reaches a sufficient 1 Professor Loeb, op. cit., p. 10. INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 119 degree of development, a mechanism is produced by which a stimulus brings about not only the effects which its nature and the .specific nature of the sensitive organ call for, but by which the effects of other previous stimuli have an effect in modification or adaptation of the present re- action that is to say, when there is the possi- bility of memory, and with it the power of asso- ciation. If an animal can feel a sensation, but has no memory of it, the fact of feeling it is not of the slightest value as regards conscious direc- tion of future actions. All previous sensations are non-existent, and they can have no effect upon other actions of the organism. We may, therefore, with some plausibility infer that memory and consciousness arise together. If an animal, however low in the scale, can in the smallest degree be trained, if it can adapt its reaction to a stimulus by means of its experience, it possesses associative memory. We must make a careful distinction here, as it seems probable that effects of stimuli can, even in plants, be stored up and effect subsequent action. Professor Darwin l calls attention to an interesting example. The leaflets of the Scarlet-runner are more or less horizontal during the day and sink down at night, the change being due to the alternations of day and night. If the plant be kept in a dark room, it will con- tinue for a time to make the same movements. We may well imagine that in some such power as this of the cells to store up, by some change 1 Address to British Association, 1908. 120 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY in their physiological condition, and repeat sub- sequently a movement without the stimulus, lies the germ of what will afterwards become memory and consciousness. The point as to exactly at what stage organisms show a power of adaptation and of learning by experience has given rise to some difference of opinion. For example, Professor Albrecht Bethe * maintains that psychical life begins with the verte- brates ; that the invertebrates are endowed with no sensations, accumulate no experience, and therefore show no modification of action ; that they are automata, reacting mechanically to stimuli which never pass the limen of sense perception. He goes on to describe some experiments upon ants as to the recognition of members of the nest, the conclusion come to being that each has its own " nest substance," a volatile chemical substance alike for all members of the nest, and produced by the individual insect. The reaction to "familiar" and "unfamiliar" nest substance is connate, not acquired. A similar inquiry into the mechanism of "homing" shows that ants leave upon their path a volatile chemical slot, which is polarised, i.e. differs according to the direction of the ant whether to or from the nest. The slot is "re- ceived " through the antennae, and releases the "to" and "from" movements reflexly. 1 " Durfen wir den Ameisen und Bienen psychische Qualitaten Zuschreiben ? " Albrecht Bethe, Pflugers. Archiv. f. d. ges. Physio- logic, Ixx. I and 2, 1898. The above is taken from a review in Mind, July 1898. INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 121 On the other hand, Professor H. S. Jennings l tries to prove that simple reactions and tropisms are not sufficient to account for the actions of even the unicellular organisms ; that, on the contrary, they work by a system of trial and error ; and that this leads upward, offering at every point oppor- tunity for development, and showing even in uni- cellular organisms what must be considered the beginnings of intelligence, and of many other qualities found in higher animals. He describes one of his experiments upon Stentor, one of the Infusoria : " Stentor does not continue reacting strongly to a stimu- lus that is not injurious, but after a time, when such stimulus is repeated, it ceases to react, or reacts in some less pronounced way than at first. To an injurious stimu- lus, on the other hand, it does continue to react, but not throughout in the same manner. When such stimulus is repeated, Stentor tries various different ways of reacting to it. If the result of reacting by bending to one side is not successful, it tries reversing the ciliary current, then con- tracting into its tube, (Sec. This is clearly the method of trial and error passing into the method of intelligence, but the intelligence only lasts very short periods." It is difficult to see in the above and similar experiments a real proof of consciousness or the use of intelligence ; in the first place, it is difficult to be quite sure that the effect of fatigue in pro- ducing modification of subsequent reactions has been fully allowed for ; even a piece of elastic 1 Contribution to the Study of the Behaviour of the Lower Or- ganisms, 1904. 122 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY ceases to produce exactly the same response after frequently repeated stretching ; and also it is ob- vious that response to stimuli must vary if there is to be any sort of development ; again, it is ex- tremely difficult to insure that the successive stimuli are identical. It is not indeed difficult to find a parallel in the inorganic world say, for example, a small log of wood caught in the vortex of a waterfall, by which it is being repeatedly drawn back into the centre ; it looks as though it were trying to escape, it continually dives and reappears in different places ; at last, owing to some slight and imperceptible change in the volume of water, it just manages to catch the outgoing current, and sails off in triumph down stream an obvious case of trial and error. But we do not expect the log of wood to profit by the experience, and get away more quickly next time ; so with Stentor, he must be shown to be able to profit by his experi- ence. Professor Jennings, however, feels sure that the results are not due to motor fatigue, as in most cases he found the acclimatising process seemed to occur too rapidly to make fatigue of the motor apparatus probable. The most natural analogy to the phenomenon in our own experience is sensory adaptation, such as we find, for instance, in the fact that a moderate weight laid on the skin ceases after a time to be felt. 1 This would amount to the gradual disappearance of sensation in response to repeated stimulus, and we need not suppose this to be accompanied by any conscious psychical process. 1 "The Animal Mind." M. F. Washburn (1908). INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 123 By careful experiment to see whether an organ- ism is affected by previous or almost simultaneous stimuli, as the interval may in the early stages be presumed to be very short, it can be shown 1 that Infusoria, Ccelenterates, and worms do not possess a trace of associative memory, though certain in- sects, such as wasps 2 undoubtedly do have the power of recalling and making use of previous experience. If, then, we can regard consciousness merely as a name for phenomena due to the pre- sence of associative memory, we have a criterion which settles, or makes it possible to settle, the metaphysical problem as to whether all matter, or at least the whole animal kingdom, possesses con- sciousness. At all events, it settles it as a practical question. There is ample evidence that only certain species of animals possess associative memory, and there- fore consciousness, and that it appears in them only after reaching a certain degree in their advance ; for associative memory depends upon mechanical arrangements that are only present after a certain stage of development has been reached. This view is strongly supported by the fact that certain verte- brates lose all power of associative memory after the destruction of the cerebral hemispheres, and thus are deeply affected in all their actions by such an operation, while those vertebrates in which asso- ciative memory does not exist, or is only slightly developed, such as the shark or frog, do not differ 1 Professor Loeb, op. '/., p. 13. 2 "Wasps, Social and Solitary." Peckham (1905). 124 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY in their behaviour, or do so very slightly, after losing the cerebral hemispheres. Professor Loeb suggests that the fact that only certain animals possess the necessary mechanical arrangements for associative memory, and there- fore for metaphysical consciousness, is not stranger than the fact that only certain animals possess the mechanical arrangements for uniting the rays from a luminous point in one point on the retina, i.e. ability to see colour and distinguish the position and relation of objects. As has been already pointed out, we are in the habit of calling an action instinctive when the whole animal responds to a stimulus, while we call it a reflex action when one organ or a group of organs respond. This distinction is, of course, purely conventional. It is true that in a majority of cases the actions which we call instinctive, although unconscious, are adapted to an end, often a distant one. A fly acts instinctively in depositing its eggs on a suitable material ; we can regard this as a series of actions due to purely chemical stimulus ; the particular object that is suitable as food sets up a chemical change that results in the set of actions ending in the deposit of eggs. But utility or purpose is not sufficient to distinguish instinctive from reflex actions, for many simple reflex actions are obviously useful the action of the eye for instance while some instinctive actions, such as the flying of a moth into a flame, can hardly be said to be purposefully useful. In many cases a complicated instinct, such as that of the INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 125 Sitaris beetle mentioned above, is merely a chain of comparatively simple reflexes, each one of which is the stimulus which calls forth the next. To explain the cause of the moth flying into the flame, we have only to suppose that the moth is positively heliotropic, a quality that is common, of course, in plants, which, according to common language, love, or grow, towards the light. If we suppose the stem of such a plant placed near a window, the light will strike it from one side ; a con- traction of protoplasm on that side follows, and a greater resistance to increase is offered, the result of which is that the stem becomes concave on the side next the light; as soon as the bending has gone a sufficient distance, the stem comes into a straight line with the rays of light, the stimulus is then even on all sides, and the growing stem con- tinues in this line. In the same way, if a moth be struck by the rays of a light from any direction, the increased activity of the muscles on one side turns the head towards the light, and as soon as the moth becomes directly in a straight line towards the source of light the stimulation is equal on both sides, and there is no reason why the animal should turn more to one side than the other ; thus it is led to the light, and animals that move quickly, such as moths, get into the flame before the heat of the flame has time to stop them. Slower animals are checked, and walk or fly slowly about the flame. (The heliotfopism, no doubt in the usual course, takes the moth straight to the white flower, in which it will find its food.) Thus, given the 126 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY structure and peculiar irritability of the peripheral organs, nothing more is required than the chemical influence of light. That is to say that the so-called instinct is really no more necessary in the case of the moth than in the case of the heliotropic plants. As plants do not possess a central nervous system, there is no reason to suppose that similar action in animals are in any way more dependent upon a specific structure of the central nervous system. The natural inference is that they are determined by properties common both to animals and plants, such properties being : First, the possession of a substance on their surface which, undergoing a chemical change when subjected to the influence of light, produces changes of tension in the con- tractile tissue ; secondly, they must possess sym- metry of form, with its corresponding distribution of irritability. These two completely determine the heliotropic reaction. No doubt it may be shown that, in certain cases, by the destruction of the central nervous system this reaction ceases ; but this is due to the fact that the connection between the skin or the eyes, which are affected by the light and the muscles, is interrupted. A large number of the lower animals, especially among the insects, worms, &c., have the habit of crawling into cracks and crevices. This is generally interpreted as an instinct which thus drives them to seek safety by hiding, and so escaping the notice of their pursuers. That it does have the effect of preserving them, and that the instinct was therefore developed and stereotyped, is obvious INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 127 enough ; but the theory that it is done by an instinct of self-concealment, with a special centre to guide them, is clearly untenable in view of the following ingenious experiments by Professor Loeb. 1 He took a number of Amphipyra, a peculiar species of butterfly that is a fast runner, and, if allowed to go, runs about until it finds a corner or a crack into which it can creep. These were placed in a box, half of which was covered with glass, the other with an opaque sheet ; the bottom of the box was covered with small glass plates resting on glass blocks, raised just enough to allow an Amphipyra to creep beneath. The Amphipyra at once col- lected under the little glass plates, where they were in close contact with the solid bodies on every side, not, as might be expected, in the dark corner, but in the fully- lighted part, and even when exposed to the direct sunlight, although their hiding places were quite transparent ; showing the same alacrity in getting into the small holes when the whole box was quite dark, in all cases they were only satisfied, and remained at rest, when they could feel the pressure or close contact of some solid body all round, but quite unconcerned that the shelter was perfectly transparent and did not hide them in any way self-concealment had clearly nothing to do with it. The same pheno- mena exactly occurred in the case of certain sea worms ; for example, if an equal number of Nereis and small glass tubes are placed in a dish of sea water, in a short time a Nereis will be found in 1 op. tit., p. 184. 128 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY every tube, this occurring even in direct sunlight, which actually kills the worms in the transparent tubes. Professor Loeb explains it in this way, as another example of a simple tropism : " Many plants and animals are forced to orient their bodies in a certain way toward solid bodies with which they come in contact. I have given this kind of irritability the name of stereotropism. Like the positive and nega- tive heliotropism and geotropism, there is also a positive and negative stereotropism, and there are also stereotropic curvations. I have found, for instance, that when a Tubu- laria is brought in contact with a solid body, the polyp and the growing tip bend away from the body, while the stolon sticks to it. The polyp is negatively stereotropic, and the stolon positively stereotropic. Stereotropism plays a very important part in the processes of pairing and the formation of organs. The tendency of many animals to creep into cracks and crevices has nothing to do with self-conceal- ment, but only the necessity of bringing the body on every side in contact with solid bodies." l It is obvious that in natural condition it would be quite sufficient to feel something all round in order to provide concealment from observation and protection from light, the chance of finding transparent bodies being too remote to cause any important effect in the development of this life- preserving instinct ; similarly, in the case of the moth, lamps and flames not being found in nature, the instinct for avoiding this difficulty was not re- quired. It is again interesting to note the economy of nature, the way in which these tropisms are exactly fitted to the particular environment, and 1 " The Comparative Physiology of the Brain" (1905), p. 184. INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 129 only for that, the results being accomplished by the smallest possible means. This reaction to solid bodies or stereotropism, instead of a central instinct of self-concealment, has been further confirmed by experiments on worms that have been cut into pieces. A most interesting case of a preservative instinct is shown in the case of some of the caterpillars. The larvae of Porthesia chrysorrhea come out of their eggs in the autumn, and pass the winter in small colonies in a nest on trees or shrubs. In the spring, as soon as the sun is warm, they come out and crawl up the branches of the tree or shrubs to the tip where the first buds are just appearing ; when they have eaten them they then crawl down to the new buds and leaves, which by that time will be appearing in large numbers to crawl down at first would mean starvation. This seems at first to offer a difficulty why, if these caterpillars were positively heliotropic, and so tended to go up to the light and thus reach the buds, should they not be kept there, and so starve ? Professor Loeb made careful experiments upon them, and found that the larvae when first awakened from their winter sleep by the warmth of the sun are positively heliotropic, but only until they have taken food. The positive heliotropism must take them upwards, since in the diffused light out of doors the horizontal rays will neutralise each other, leaving the vertical ones to effect their full influ- ence. As soon as the caterpillars have eaten food, the chemical changes set up result in a complete I 130 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY loss of positive heliotropism. Here again is appa- rent the extreme simplicity that underlies what at first sight seems a complicated instinct. With the appearance of associative memory we find the same instinctive reactions, but they are modified by previous experience and performed with more ease and accuracy from practice, the action becoming more and more complicated as intelligence slowly develops, and is able more and more to modify and adapt the instinctive impulses until in man we are left with a rich store, not of a series of instinctive actions, but of tendencies, desires, cravings, &c., which are the literal counter- part of the simple tropisms. Man by the use of reasoning power is able to conceive the end in view, and uses his intelligence to gratify his likes and dislikes, or to produce the most useful method of meeting a situation or difficulty. The reason for which this question of primitive re- flex action and the central nervous system has been treated in some detail should now be made apparent. From the foregoing statement it is abundantly clear that, from the earliest protoplasmic cell, living matter has the quality of sensibility, or we may describe it, a tendency to, or away from, any source of stimulation according to the object, i.e. whether it is suitable or the reverse. It is in this choice of the suitable, as opposed to the unsuitable, that pro- gress lies, the struggle for existence being always at work picking out the slight variations in struc- ture, or chemical constituency, and so on, that are of use to the organism, Thus we see that one of INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 131 the earliest of all qualities to be developed is that of taste, the selection of suitable food, suitable posi- tion, &c. ; this would be, in the early stages, pro- bably devoid of consciousness, but at a certain point of development we have seen that conscious- ness appears, and presumably with it the sensation or feeling of pleasure or of discomfort. We have already seen that pleasure and pain are to be con- sidered as symptoms and not causes. We must therefore accept the conclusion that like and dislike are not originally determined by pleasure or the reverse, but that our likes and dislikes are the present forms of originally necessary reactions formed by physico-chemical reflexes which drew the organism towards the wholesome or suitable, or away from the dangerous or unsuitable. Now what is the bearing of this upon aesthetic sensibility ? We have already come to the con- clusion that, however far we analyse our feelings for beautiful things, and whatever explanations we can offer, we are finally brought down to the fact that at the bottom as a basis there are our simple likes and dislikes. Even if we are satisfied with an explanation that traces the rise of art and the aesthetic activity to social use and a secondary utility developed at a comparatively late stage in the struggle for existence, we are still left with the difficulty of accounting for the fact that we have an innate sensuous pleasure in certain combina- tions of colour, sound, or form ; in rhythm, balance, symmetry, and so on, which is previous to, and independent of, intellectual appreciation. Obviously 132 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY these qualities must have been, in the early stages at which the basis of our likes and dislikes were developed, in the position of determining a tend- ency towards (like) or appetition for the suitable, favourable or necessary, and away from (dislike) the unsuitable or dangerous. Of all the factors that determined survival in the early stages, suitability to environment was the most important, and the greater part of the energies of the organism were devoted to finding a suitable surrounding, or of adapting itself to that in which it was placed. It would often happen that the conditions, temperature, direct sunlight, degree of dampness, and so on, or the environment itself, would change somewhat gradually, so that the organism that varied in the direction of a more delicate sensibility or a quicker reaction would be at an advantage in getting the first intimation of an unfavourable change ; the same sensibility would, if the animals were moving, give the earlier indica- tion of, or detect from a greater distance, suitable conditions, i.e. conditions which were so to speak in harmony with the organism. The animal with the more delicate sense would begin to make what- ever movements or exertions it was capable of, directly there was some adverse change in its surroundings, while the slower would simply prove the alteration for the worse by dying. Again, to all the animal kingdom, from the uni- cellular amoeba to early man, the familiar is the safe, and the unknown or unfamiliar dangerous. An organism developed in a certain environment INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 133 is inevitably provided with certain tendencies or in- stincts, and with the necessary structure to suit the particular conditions; obviously then it isof immense value to have some means by which a preconscious animal, with no memory or intelligence by which to recognise the right environment, would, so to speak, feel its surroundings, which it would do probably by simply coming to, and remaining at rest in, the habitual and therefore suitable environment. The same line of reasoning applies to external objects, and, as the animal rising in the scale of development increases in activity and power of movement, becomes of still more importance ; the known, the easily recognised, is safe, while generally speaking the unknown or strange must be regarded as dangerous, or at least treated with suspicion. Consequently it is easy to see that at a very early stage in the development of feeling and conscious- ness there would be a sense of pleasure in the recognition of the familiar, and of discomfort in the unknown ; for it might possibly be dangerous, and was pretty sure to be unsuitable. The pleasure in simple recognition is very great, and persists with a strength that is often apt to be overlooked. To a child, a savage, or even the ordinary person, to recog- nise, to be able to name, and thereby to have at least the feeling of understanding, is a great pleasure. In the last chapter we have dealt with the more complicated aspect of this sense, as well as the instinctive feeling of curiosity which had to be developed as a necessary corrective, since simple avoidance and shrinking from the new or strange 134 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY would make progress impossible. In the earliest stage, when the organism was small and defenceless, and but slightly developed as regards adaptability, we can well understand that the impulse to seek merely the environment and objects to which it was accustomed, and therefore adapted, was ad- visedly the stronger. As we have already shown, symmetrical develop- ment is necessary for any growing or moving thing; inanimate objects are subject to the continual pres- sure of the force of gravity which, to a large extent, determines their form and arrangement, involving a certain proportion of part to part which may be shortly described as balance. Thus the want of symmetry or balance or proportion, being abnormal and strange, would at once strike a note of alarm obvious and direct to the unreasoning animal de- pendent for its life upon instant recognition of the unusual ; surviving in educated man and his artificial surroundings only perhaps in a vague dislike; though if it occur in the case of some very familiar object such, for example, as a man with one ear much larger than the other a considerable feeling of dis- gust might be aroused. Thus it is easy to see that there would be a desire for, or movement towards, suitable environ- ment, and the conditions to which the particular organism was suited, with which it would be in harmonious relationship ; colour, which was pro- tective to it ; suitable food, and so on. As soon as consciousness and the feeling of pleasure was de- veloped, we may fairly assume that such conditions INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 135 would give rise to a feeling of pleasure, which need only be felt at the moment of attainment ; since pleasure being a sign that things are as they should be, no further activity would be required until some cause such as hunger, too strong a light, a change of temperature, &c., caused a feeling of discomfort, and so an incentive to further activity. In order to see how this primitive instinctive need in the organism for its proper and suitable environment could give rise to the faculty of appre- ciating certain objects and sounds with that feeling of pleasure that induces us to call them beautiful, we must completely disabuse our minds of the idea of abstract and immutable laws of harmony, or composition, or combinations of colours, the idea of the existence of which may often make us wonder why it happens that a flower or a bird comes to be beautiful, or nature so right aesthetically ; it must be stated the other way they are beautiful because they are natural, and our organs that perceive them have been evolved by one long effort to live in harmony with nature, and we are therefore bound to perceive harmony as suitable, pleasing, beautiful. We do not like a thing because it is beautiful ; it is beautiful because we like it. The law of the universe is balance, action and reaction, " systole and diastole." An organism developing in it, and moulded by its conditions, must necessarily for itself be so formed as to correspond to this law, however concealed. Organisms replying to chemical stimulus so slight as to evade the utmost subtlety of our means of research, would be no less sensitive 136 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY to physical stimulus, if indeed there is any essential difference. The eye would by the force of cir- cumstances be so evolved as to respond to balance and proportion, in colour, line, or movement ; the ear to feel the law of balance, or harmony in sound ; and thus, as satisfactory and pleasing, all the parts and organs would feel and respond to the rhythm or periodic law common to all living and moving things ; while disharmonies would as such cause discomfort because they would be contrary to all the conditions in which, and to meet which, our organs were evolved since, as we have already pointed out, the particular form of our organs of perception is due simply to the particular nature of the environment. It does not, then, seem an unfair assumption to assert that the instinctive pleasure in harmony is directly sprung from the impelling need for suita- bility to environment, and is of the utmost advantage to the organism, as giving information whether it was in harmony with its immediate surroundings at the earliest possible moment, instead of having to prove it by merely living or dying. If now we take this blind craving, which we may fairly call an instinct for conformity with nature, or more shortly, for harmony, using the word in its widest possible sense, we see it expressed at first in unconscious restlessness under unsuitable conditions, driving the organism to unceasing effort, only relaxed if, and when, harmonious adjustment is again attained, when its normal activities can again be freely exercised ; we see it in attempts to make or pro- INSTINCTIVE PREFERENCES 137 vide suitable surroundings by instinctive activities devoted to modifying or altering the environment in the direction of making it more suitable ; then we see it reaching the stage in which mind and intellect come to the assistance in the efforts to gratify instinctive cravings, definitely conceiving the aim for which search and effort is to be made. The desire for conformity with environment will not only impel us to make our surroundings suit- able and beautiful, i.e. pleasing, so that all our perceptions may, as far as possible, be harmonious, but the intellectual side will, as always, be developed from the physical, and will also require satisfac- tion, demanding a life that shall be spiritually and mentally in accord with the meaning of the universe. For perceiving a law and order in the physical world, it is natural to conclude by analogy that there must also be an order and meaning in the moral world. The brain can only conceive ideas based upon felt experiences, but can carry these into an ideal world unhampered by time or space, or refractory material, as, for example, the abstract laws and ideal conditions of mathematics, which are based upon observed physical phenomena. So in art, the mind, realising the felt beauty of simple L objects, and the power of rhythm, can combine portions of the external world of colour, form, or sound, in new and novel combinations, producing new and far more intense sensations of pleasure, but always guided and limited in form by the types that have been with us always, and in all directions by the ever present, felt, need for harmony. CHAPTER VI COLOUR AND RHYTHM AT the close of the last chapter, we tried to show how the feelings of taste are the direct outcome of the need for adaptation to surroundings. All the various reactions, necessary adjustments, and activities, with the desires and cravings, that un- performed instinctive tendencies naturally produce, we resumed shortly under the expression of an instinct for conformity with environment. Such an instinct would not be represented by any specific action, but it would describe all those innumerable instinctive activities and faculties that are particularly concerned in obtaining and pre- serving a harmonious and satisfactory interaction between the organism and its environment. It was further suggested that this instinct lies at the base of the great majority of our simpler innate physical likes and dislikes, more particularly in the appre- ciation of harmony, balance, rhythm, and colour. It must be obvious that the application of the principle to any particular like or dislike may be beyond even conjecture, so complicated become the early instincts among all the baffling impulses of life at the present time. Another point that must not be lost sight of is, 138 COLOUR AND RHYTHM 139 that many of the complex factors that go to make up a sense of enjoyment are more or less sub- conscious, and we are only aware of them by the total vague feeling of pleasure. For example, we may go into a beautiful garden, arid our sum total of pleasant feeling be contributed to by a scent too faint to be consciously noticed until the atten- tion is actually turned to it. We may find our- selves unexpectedly enjoying something, or finding an experience disagreeable, and quite unable to attach the feeling to any particular cause. We must also be on our guard against jumping to any conclusion as to the exact methods in which some particular instinct might or might not have been useful ; for under a different environment an instinct, useful in its proper place, may be actually harmful, as, for example, the cases quoted above of the moth and the candle, or the Nereis in the glass tube. We might easily conclude that the Nereis, which dies in direct sunlight, and the Amphipyra butterfly, had an instinctive desire for the dark and for a hiding-place, whereas experi- ment shows that they do procure for themselves the necessary concealment and absence of light, but only have a simple instinct to get a solid body on each side. The choice of colour is one that offers obvious difficulties. It is easy enough to understand, given the eye with its present structure, that certain com- binations of colour are pleasing because they give each set of cones or rods rest and stimulation in turn ; and that part of the pleasure is due to the 140 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY simple use of an organ. Grant Allen, in his " Physiological ^Esthetics," explained the feeling for colour on that ground (and in a similar way that of auditory harmony and rhythm), but this does not give an explanation as to why they were so developed as to have those qualities ; though it is quite clear that structure is the direct response to the needs for suiting the organism to deal more effectively with its environment, and that there- fore there should be a reason for the feeling of pleasure. It has been argued that differentiation of colour is a lately acquired sense, and that because savage languages, and even the early (Homeric) Greeks, had only names for a few colours, therefore they were only able to perceive a few. This evidence is not very convincing ; they may have only been affected by certain colours strongly enough to make them invent names for them. Animals are certainly sensitive to a fairly wide range of colour. The colour of flowers has often been attributed to their necessity for attracting insects, and that in this way they have developed their wide variation. This has been disputed, and experiments made, which cannot, however, be considered to be con- vincing, to show that it is the scent which is the only real attraction to insects. 1 It has been clearly shown by Forel 2 that bees not only have a fairly keen sense of colour, but a strong tendency to i F. Plateau, in Revtte Psychologique, 1907. 2 "The Senses of Insects." COLOUR AND RHYTHM 141 come back to objects of the same colour as that upon which they have found food. The flowers that attract night insects, such as moths, do have a strong scent as a rule ; but the flowers are almost invariably white, so that they shall be as con- spicuous as possible in the dusk. It is, of course, conceivable that the colour of flowers may partly be due to chemical needs, i.e. the admission or exclusion of certain rays. Wasps have been found by Mr. Peckham 1 to have the capacity of distinguishing colour; he placed a large coloured card with a big hole in the centre over the entrance to a nest. It was found that the wasps, after having, in a few days, become accustomed to its presence in one colour, were confused by an exactly similar card of a different colour. Birds, of course, have a considerably developed colour sense, and there is in this connection the very interesting and highly suggestive phenomenon of the courting plumage. The antics and per- formances of the male bird are obviously under- taken to display the variety and brightness of his coloured feathers, &c., to the best advantage ; this display has an effect of a highly emotional nature. Here we find, in a form in which the objective results are possible of observation, the fact upon which so much stress has been laid, that colour and form, combined with movement, can arouse an emotion apart from any intellectual factor. The growth of the secondary sexual characteristics, such as bright feathers, appendages, &c., has for a long * " Wasps, Social and Solitary." 142 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY time been considered to be the result of choice by the female of the brightest, strongest, and best- looking male. Of recent years, however, there has been a strong tendency to discredit the possibility of choice in the usual sense of the word, as in- volving a degree of reasoning power which we have no ground for attributing to animals. The point requires careful consideration. It has been assumed, with some plausibility, that the quality of coyness or reluctance in the female is of advantage to the species in helping to avoid crosses, and in preventing the female mating at once with the first male that she happened to meet, that was at all near her own species. Whether this is the true explanation or not, the fact of instinctive reluctance in the female is a well- established fact in nearly all animals. To balance this it becomes necessary for the male to develop two qualities one, a strong indication that he is of the right species, and secondly, some means of raising the emotional side of the female to a suffi- cient pitch of excitement to overcome the " re- luctance" instinct. If several males are trying to attract the notice of the female, she will eventually mate with one, not because she selects him as the most beautiful, but because he alone was able, or at any rate more quickly able, to arouse the neces- sary emotion, by having some brilliant colour or a more striking series of antics, or in some other way, thus arousing a tendency towards himself as unconscious as that of the bee drawn first to the most sweetly smelling flower, This may sound COLOUR AND RHYTHM 143 merely an elaborate and roundabout way of ex- pressing choice, but there is really a complete difference. By choice we mean a deliberate survey of the relative advantages or differences of a number of things, and a recognition of the balance in favour of one. A cold unemotional man may choose a wife from her social position, manners, appearance, money, and so on, comparing and selecting ; the man of a rich emotional nature suddenly finds one woman stand out for him above all others with a flush of feeling that makes the whole world a different place ; he may, if reasoned with, allow that she is not really superior to all other women, but for him she is the only woman in the world. To call that choice is to deny the richest source of our pleasure in life. We can always notice that when we really come to prefer something by impulsion, by some sudden warmth of feeling, that we are on a different plane from the intellectual balance of pros and cons ; though to say how far conclusions that seem to have been intellectually balanced are really free from instinctive tendency is an impossible task. We need not labour the point : we see in the case of certain birds that bright colours, &c., have a high emotional power, connected with the most emo- tional period, i.e. the courting and mating ; in some cases they are lost immediately after this, to be renewed each year ; those female who sit in nests in open places generally have for protection a dull inconspicuous appearance. Jf we knew more about the type of animal that 144 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY was the prototype of man, we might hazard more fruitful guesses at the origin of the emotional effect of colour ; but if it can be so developed in birds and certain animals, we need at all events see no diffi- culty in agreeing to the fact in man. But it should be emphasised that unless the colours and rhyth- mical movements had in themselves an emotive effect, there would have been no starting point in their development as a means of arousing emo- tional excitement, though, no doubt, as soon as the connection with the breeding season had been established, there would be a strong addi- tional stimulus by association. Given the power of detecting different colours, training will, as in the case of all the senses, greatly increase the power of reaction, and make it possible to appreciate finer and finer shades of difference. It is, of course, easy to see that the advantage conferred on an animal by the higher power of discrimination that the colour sense would give is of the highest survival value ; we can further see that, in an organ subject to such continual stimula- tion as the eye, it would be necessary that the commonest colour would have to be as far as possible that of least stimulation. This is well borne out by the fact that green or a light neutral tint of brown are the most restful ; as these are obviously the most prevalent, the eye would then note most strongly the widest variation from these. In their early stages of development we must consider the eye, the nose, the ear, the tongue, as COLOUR AND RHYTHM 145 simply means of discriminating the suitable from the unsuitable, of warning or providing an impulse towards something. At a certain period conscious- ness of pleasure, or the reverse, began to accompany the tendency, and this pleasure itself acted as an inducement to repeat such actions ; the perform- ance of function by an organ in a fit state of nutrition being in itself an action accompanied by a pleasurable feeling. In all such cases, however, we must never lose sight of the fact, that perform- ance of function, to be pleasing, implies a stage at which it was vitally necessary for the animal to develop the structure and the function. In the case of taste, we see an organ which produces a large degree of sensuous pleasure which in a per- fectly healthy condition may be said to react most pleasurably to the substances most suitable to the body, and in sickness is a rough guide as to what to avoid and take. It is impossible for us at this date to trace the steps and say by what substances this taste was formed, but the cause is obvious. Now in the case of taste in colour it may fairly be concluded that an analogous course gave rise to preference here. Restful colours would be pleasant after stimulation ; bright contrasted colours would be the first upon which the developing organ would be able to seize, and would always provide an easier task in recognition. Harmonious colours can be explained more or less satisfactorily by Hering's ingenious hypothesis, by which in turn each set of rods and cones rest and come into play. We. can easily imagine that individual preference 146 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY for different colours would arise by slight variations in the minute structure of the eye. To explain, or even conjecture, why we have an emotional feeling for particular colours, apart from any associative ideas, is perhaps at this date an impossible task ; although, if for many generations it had been necessary for man and his prototype to seek some special plant, or animal, or certain type of sur- rounding, it is conceivable that the colour of this might become the one most easily and quickly reacted to ; but any such explanations lead to some- what futile guessing. In the case of all the senses, artificial means can be, and have been, freely devised, whereby the pleasurable sensations can be greatly increased. That the organs of sensation should have this quality of being trained arises naturally in the process of development, as soon as, with the growth of intellectual power, instinctive action began to be supplemented by an increased faculty for adapt- ability. The possibility of increasing and improving the sensitiveness of particular organs would natu- rally be of great value, and is a necessary basis for any kind of training or improvement by practice. The different members of a race would not all require the same particular organ to be developed, and thus there would arise in the struggle for existence, not so much an actual structural altera- tion or improvement, but a greater and wider power of adaptability, allowing now one, now another, organ to be trained to a high degree of sensitiveness, and with this would naturally go COLOUR AND RHYTHM 147 an increased sensibility, with a keener feeling of pleasure or the reverse. The strong power that rhythm has in arousing and intensifying feelings has been referred to occasionally, and requires further consideration, as it has an important and far-reaching influence in questions of aesthetic enjoyment. In the first place there is the simple mechanical effect of rhythm shown in the remarkable effects that can be produced by very small forces acting at the right moment. This is within the experience of any one who has used an ordinary swing ; by oscillating a heavy body, and applying a small force at recurring intervals, properly timed, a continually increasing effect is produced. It was said by an eminent engineer of one of the large suspension bridges, that a boy could knock it down with a peashooter by producing a slow but ever increasing oscillation, provided that he could time his shots properly, and continue long enough. When we come to organic life we find rhythmic and periodic movement all pervasive. Without repetition, life would not be possible. In all organic function a rhythmic repetition is found. All nerve process, whatever its nature may be, is carried on in pulsating beats or oscillation, in inspiration and expiration, in the circulation of the blood, in sleeping and waking ; life itself con- sists in an alternation between absorption and waste of matter. In fact, it seems to be a general law of nature that all movement and all change is periodic or rhythmical. It is not necessary for a rhythmical 148 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY phenomenon to have a rhythmical cause, for con- stant conditions can lead to rhythmical effects. If a small stream of water flows into a pipette it will pass out rhythmically in drops. Professor Loeb 1 describes an ingenious experiment devised by Quincke, by which it is easy to produce and show rhythmical contractions of air bubbles under water, produced by a perfectly even and constant stream of air. Whenever a body moving with a constant degree of force gradually acquires sufficient head or momentum to overcome a constant resistance, and then after discharge again begins to gather energy for another discharge, the result will show a rhythmical effect. It is easy, by watching care- fully, to notice the ebb and flow of an apparently smooth-running river : the waves of the sea increase in size in regularly recurring periods up to a maxi- mum ; witness the common saying that the seventh wave is always the largest. In the case of the nervous system, where a period of recuperation is necessary after every discharge of nervous energy, the phenomenon is, if anything, still more marked, and applies to every part and process of physiological and psychical activity. All nervous effort is carried on in a series of waves ; the attention has to be brought back and back to the subject upon which concentration is desired ; change or movement is necessary to cause sensa- tion, and is one of the essential conditions of con- sciousness. The tendency to turn any recurring sounds or movements into a rhythmical series is 1 " Comparative Psychology of the Brain" (1900). COLOUR AND RHYTHM 149 well nigh irresistible ; the ticking of a clock, if the attention be directed upon it, is inevitably divided into certain beats, the rattle of a railway train is organised into a rhythmical swing. There is no doubt that the pleasure taken in the repetition of anything at regular intervals is due to the fact the nerves after discharge require a time for recovery, shorter or longer according to the strength of the stimulus, and that there is a pleasure in a stimulus occurring at the expected moment, when the nerve is in just the right state to function. There is a very strong tendency to adapt the rhythmical movements of the muscles and nerves so as to coincide or harmonise with any other rhythmical movement or sound that may be per- ceived. If we turn a wheel with one hand without thinking of the manner or velocity of the rotation, and at the same time repeal a poem to ourselves without moving the lips, the number of the revolu- tions shows a simple numerical relation to the number of beats in the verse. If the wheel is intentionally turned more quickly, and the recita- tion made slower, the number of revolutions will be found to be a multiple of the beats ; if the pro- cess is reversed, and the wheel turned slowly, the number of beats becomes a multiple of the number of revolutions. If we assume that, in thinking the poem, the respiratory innervations which follow the rhythm can be represented as harmonic curves, and that the same holds good for the innervations that are responsible for the turning of the wheel, it follows that harmonic processes of innervation, 150 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY occurring simultaneously, affect each other in such a way that the periods of both processes are either equal or in the ratio of simple multiples of each other. It requires great determination to withstand this law. The same is true not only for two or more simultaneous processes of motor innervation, but also for simultaneous sensory processes and motor innervations, as is proved by dancing. The rhythm of the music and the period of the motor innerva- tions of the legs and body coincide. 1 It becomes, in view of these facts, very easy to see the immense influence that rhythmical repeti- tion would have upon our sense organs and feelings of pleasure in keeping to a rhythm once established, and in discomfort in anything that interfered with it. The formative and decorative arts may, by compelling our eye to follow a regular arrangement of lines and figures, transmit an emotional feeling by the mediation of rhythm. We look with plea- sure at the repetition of a pattern, although the detail that is repeated may, taken by itself, be neither beautiful nor interesting ; but the recurring stimulation at regular, and so expected, periods causes a feeling of pleasure, due simply to the natural enjoyment of functioning at the right moment. " To this quality of mere complexity of surface, pattern adds by its regularity the power of compelling the eye and breath to move at an even and unbroken pace. Even the simplest, therefore, of the patterns, ever used have a power 1 Professor Loeb, op. '/., p. 295. COLOUR AND RHYTHM 151 akin to that of march music, for they compel our organism to a regular rhythmical mode of being." l In the case of sound the effect is still more marked and striking. Dr. Wallaschek has shown conclusively the origin of primitive music directly from rhythm, clearly proving the untenability of the theory that traces it from the modulations of the voice used for speaking, and it accords well with this that it should have so wonderfully strong an emotional effect, the origin of which it would be hard to see were it only a development of speech : "We have been told, until we are tired of hearing it, that the one essential in primitive music was rhythm, melody being of secondary importance. . . . Rhythm, taken in a general sense to include 'keeping in time' in its simplest form, as well as in the most skilfully elaborated fugues of modern composers, is the essence in music. . . . Completely to understand a musical work ceases to be difficult when once its rhythmical arrange- ment is mastered ; and it is through rhythmical perform- ance and rhythmical susceptibility that musical effects are produced and perceived." Again he points out that " Men do not come to music by way of tones, but they come to tones and tunes by way of the rhythmical impulse." The power of a strong rhythm in imposing its period or time, and compelling others into unison with it, is, of course, of immense utility in en- abling bodies of men to work together or to act in concert. This is made use of largely in all kinds of manual labour requiring concerted action, and, 1 Lee and Thompson, Contemporary Review, 1897. 152 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY of course, most particularly in military operations, whenever it is necessary to deal with large bodies of men. It is significant of this that music is, among primitive races, most developed among the most warlike tribes. Any emotional excite- ment is contagious, and when it can express itself rhythmically the effect in arousing a similar im- pulse in others is increased to a wonderful degree. Popular legend has always attributed to the taran- tella an irresistible power of forcing the spectator, however unwilling, to join in the mad dance. In races that are easily excitable, a rhythmical sequence of sounds can have a maddening effect. Burton relates of a race in West Africa, that the mere beating of a tom-tom not only raised them to a high pitch of excitement, but that it made some of the younger members actually ill, so strong was the effect. The elementary conditions of the phenomenon of auditory rhythm are a periodic accentuation of an auditory succession (i.e. a repetition of functionally integrated groups), under specific temporal relations, given with the laws of perio- dicity of functioning in the bodily organism. The mechanism involves a periodical facilitation and inhibition of nervous activity, arising from the re- lation between the periodicity of its own rhythm of functioning and certain intervals in the objec- tive series of stimulations, and also a motor accom- paniment in the form of sensation reflexes occurring in some part of the bodily organism. The rhythm activity represents a relatively undifferentiated type COLOUR AND RHYTHM of reaction. Its appearance as a spontaneous exer- cise and a reflex accompaniment is a manifestation of the primitive tendency to perpetuate a movement once made. It belongs to the activities of early stages of development and of the lower parts of the nervous system. The emotional effect of rhythm in music, poetry, painting, perhaps especially in architecture, which makes so great a use of rhythm in the alternation of features and the proportion of part to part in fact, in all branches of artistic and aesthetic enjoy- ment is, of course, well known, and need not be further insisted upon ; but the fact is one of pecu- liar interest in view of the foregoing suggestion as to the origin of our appreciation of the beau- tiful. The effect of rhythm shows in a very clear and obvious manner how correspondence of struc- ture and function to external conditions can give rise to. a feeling of pleasure, which appears to be directly due to this correspondence ; and although in this case the phenomenon is strongly marked, it is not difficult to imagine that there is a similar or analogous process at work in the appreciation of colour and its combinations, in form, and in the innumerable effects of nature, due to the de- velopment of structure that shall be suitable to the environment, and that therefore our appre- ciation of the beautiful is directly dependent upon the connection between the conditions of nature and the structure and functions of the organs de- 1 "The Relation of Auditory Rhythm to Nervous Discharge." Pro- fessor M'Dougall, The Psychological Review, vol. Ix. p. 5. 154 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY veloped in it and so as to be suitable to it, so that the sense of beauty is the outcome in the ideal regions of the faculty or sense by which the de- veloping organism was made aware of the suitable. The sense organs have a power of discrimination, and the right choice, i.e. of the useful or advan- tageous, is accompanied by a sense of pleasure since those who were pleased by harmful things would be quickly eliminated, so that there naturally arises a sense of pleasure in the appropriate stimu- lation of the organs. As soon as it was found that this pleasure could be increased by skilful combinations and varieties of sensations, any skill developed by primitive man would naturally be made use of for this purpose, and the term art has generally been applied to any branch of skill when devoted to causing pleasure by the stimulation of the organs of sense, especially to those of the eye and ear. As all the senses crave for the means of enjoyment in common with the needs and desires of the body that require their necessary satisfaction, there has grown in man what may fairly be called the instinct of creation taking care to use this in the sense not of a simple instinct to create in the abstract, but the development of an instinctive activity devoted to providing by altera- tion or adaptation of the environment, objects or conditions suitable for or gratifying to the needs and desires of the organism. In the next chapter it is proposed to consider briefly the forms in which this instinct arises in the animal kingdom, develop- ing into the skill which forms the basis of art. CHAPTER VII THE ARTIST So far we have been considering in what way, and from which of the primitive instincts, the apprecia- tion of beauty might have arisen ; we must now turn to consider the question of art, to find the source of the impulse to create, and to ascertain the sources from which arise the means for attain- ing artistic power, and the production of works of art and objects of beauty. Appreciation is necessarily previous to the effort to produce : it could be, and is, exercised on natural existing objects ; and we can imagine that a keen appreciation of beauty might well be developed and exist without the production of any works of art at all ; being gratified by and exercised upon nature alone. Commonly speaking, by art, using the word with- out any qualifying epithet, we mean effort and skill devoted to the expression or creation of the beautiful. Clearly it is only possible to separate art from skill by the result produced ; that is to say, mechanical skill or manual dexterity is required in the making of everything. This skill is engaged at one moment in the creation of the useful, at 155 156 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY another of the artistic, or very often of the two together in such a way that it is hardly possible to draw any line of demarcation. The connec- tion between art in its early forms and utility has been already pointed out, and it is clear that the fine arts involve the exercise of a skill originally purely useful, meeting material needs; but carried on and developed to serve an ideal end, in the creation of that which is only in- tended to provide pleasure to the aesthetic senses, just exactly in the same way that the senses them- selves, which provide the material for the ideal feelings, were originally an immediate aid to life in its most material form. It is common to find the name of artist claimed by the exponents of almost any branch of skill from tight-rope walking to music, from hair- dressing to architecture ; nor is the reason far to seek. When a workman is spoken of as an " artist," it is intended to convey the idea that there is something more in his work than that of the ordinary man ; that he has some sort of ideal in front of him, unconscious perhaps and only expressed by an extra care or finish, something over and beyond what will just do, that gives a peculiar excellence to his work. Consequently, any one who wishes to imply that he is superior in his particular line of work is apt to style him- self artist. The title is willingly conceded to the workman who takes a pride and interest in his work, and this interest and delight, showing itself in the product, makes an appeal to the eye which THE ARTIST 157 enhances greatly the total effect, often perhaps by the half - conscious recognition of the increased usefulness or adaptation to its purpose. The skilled armourer, in old days, making a sword, spent endless care and time in producing a per- fect balance and fine subtle lines, thinking whole- heartedly of the purpose it was to serve, but all the time meaning to make a better sword than had been made before ; at the present day per- haps it is hung up to be admired as a work of art, and the very curves and forms that now cause pleasure to the eye were solely designed to facili- tate its deadly purpose. So that, while it is hardly possible to draw any distinction between art and skill, that can be applied as a criterion, the word artistic may certainly be used of the work upon an object by any one to whom that object makes an appeal by pleasing his eye, as well as, or apart from, any pleasure in it as a purely useful thing. The reason why works of art were first pro- duced has given rise to endless controversies, and many ingenious theories have been propounded to account for the impulse to create. M. Hirn, in his " Origins of Art," points out that there are two things which have to be investigated the reason why works of art are created, and the reason why works of art are enjoyed. He further states that if creation has been satisfactorily accounted for, it is relatively easy to explain the subsequent enjoyment of art, and that by ap- proaching the question of the art impulse we 158 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY approach the art problem at its very core. It is, however, difficult to agree with this, for even if we agree with M. Him that the art impulse lies in the need for self-expression, we are still far from any understanding as to the reasons that give the form it takes a power of appealing to and arousing the emotions why symmetry, rhythm, harmony should be in themselves capable of pro- ducing pleasure ; but we can see that the fact that they do arouse a feeling of pleasure would be a strong inducement to apply skill and energy to the production and development of qualities that had this power of sense gratification. As we have just pointed out above, we must suppose a power of appreciation, even if latent, to which the first tentative steps in art production will appeal. We may more reasonably suppose the initial impulse to lie in any, and all, of our natural tendencies and needs, and the fact that we do find certain things beautiful is the reason for wanting them. The sense of hunger will drive us to procure food, but the endless varieties of dishes and sauces upon which the chef exhausts his ingenuity and skill until he claims the title of artist, are due to the discrimination and appreciation of the sense of taste. The fact that we like and enjoy a thing is alone a sufficient reason to insure the spending of a large amount of time and energy in attempts to gratify the liking. We may find the motive to production in the attempt to meet any need ; for houses, food ; weapons, offensive and defensive ; in the manufacture of gods and magic charms ; THE ARTIST 159 in ceremonial ; warlike evolutions ; in the desire to convey information, to express and perhaps to relieve overwrought feelings in fact, in all activity ; and as soon as the bare utility is met, taste comes in, limiting and defining and developing the forms, so that they add to their primary utility more and more an appeal to the aesthetic sense. Just as, to take our analogy from the lower senses again, the really hungry man devours anything that is edible, but soon begins to alter and diversify the material in order to get more pleasure by variety of stimu- lation. It is surely a needless task to search for one specific impulse to art creation, though natu- rally some tendencies would be more fertile, in leading to what are now the fine arts, than others. We are all artists up to a point, and are continu- ally making use of the same feelings and motives in ordinary everyday life which have only to reach a certain degree of intensity to be labelled artistic. In arranging our houses, furniture, curtains, wall- papers, clothes, gardens, &c., every one is guided consciously or unconsciously by what, if set out in detail, might well be described as art principles ; colours must not clash, due proportion must be observed, the unity of the effect must be main- tained, and so on ; we use what skill we have to gratify our aesthetic sense. Those who show special aptitude and love for such work devote their whole time and energies to it, and become artists. The whole story of development shows a gradually increasing skill in finding out ways and 160 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY methods to meet the needs and desires of the indi- vidual ; all that is wanted to determine the direc- tion the energies shall take is the faculty of taking pleasure in the result ; we cannot suppose that the mere creation of works of art would produce a feeling of pleasure in them, though, of course, such a faculty would, like all others, be strengthened and widened by cultivation. Some writers find the whole source and stimulus of art in the sexual emotion. Herbert Spencer 1 points out "that the greater part of what we call beauty in the organic world is in some way dependent upon the sexual relation. It is not only so with the colours and odours of flowers. It is so, too, with the plumage of birds, and with the songs of birds, both of which, in Mr. Darwin's view, are due to sexual selection, and it is probable that the colour of the more conspicuous insects are in part similarly determined. The remarkable circumstance is, that these characteristics, which have originated by furthering the pro- duction of the best offspring, while they are naturally those which render the organisms possessing them attractive to one another, directly or indirectly, should also be those which are so generally attractive to us those without which the fields and woods would lose half their charm. It is interesting, too, to observe how the conception of human beauty is in a considerable degree thus originated. And the trite observation, that the element of beauty which grows out of the sexual relation is so predominant in aesthetic products in music, in the drama, in fiction, in poetry gains a new meaning when we see how deep down in organic nature this connection extends." 1 " Principles of Biology," vol. ii. p. 253. THE ARTIST 161 Although Herbert Spencer thus draws attention to the important influence of the sexual emotion, he did not put it forward as the origin of art ; but Dr. Nordau 1 quotes the above passage, maintain- ing that in it lies the sum of a complete science of beauty, going on to lay it down as incontrovertible that all art is due to a more or less obscure stimu- lation of the sex feeling, or, as he expresses it, a certain part of the brain, which he calls the genera- tive centre. There is a superficial plausibility about thus referring our pleasure in beauty and the art impulse to stimulation of the emotions of sex, but it will not, I think, stand a more careful examina- tion. In the first place, it seems fairly obvious, to take the much quoted case of the bird, that if the bright colours, &c., of the male had not in them- selves an emotive effect, there would hardly have been any possibility of the first variation in the direction of colour, &c., producing an exciting, and so a favourable, effect. It is, of course, likely enough that certain colour effects might become associated with sexual emotions, and thus, in a secondary sense, add that feeling to their original emotion, and, as is often the case, the stronger emotion, once aroused, would tend very quickly to obliterate the weaker and occupy the whole of the attention. We have already drawn attention to the way in which an emotion at once overflows and arouses other emotions, and the extraordinary depth and intensity of the emotion of love must exercise a marked influence over all the others. A 1 " Paradoxes," 1896. (Trans.) L 162 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY work of art which not only arouses the aesthetic emotions directly by beautiful colours or rhythm, but by association or suggestion stirs, in some obscure way, the sex emotion, gains at once im- mensely in depth and power. We have a natural tendency to arouse as many emotions as possible at once in order to heighten our total enjoyment ; beautiful music and lovely surroundings will cer- tainly add to and heighten the feelings of love, just as, in a far greater degree, the feeling of love can so raise the general emotional tone that almost every- thing produces a sense of beauty and pleasure. No doubt, to a person whose temperament lies in that direction, almost every object that arouses pleasur- able feeling will very quickly suggest some relation to sex feeling, simply because one emotion can suggest another, needing only the common ground of emotional excitement. How the pleasure in some stately piece of beauti- fully proportioned architecture, the thrill produced by solemn music, or the calm sweetness of a summer landscape in the evening, is to be attributed to the feeling of sex only, it is hard to see ; they have in common a pleasurable emotion, and that is all. That a very large part of art is directly in- spired by erotic motives is perfectly true, and that various forms of art play an important part in love songs and courtship is obvious ; but this is so be- cause beauty produced by art has in itself the power of arousing emotion, and is therefore natu- rally made use of to heighten the total pleasure. That love has provided the opportunity and incen- THE ARTIST 163 tive to innumerable works of art, that it has added to the pleasure and enjoyment of countless beauties, need not be denied ; but we cannot admit that it is due to sex feeling that rhythm, symmetry, harmony, and beautiful colour are capable of giving us a pleasurable feeling. And yet these lie at the very basis of art ; although the emotion they arouse is generally slight, until the associated and suggested ideas conveyed are aroused, and these derived ideas have so often so much stronger an emotion attached that they are apt to put the simple sense feeling in the background. The important part played by love in the emotional life of man is sufficient reason for the degree of attention which is paid by all arts to the vagaries and varieties of this emotion. Professor R. Marshall has evolved the idea that the initial spur to art work lies in the " instinctive desire to attract by pleasing, leading to the pro- duction of objects or objective conditions that will be pleasing." 1 To those who find the origin of art in sexual selection, this theory is no doubt attractive and satisfactory, and it cannot be denied that the colours, &c., produced by sexual selection, provide material that does appeal to the aesthetic sense. We have, however, already pointed out that to attract by producing pleasing colours, &c., pre- supposes an already existing faculty of being thereby pleased. But quite apart from this, the impulse to art is subjective and is not determined by external motives, though things found to be pleasing to oneself are naturally exhibited or offered to any one 1 " Esthetic Principles," p. 62. 1 64 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY whom it is desired to please, and whose nature is naturally considered to be similar. The desire to attract by pleasing may, of course, be the cause of any particular piece of art work or production, but it is too partial for a general cause of art. The lack of universality also applies to Professor Bald- win's l suggestion that the source of art lies in the " self-exhibiting impulse." No doubt most works of art, being the offspring of the emotions and feelings of an individual, can hardly help being to a certain extent self-exhibitive ; but we can hardly see, for much the same reasons again, in such a feeling the source of all art. The universal desire for self-realisation is not the spur of art alone, nor is art simply the outcome of it, but it is most apparent in the products of the arts, for in them lies the strongest and most subtle means of expression ; art can suggest the half-per- ceived truths, hint at vague fancies, and give allusive glimpses. The artist can thus embody in his work thoughts too intimate and sacred for the crude medium of everyday language, feeling that only those who can appreciate them will be able to discover the secret. The most widely spread explanation of the art impulse is, perhaps, that known as the " Spieltrieb " theory, which derives it from the play instinct. This has been already considered to some extent in the Introduction, when discussing the question of utility and art, and we need not perhaps consider it here at much length ; for, although .there are no 1 " Social and Ethical Interpretations." THE ARTIST 165 doubt many points in which the disinterested activity of play compares with that of art, it is again clear that disinterested activity would only be devoted to, and continue devoted to, something that was pleasing, and that a piece of successful ornamenta- tion must have been in itself a source of pleasure, or else there would have been no more incentive to continue and develop the process than the mere whittling of a stick. We need not detract in any way from the immense value to art and its de- velopment that leisure and freedom from the pro- vision of the bare necessities of life would produce; in fact any progress or development of the higher branches of art is hardly possible without the opportunity given by leisure. We have already seen that it is highly doubtful how far either play or art are to be considered purely disinterested activities, at least in their early stages ; but we may freely admit that there is a great deal of art that can for all practical purposes be considered very closely connected with play. But even so, we must bear in mind one important distinction between art and play : art is essentially creative, its aim is to make or alter something that shall survive in the form into which it is moulded. An interesting and suggestive theory is that pro- posed by Berenson, 1 applicable, however, chiefly to the art of painting. After asking the question as to why it is that an object, whose recognition in nature may have given rise to no pleasure, becomes in a picture a source of aesthetic enjoyment, and that an 1 "Florentine Painters," 1896. 166 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY already pleasing object acquires, when painted, a greatly increased power of causing delight, he finds the answer in the power of such representation to convey a feeling of enhanced vitality. " The answer, I believe, depends upon the fact that art stimulates to an unwonted activity psychical processes which are in themselves the source of most (if not all) of our pleasures, and which here, free from disturbing physical sensations, never tend to pass over into pain. " For instance : I am in the habit of realising a given object with an intensity that we shall value as 2. If I suddenly realise this familiar object with an intensity of 4, I receive the immediate, pleasure which accompanies a doubling of my mental activity. The fact that the psychical process of recognition goes forward with the unusual in- tensity of 4 to 2, overwhelms them with the sense of having twice the capacity they had credited themselves with : their whole personality is enhanced, and, being aware, that this enhancement is connected with the object in question, they for some time after take not only an increased interest in it, but continue to recognise it with the new intensity." The idea is that greater pleasure is taken in the painted object from the accelerated psychical pro- cess, and the consequent exhilarating sense of increased capacity in the observer ; again, in a re^ presentation of movement we get a clearer, intenser, less fatiguing realisation of the movement which gives a heightened sense of capacity, life communi- cating, and so giving the sense of an enhanced vitality. We have drawn attention already to the fact that vivid visual perception is due to the conversion of ocular impressions into feelings of bodily and mus- THE ARTIST 167 cular activity, and that this representation and sug- gestion of movements and tactual sensations arouses feelings of pleasure. It is also the case that the excitement of any emotion does in itself give a general impetus to the whole system, and thus a feeling of enhanced vitality, thus a beautiful thing could well produce this feeling without any idea of increased capacity ; so that, without in any way denying that there may be a considerable amount of such a feeling in our appreciation of pictures and sculpture from this special manner of realising movement and space relationship, it is again only a partial explanation, and will not really help us to understand our pleasure in beautiful colour, in rhythm, sound, and in form apart from expression. Nor can we find in this, which requires a considerable degree of artistic development in order to produce its effect, the original cause of artistic effort. M. Him, in "The Origins of Art," finds the im- pulse to art in the instinctive tendency to express overmastering feeling to enhance pleasure, and to seek relief from pain, on the ground that art is better able than any other kind of mental function to serve and satisfy the requirements that arise from this impulse when it occurs in its purest form. It is impossible here to give a fair statement of the reasons with which M. Hirn supports this thesis, for the whole of his clearly reasoned and most interest- ing book is devoted to setting them out. We can, however, I think, accept unreservedly the point of view as true as far as it goes ; the tendencies 1 68 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY mentioned are among the strongest impulses of human nature, and would in common with the others make use of all means that would serve their ends. The power that art, especially music, has in relieving pain and sorrow is universally acknow- ledged ; some seven hundred years before Christ, Hesiod 1 paid a tribute to this power of song : " When a man sorrows in heart, and grieves at the death of a loved one, Then if a minstrel arise, or one that delighteth in music, Singing the glorious deeds of men that lived aforetime, And of the happy gods that dwell on the mount of Olympus, Then he forgets his sorrow, and remembers no more his affliction, And his soul is turned aside to enjoy the gifts of the Muses." Once the efficacy of art to act as an outlet and relief had been discovered, we may easily imagine that grief and sorrow would be the cause of in- numerable particular works of art, just as love, or joy, or triumph have been of countless others. It is difficult, however, to see in this the origin of all art, however great its influence in subsequently determining the direction and development of certain branches of it. In ornament and archi- tecture, in decoration and a great deal of sculp- ture and painting, it is only by forcing the meaning of words to breaking-point, that we can consider the production to be due to strong feeling demand- ing expression ; so many objects that we consider works of art were really created to provide for some particular purpose, while the characteristics that 1 Hesiod, Theognis. Rendering by H. I. R., from the Westminster Gazette^ September 3, 1908. THE ARTIST 169 make them appear beautiful to us were added quite unconsciously and unintentionally the maker simply feeling that it would be better so. There is no doubt that a person emotionally excited has a strong desire to impart his feeling to others, and if he is able to command some means that are more effective than ordinary language, he would obviously make use of them. It is, however, probable that, however much the great masterpieces of art have been inspired by desire for utterance and by strong emotion, the great majority of the ordinary every- day works of art, and most especially those in the early stages of art, are not due to any specific feeling for self-expression or self-externalisation, conscious or unconscious, but are quite simply the outcome of the fact that certain colours, forms, shapes, or sounds caused a feeling of pleasure that was suffi- ciently strong to lead to their repetition and develop- ment. It must always be remembered that we have to consider not only the exalted and inspired moments of art, but the commonplace ordinary like and dislike, which represents the average person's power of appreciation, and is the proxi- mate cause of the vast output of the things made to please. As soon as man, with his continual experiment in all directions, had discovered the curious and de- lightful power over the attention and the feelings possessed by rhythm, we may well imagine that he would continually devise means and occasions for enjoying this pleasure ; but we have no reason to think that it would only be employed when he 170 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY wished to convey some idea or impart some feel- ing, though it would come with redoubled force when it could add to its own power some other emotion as well. But as words can hardly be used without saying something, and as music also gains by being expressive of some idea or some emotion, so any work of art is likely to be always expressive of something ; but it is unlikely that the feeling or idea expressed was so much the cause of the pro- duction, as was the desire to enjoy the rhythmic or other beautiful setting, and thus to stir the emotions. As the mastery of the material and the means be- came more certain, and as a certain degree of re- finement was reached, the intellectual factors would begin to play a larger and larger part ; the ideal delights of the imagination and the stir of ideas would assume the place of greater importance, and So gradually reach the complicated compound of feeling and intellect that is aroused by the great works of art. The arts in their earlier stages are simply skill and inventive ingenuity used to gratify the needs and desires of the individual, so that all human wants and tendencies are therefore to be considered the origin of art ; what we now call the fine arts repre- sent an abstraction of certain qualities that appeared, so to speak, incidentally in the products of skill only intended in the first place at all events to be useful. That is to say, that the appreciation of the beautiful is a natural faculty, pre-existent to any form of art ; and as that faculty was found to be pleased by certain aspects or qualities in things that THE ARTIST 171 had been made, as well as by natural objects, it led to more and more differentiated forms of skill, so that certain kinds were developed or set aside for the purpose of affording gratification to this sense in particular. This appreciation, though of extreme simplicity in the first place, would, like all the other faculties, become of increasing complexity and of wider range with the growth of the mental powers, making in its later stages intuitive or unconscious responses to things that had in an earlier stage to be consciously perceived. If, then, we are to trace the creative instinct, we must go back again to the primitive organism. We have already drawn attention to the fact that the most important quality in survival is suitability to, or a harmonious interaction with, environment. This can be brought about in two ways ; either the animal can become adapted by structural modification, or it can by its own efforts, to a limited extent, affect its environment favourably to itself. It may secrete and extrude some material or substance that forms a favourable medium, or it may burrow into the sur- rounding substance ; it may, instead of developing a shell, make a covering for itself, as a caddis ; it may spin a cocoon, build a nest, or in innumerable ways make the immediate environment which it requires. The Terebella makes a tubular-shaped case in which to live by sticking small stones and other objects together ; during the process he seems to be, as it were, exercising selection taking some objects, trying and rejecting others, making as a result a covering that is inconspicuous with its 172 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY surroundings. While natural selection would be always picking out for survival those who had a tendency to do it best, to imagine this done from conscious purpose is to assume a knowledge of the danger to be avoided, and implies a degree of reasoning power that is, on the face of it, absurd. We have already seen that, on good grounds, we may accept the view that it is not even accompanied by more than sense impression, an object of the wrong kind, too large or sharp, or inconvenient, is simply rejected upon contact, just as an object mis- takenly seized as food is thrown on one side. The result is a covering that is an aid to safety by its inconspicuousness, not of intention, but because it is inevitably made of the small objects among which the animal lives ; this can be shown by the fact that it has no objection to using glass or highly coloured stones if such be supplied it. As rising in the scale of life the skill in workmanship becomes more and more remarkable, in the ants, bees, and wasps very complicated pieces of construction are undertaken, both for the production of places in which to live and in the careful preparation of suit- able conditions in which the offspring can develop. Mr. Peckham, in his careful and valuable record of observations upon wasps, gives a delightful story of one of the solitary wasps (Ammophila urnaria), that had the germ of the artistic spirit the impulse to do the thing a little better than mere necessity. It is easy to see how such a quality would be a help to survival, and so be developed. After describing one that closed up the nest after having placed in it the THE ARTIST 173 caterpillar and the egg in a careless and perfunctory manner, he goes on to describe a second : " The other, on the contrary, was an artist, an idealist. She worked for an hour, first filling the neck of the burrow with fine earth, which was jammed down with much energy, this part of the work being accompanied by a loud and cheerful humming, and next arranging the surface of the ground with scrupulous care, and sweeping every particle of dust to a distance. Even then she was not satisfied, but went scampering around, hunting for some fitting object to crown the whole. First she tried to drag a withered leaf to the spot, but the long stem stuck in the ground, and embarrassed her. . . . She then started to bring a large lump of earth, but this evidently did not come up to her ideal, for she dropped it after a moment, and, seizing another dry leaf, carried it successfully to the spot, and placed it directly over the nest." It is easy to see how this kind of unconscious effort after excellence would provide the oppor- tunity for improvement of the process by natural selection. Mr. Peckham tells a story of another wasp of the same kind, who finished off her nest by picking up a small pebble in her mandibles, which she made use of as a hammer to pound down and level the earth over the nest, the operation being repeated many times. The same thing has been observed of this wasp by other observers. This activity is displayed in the direction of the adaptation of the environment to the wants and needs of the individual ; and seeing that man has excelled so in this direction, we may well assume that this instinct of making things was very strongly 174 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY developed in the prototype of man, and indeed, seeing how closely the intellectual process depends upon the physical, we may easily imagine that it was the rapid improvement by selection of this quality that made possible the rapid growth of the reasoning faculty. It still remains one of our strongest instincts, and the source of no small part of the pleasure and interest of life ; from the youngest child to the oldest man, there is no one who does not feel a pleasure in having accom- plished something that can be shown as a result. The creative instinct may be shown in the making of anything from a toy to a steam-engine, just as in the work of art ; behind them all lies the deeply- planted " instinct of workmanship," x which gives so keen a pleasure in the pure doing something, apart from, and in addition to, the result produced, with, of course, its invariable counterpart in the mental or intellectual side, where the pleasure of making or creating is no whit less keen. And just as practical life demands of the skill of workman- ship the production of an environment that shall be suitable and convenient for its physical needs, so the intellect demands a religious belief, or a theory of the universe that shall be in true spiritual accord with its highest aspirations. When skill in adapting the environment to the individual has reached a certain point, we find as it were a change in the method of development. The individual remains physically more or less constant, while evolution 1 For the Instinct of Workmanship, see "Comparative Psycho- logy," Loeb, p. 197. THE ARTIST 175 takes place in the environment. To a large extent we make our environment, and instead of being born with a complete set of ready-made instinctive series of actions, we are only provided with apti- tudes, with tendencies, desires, &c. ; but we can make use of the accumulated experience of past generations education, as has been well said, is the provision of environment. To return to the question of the origin of art production. We see that in the process of evolu- tion there naturally arises a strong instinct to deal with external matter, to mould or alter it, in order to render it more suitable to, and so more pleasing to, the individual, such efforts being guided by natural selection. In the first and earlier stages it would be more correctly described as natural selection picking out of the blind, automatic, purposeless activities those that happened to be in some way useful, and thus perpetuating them. When consciousness supervened, successful action in dealing with the external would be accompanied by an internal feeling of pleasure. It is thus easy to imagine that such actions will at some time tend to be repeated for the pleasure that they produce, although not required, or not actually useful at the moment. If such repetition was made at inoppor- tune times, or was in any way harmful, the tendency would soon disappear in, the struggle for existence ; but when no actual harm resulted, or even in some cases an indirect advantage, such as giving practice in some activity subsequently useful, such pleasant actions would be repeated, and continue to be so 176 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY repeated long after the cause that gave rise to such particular actions as necessary had disappeared, while new ones would be added ; so that while utility would in the first stage be the true and real cause of the pleasure, and the condition of its development and survival, it would in time so drop out of account as not only to be forgotten, and the reason for it impossible to conjecture, but even to be denied altogether the pleasure alone being looked upon as the cause of the particular action. In the fierce stress to which the whole animal kingdom is continually subjected, there is very little opportunity for any such constructive activity to survive beyond those that are actually useful in some way ; their whole energies are required for the provision of necessaries. But it is possible to find in various directions what may be considered the germ of such development that is to say, the repetition of some action no longer useful which seems to afford a satisfaction in its mere exercise apart from any utility. A dog will amuse itself by gnawing a stick, and finally will perhaps bury it, with extreme care smoothing down the ground with all the precautions necessary to preserve a secret hoard of food from predatory foes, while it clearly shows its recognition of make-believe by the complete indifference with which it will watch it being unearthed. The eagerness with which a dog or cat will run after, and play with, and try to catch a ball also illustrates the pleasure originally due to necessary activity. The Bower-bird builds a form of home, not a nest in any connection with THE ARTIST 177 rearing its young, which it adorns with highly- coloured stones and stuffs, and in which it appa- rently takes considerable pleasure. It is not easy to imagine in what way this can have been of value, or to say whether it is now of any help to the birds, but it is fair to assume that at some period it was a valuable means of providing some form of protection or other assistance, and that if no longer helpful, it gives the birds sufficient pleasure to in- duce them to continue doing it. It would be well perhaps to point out that the foregoing is in no way intended to suggest play as an origin of the art impulse, a view we have already tried to con- trovert, but merely to illustrate how the pleasure in doing some action tends to persist, when there is no advantage to be got out of the performance. It is perfectly true that much, if not all, the pleasure in play is due to the exercise of activities and instincts that were originally useful and necessary, so in art production the pleasure in the work itself comes from an originally useful activity, while the result is demanded by and is an attempt to meet the desires and aesthetic feelings. Art is not the satisfaction of an aimless desire for some form of purposeless activity, but the attempt to provide by actually creating, or rather by making or moulding matter into a new form, an object pleasing to the senses. There is added to the pleasure in the result that of the actual workmanship. There is no doubt that the semi-conscious or the sub-conscious knowledge of the utility of a thing has much to do with our feeling of pleasure M 178 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY in it, and those who describe beauty as "perfect fitness " can urge much in favour of such a defini- tion, provided that they do not insist upon a con- scious recognition of utility past, present, or future. Thus we find at an early stage that objects that were useful, or so altered as to be useful i.e. as helping to provide a more harmonious interaction between the individual and his environment, either by enabling him. to deal more effectively with it, or by being in themselves more suitable were sensed as causing a pleasurable reaction (the previous stage being unconscious selection or action). As we have already seen, feelings aroused by an object always tend to be considered as qualities of the object with which they are connected ; thus any such objects would come to be considered in themselves as pleas- ing or beautiful. As the ideal pleasure would in the rise of mental development always tend to pre- ponderate over the material, so more and more attention would be paid to the qualities that caused pleasure to the higher faculties, until the ques- tion of utility would be entirely subordinated to an appeal to the eye ; certain aspects would be elaborated, the pleasing effect of which would be due to some utility so far removed from the present as to be entirely unrecognisable, leaving its trace only in the thrill of a pleasure now considered purely aesthetic. It is suitability or utility which has in the first place determined which forms and shapes shall survive in every kind of instrument, utensil, furniture, building, or any other form of artificial production, and so to become the type, THE ARTIST 179 and thus the basis from which beautiful forms are developed just as certainly as the struggle for existence has determined the shape and form of the human body, which has for us an irresistible appeal to the aesthetic sense, and is perhaps the most typically beautiful thing that we know. The exact method which led to the first begin- nings of art, and what was actually the original form that it took, must of course remain very much a matter of conjecture. It is, however, of great interest to examine the earliest and most simple examples of art, and the forms from which it seems as though it must have emerged, although almost the first step must land us in a region where probability is perhaps as much as we can hope to reach. We shall find the most promising field in the works of the most backward and uncultivated savage tribes, who are, we may suppose though we must do so with great caution more nearly in the condition under which art forms first began to emerge. In examining their production it is of the greatest importance to regard them with suffi- cient simplicity, and not to read into them more than we can avoid from the advanced standpoint of our complicated mental attitude. The mind of the savage is much like that of a child ; his power of invention is very small, and he is, as it has been expressed, " incredibly conservative." This is, of course, a corollary of slight mental development ; the power of dissociation and ab- straction being small, the inventive faculty is corre- i8o ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY spondingly feeble. It is owing to this strong tend- ency always to do things as they have been done before, so marked a feature among uneducated people, that the ethnologist is able to trace back many customs and methods to very remote times, especially in the case of the more backward tribes. The early forms and patterns would, as we have often suggested, arise, not from any deliberate in- tention of producing a pleasing appearance, but either by chance, or in response to what may be called the sense of expectancy, aroused by the want of the familiar or customary. The latter requires some explanation. We have already laid stress on the strength of the liking for that to which we are accustomed ; for it must be the safe, or that which has proved its utility by long use. This feel- ing of slight discomfort in the unfamiliar look of a thing would have many effects in small details. To the eye accustomed to an axe which was fastened on to the handle by binding, one secured in some different way might give a feeling of bareness, of something wanting, perhaps of weakness or inse- curity, which would very naturally be met by marks to suggest the old binding. The part played by this sense in the origin and development of ornament and decoration is very wide. A glance at the first person met in the streets will produce many examples in the unnecessary buttons at the back of a coat, in the slit lapel, and so on. The inclination to copy a previous method may be partly due to this tendency, as well as a default of inven- tive capacity. THE ARTIST 181 As to the other method chance we may easily imagine a savage picking up an odd-shaped stone or piece of wood which has struck him by a resem- blance to some animal or human being ; a touch here or there completes the fancy, and he is de- lighted by the unexpectedly familiar suggestion. As likely as not it will be made into a fetish, placed perhaps in some niche an embryonic god. It has touched his recognition instinct, and appeals no doubt with redoubled strength to one in the stage of mental development in which everything is credited with animal or human feelings and senses. So the young child at the imaginative stage is delighted to recognise a suggestion of a living being in the most unlikely places. As Sully 1 relates of a boy who having by mistake made two FT 8 facing one another, said at once that they were talking to each other ; another, who made an extra stroke to an L 1 , said, "Oh, he is sitting down." Small wonder that the slight shock caused by the sudden likeness to a human form should quickly give rise to suggestions of occult powers and magic influence. The man- dragora has always been held to have some spe- cially potent properties, owing to the fact that, with its usually bifurcated root, it seems to resemble a man. The recognition instinct, no longer acting purely in its life-assisting capacity, would add its quota to the pleasure in recognising a pattern or form ; this would be increased obviously if the form had, or i "Studies of Childhood." i82 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY were supposed to have, some special efficacy. We are not attributing any disinterested and aesthetic plea- sure to the savage mind apart from the purely un- conscious response. He will, we may imagine, feel, and so prefer without realising it, a highly-coloured model of a god, and will daub himself with colours juxtaposed as he feels most suitable ; will be roused to fury and excitement by the rhythmical dance in unison ; will attempt to cover with marks a surface that strikes him as wanting something ; and as he does so, the unconscious feeling for symmetry will tend to make the pattern balance. The patterns and forms will often tend to be constant, for in many of them the supposed magical qualities would prevent any intentional departure from the pattern ; for no one could be sure in exactly which line or mark lay the real secret of its power. Even where no attempt was made to alter or develop a design, the inevitable inability to copy accurately would lead to a gradual, and in time considerable, change from the original as one copy was made from another. Even a new material only gradually produces new forms, so strong is the demand of the eye and feeling for the well-known look; stone building followed the constructional detail of woodwork, and something was felt to be wanting until the ends of the pegs that were required to hold the wooden beams together had been reproduced, though en- tirely unnecessary, in the stone. When the North American Indians discovered the use of clay the forms followed precisely the older basket-work, THE ARTIST 183 even to the ornament ; the surface of the clay vessel was felt to be bare until made to suggest clearly the look of the old and familiar basket- work. 1 A pattern or form that is continually copied, especially if it is not essential to the utility of the thing, such as that of suggesting some older but no longer necessary construction, becomes, as a rule, meaningless after a time, either by small and in- voluntary deviations, or by intentional modifica- tions that seem to make it more pleasing ; so much so that it is quite impossible to guess at the original motive. To the eye accustoming itself to each slight variation no discomfort or confusion is felt, and the pattern always appears perfectly natural and to be the right and proper method of orna- mentation, although all resemblance to the object that gave it its original attraction or interest is lost. In the production of charms and figures, such as are used in the practice of various kinds of sympathetic magic, is to be found a fertile source of what afterwards become art forms. It is most important to keep clearly in mind that it is not the art impulse that leads to their construction ; we are so accustomed to look upon any form of imitation of natural objects as art pure and simple, that it is difficult always to remember that such imitation can be undertaken solely with a material object in view. 1 " Origin and Development of Form and Ornament in Ceramic Art," W. H. Holmes, Fourth Annual Report^ Bureau of Ethnology, 1882. 1 84 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OP BEAUTY It would be satisfactory if we could think that primitive tribes believed that the greater the likeness the greater the power ; that the important thing for its magical purpose was to make the nearest approach to an absolute illusion of reality, as it would greatly help to give us a suggestive explana- tion of the growth of realism in art. As a matter of fact there is no evidence to support any con- clusion of the kind. A careful examination of the early stages of the practice of magic seems to show that while a sufficient degree of imitation to suggest the object was necessary, it was not of importance to make it very close. 1 In order to make the magic effective, the most essential thing was to get something that had some material con- nection with the object to be bewitched some of his hair or clothes, or any object that had been in actual contact with his person. Although the evidence does not show that the belief in ,the efficacy of realism was widely pre- valent, it did, no doubt, exercise a considerable influence, and in some countries a too realistic representation of the human figure is not allowed, because of the magical, and so detrimental, effects likely to be produced. 1 In any case, the produc- tion of images and things, however crude and rough, for magical purposes must have had an incalculable effect in providing a starting-point, or rather material, upon which the art feelings would exercise their influence. Thus it is easy to imagine that all the different 1 " The Origins of Art," Y. Him, p. 289. THE ARTIST 185 activities and industries of early man and primitive tribes would, by providing objects of various kinds, form a suitable field from which the aesthetic faculty would select appropriate examples and elaborate them. We have already drawn atten- tion to the way in which objects once useful would please by a subconscious recognition of this ; such forms would appear to have an attractive appear- ance they would be copied, or form the basis of a design. In other cases we may imagine the suitability to purpose to be consciously recognised and deliberately appreciated. A man would be- come greatly attached to some implement of war or the chase, which by long use and much service had proved its utility and reliability ; this might well form the starting-point for artistic develop- ment, various marks and signs would be engraved upon it, probably due in the first place to some idea of advantage, such as the owner's sign-mark, or for the purpose of exerting influence upon events by imparting some powerful " medicine " to the weapon, with the signs and figures with which it was engraved ; also perhaps an obscure feeling that it was in some sort of way conscious, and that it would be pleased by the attention, and so do its work better. Thus we get in the early stages a number of representations of things, and designs, or patterns, which, although they might be taken for artistic embellishment, are in reality only pictographs, ideograms, or owners' marks ; models or images for purposes of exerting magical influence, lucky i86 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY signs, and so on, all of which while only intended to be useful had incidentally certain qualities that appealed to the aesthetic feelings ; so that even at an early stage we can imagine that their repetition and development was due to a considerable variety of feelings and motives. There would be the pur- pose for which the object was being made, the pleasure in the form it was taking, or the arrange- ment of the pattern, which would be expressed by a tendency to prefer certain lines of development symmetry, balance, repetition and perhaps in a particular juxtaposition of colours, and by no means least the pleasure in the work itself ; no doubt there would also be the desire to make a better or more striking, and so more effective, object than any one else had made. Gradually more and more attention would be paid to the mere appearance, and certain features found pleas- ing might become accentuated at the expense of mere utility, until the object could hardly be of any practical use, and things would be made de- liberately for their pleasing appearance alone ; or made use of as a means of expressing ideas or imparting feelings and emotions by giving them a setting that would ensure a sympathetic hearing, by their appeal to the emotions of the hearer or spectator. CHAPTER VIII MEANING AND EXPRESSION So far we have attempted to confine ourselves somewhat rigidly to the consideration of the sense of beauty in its simplest possible form, as a direct sense response, and, as far as possible, to discount the part played by the intellectual faculties, in order to keep clearly in view the fact that it is this innate power of appreciation which is at the bottom of the problem of taste in regard to the beautiful ; but, as we have already pointed out, although we can theo- retically make some distinction, it is, practically, a matter of extreme difficulty to keep the simple, sensuous response clear of the innumerable ideas that come flocking into the mind, and which are so apt to be considered the source of the feeling of pleasure in the beautiful, owing to the rapidity with which they monopolise the attention. We propose, therefore, to examine some of what may be termed the higher intellectual processes involved in the appreciation of beauty and works of art that is to say, to consider how the intellectual factors arise out of, and are grafted on to, the simple feeling for beauty, and so bring about the highly complicated combination of feelings and ideas which we mean when we speak of the aesthetic emotion. I8 7 1 88 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY So far as our feelings are purely instinctive we share them, or at least the great majority of them, with the higher animals. Can we then say that the animals have the aesthetic emotion ? This is a point that has been frequently discussed, but with somewhat unsatisfactory results. Some writers endowed with an anthropomorphic tendency have no difficulty in attributing to animals pretty much the same emotions and reasoning powers that we possess, with a difference in degree only, and find no objection in crediting them with aesthetic faculty one writer indeed goes so far as to find it in spiders. Certainly we can say that animals are affected by colours witness the birds and insects ; by sounds also for example, dogs and music or the snake-charmers ; but this is far from having what we usually mean by the aesthetic sense. The real truth of the matter probably lies in the fact that the animals have the elements of aesthetic appreciation in their sensations, just exactly as they have the elements upon which any form of abstract reason- ing is ultimately based. Man has no more sense organs than the higher animals, and founds all the conceptions of science and reason on his sensations. Exactly as the animal is incapable of the one, it is incapable of the other. The whole difference lies, we may well believe, in the ability to perceive relations. Once the faculty of appreciating the relationship of two things has been developed, the whole field of thought is open. As far as careful experiment and investigation can show, the animal is capable of a high degree of a kind of intelligence MEANING AND EXPRESSION 189 based upon sense experience and memory. The process of trial and error is the only means by which they discover a thing; the "relation" between things cannot produce a sense impression, and we may believe that an animal has this power in only the very faintest form, if at all, and in the percep- tion of relations lies the germ of true aesthetic appreciation. The above statement requires some further ex- planation in order to make it intelligible ; it turns, too, to a large extent upon the exact meaning attached to words. To take a simple example when we see an object we locate it by its position in relation to other objects, but to explain in this way the method of locating involves the perception of the relation as such. But as long as we are dealing with simple sense impressions, the relation- ship need not yet have been perceived ; it has not yet been brought into the focus of consciousness. As we look round we see all the things that catch the eye grouping themselves in new relationships, and though these relationships are not consciously considered, they can at any moment become the object of attention. For an animal or young child they probably remain impressions, with a marginal consciousness of relationship, if \\e like to call it so, which has never become the object of consideration, and which therefore does not exist as a conscious idea. If we consider a transference of attention from, object A to object B, from B to C, and so on, we are aware, since consciousness is continuous, of the transition ; but it is marginal, our attention i 9 o ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY being concentrated on the succeeding objects. If a very young child, or an animal, presumed to be in the stage of sense impression only, be thus pre- sented with the two objects, first A and then B will successively occupy the focus of attention ; but the transition from one to the other, having no interest for sense experience, will remain marginal, and not until reflection is brought into play is this transition brought into focus and perceived. Clearly the transition from A to B cannot be focussed as a whole until B is reached in the act of passage it is still incomplete ; both of the related terms must be completed, consequently it is only by looking back that we can definitely perceive the relationship. The perception of a relation involves therefore reflection. 1 As pointed out above, to perceive definitely the relation requires a certain amount of introspection and reflection, no doubt in simple cases of a very vague and incipient character ; but however small, it is of immense importance, for in this perception of a relation, as such, we have the first step into an almost boundless new region of thought. The pro- cess when carried a step further as, for example, passing from A to B to C enables us to perceive the relation of A to B and that of B to C, and thus observe and consider the relation between rela- tions, and so rapidly reach a highly complex order of thought. 1 See Professor Lloyd Morgan's " Introduction to Comparative Psychology," where the whole question of the perception of relations in man and animals is fully discussed. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 191 It must of course be clearly noted that the per- ception of relations merely means a new way of dealing with the already existing material. Long before relations are perceived as such, they are marginally present ; subconsciously we are aware of them and act upon them, but we have not learnt to consider them as a thing in themselves just as the mind worked for very long periods before it was able to consider and, so to speak, apprehend itself. Nor indeed in the early days was there any need to do so, since the marginal awareness was sufficient for practical purposes, as in the case of the animals. The obvious question then arises, what practical use and advantage was this faculty to man that he should have developed it, living as he did a wild free life differing but little from that of the animals ? Professor Lloyd Morgan makes a suggestive answer to meet the difficulty. The per- ception of relations is a necessary factor in the evolution of descriptive intercommunication. The moment that we try to describe things to any one, relations must be brought into focus. The be- ginning of language required the perception of relations ; the perception of relations at once began to make a language out of a few incoherent names for things. A child, long before he can count, can sense the difference between one thing and two, between two and three, between several and many ; so can an animal, but by recognising each as a separate sense experience not through the perception of numeri- cal relationship. 192 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY One reason of the important gain to mental action in the recognition of relationship as such, lies in the fact that it opens the road to abstract ideas. As objects presented to sense experience are compared, first one and then another quality is brought into prominence ; the objects may be com- pared as to weight, hardness, &c. ; and the particular quality in which comparison is wished for is selected and emphasised, while the others sink out of notice. One aspect being thus isolated and rendered predominant over others with which it may be closely connected in sense experience, is on its way to become the abstract idea of intellectual thought. This process of comparison can be carried a very little way without some vague and dawning conception of the universal validity of the relation- ships dealt with in particular instances, and thus forms the starting-point of the higher intellectual operations that lie in the region of conceptual thought. This power the comparison of relations as a deliberate and conscious process is, we may fairly believe, distinctively human. Animals and very young children live in a world of impressions and ideas set in a background of dimly sensed relations which have never been perceived as such. For fully developed man the world is a world of per- cepts, set in a background of relations which have been consciously grasped. 1 Once this has been done, and the perception of relations has come to form part of the mental process, its results become 1 Professor Lloyd Morgan, op. cit., p. 237. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 193 so closely intermingled with all the phases of con- sciousness as to form an abiding background. Just as, at some moment in development, memory, and with it consciousness and the power of learning by experience, was added to simple reaction to stimulus, so we may imagine this power of seeing and realising relationship to intervene upon a certain development of intelligent sense experience. The enormous value of such a power needs no emphasis ; not only does it greatly increase the range and ability to draw deductions, but it makes description, and so communication, possible, as we have pointed out above. No description, still less any explanation of knowledge, is possible, except in terms of the relations which the figures and objects have to one another. Animals or very young children cannot understand an explanation, not so much because they cannot understand the words because of single concrete words they can learn a large number but because the words are of things which they have never experienced, and so have no possibility of comprehension. That an animal has not the sense of relationship and the reasoning power that would accompany it, is a matter about which there is still considerable divergence of opinion ; it is suggested here, follow- ing Professor Lloyd Morgan, that it has a consider- able degree of intelligence and of adaptation by means of sense experience, selecting appropriate action by the method of trial and error. As an example, he gives the story of a terrier of his, accustomed to fetch and carry a walking stick, N 194 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY which the dog very soon learnt to pick up in the middle, since by balancing it at that point, it was easier to carry. One day he took out a Kaffir knob-kerrie, which, being weighted, balanced some nine inches from the heavy end. After an hour or two's experience, the dog, continually dropping it, owing to the discomfort of the want of balance when taken up in the middle, and picking it up again, discovered that it had to be seized near one end. This serves as a simple and good example of the means by which animals find out ways of doing things, in which no reasoning whatever is required. One of a number of aimless, but ener- getic, movements brings about a pleasing result or a desired object, such as getting out of a place in which it has been confined ; subsequent repetitions shorten the number of attempts, until finally the sight of the particular door, or other object, sets in train the necessary actions. These when noticed may easily seem to be the result of deliberate reasoning. It is difficult to realise fully the great care required to explain, or even to observe, the actions of animals, and the extreme watchfulness necessary to keep out of our interpretation the inevitable tendency to credit an animal with reasoning powers similar to our own, when we see it doing exactly what we should under similar circumstances. The high degree of apparent reason- ing power in ants and wasps serves as a useful corrective as to the need of such faculties in order to perform actions apparently requiring elaborate thought. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 195 It may be thought that this point has been dis- cussed at somewhat needless length, but it is one of importance. We have laid so much stress upon the development of the aesthetic faculties from primitive instincts, present even in the low forms of the animal kingdom, that it becomes very necessary to dis- tinguish clearly between the meaning, so to speak, that sensations convey to the human being and the animal. We can, as mentioned above, easily sup- pose the animal to have the sensations, at any rate in a more simple form and lower degree, which we ourselves feel ; the difference is in the use made of them. The organs themselves, as they develop, react to finer and finer shades of difference and to slighter stimuli, so that while they have the same kind of sensations there may be an immense difference in degree. If we choose to talk of a peahen having an aesthetic perception and admiration of the beauty of her brilliantly gleaming mate, we must be quite sure that we do not mean more than an emotional sense experience. As soon as we have reached the point of isolating the relationship between two objects or ideas, and of considering it in its general aspect, not merely with reference to the particular objects, we may say that, instead of perceiving the relationship, we can conceive it as an abstract idea ; this being a further extension of perception involving the results of a good deal of experience, in which the permanence of the relation, amidst many modes of manifestation, begets the general conception. An interesting point, and one upon which there is considerable diversity 196 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY of opinion, is that as to the possibility of keeping the attention upon such generalised concept in the absence of a name or symbol. A conception, say of similarity, is indefinite, and directly we attempt to make it more precise we think of a particular example we turn the concept, so to speak, into a percept, while the word alone enables us to fix the general conception without particularising it. It is this conceiving of relations that leads to the formation of general ideas. The process of com- parison leads to the recognition of qualities common to a variety of things, and a general idea is a repre- sentation of a class of things. The first stage would lie in the welding together of a number of concrete images into a generic image by a process, as it were, of assimilative cumulation. The type would then arise by an accentuation of the features which the successive images say of a number of trees or other objects of a class had in common, and a weakening of the less essential points. No doubt the early and simple stages may be carried out without any help from language, but it is extremely doubtful whether the orderly process of the com- parison of a number of percepts and recognition of common attributes could be carried on without the aid of a word or symbol. It is certainly clear that, at all events in adult life, all clear thinking takes place by the help of language. The general idea can only be brought into and held by the attention by the name or some symbol. " It is very uncertain whether in the absence of these and other general signs the infant or the lower animal ever MEANING AND EXPRESSION 197 attains to a clear consciousness of the ' one in the many/ the common aspect of a number of different objects." l Here we see the recognition of unity in variety, the widely accepted criterion of beauty, turning up as the very foundation-stone of the higher processes of thought ; no wonder that it should give rise to pleasure, in its power to bring order to confused thought. This point, of the part played by the name or the symbol in the process of thought, is really one of great importance to our subject. Professor Muller 2 maintained that no real thought was possible with- out language ; to certain schools of Oriental meta- physics, things owe their existence to the names that, as it were, make them possible to thought. There is a curious realisation of the deep function of language in the opening words of St. John's Gospel " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." As we reflect upon the qualities, the differences, and the similarities of things, we register them by a name, by which we can recall, and, so to speak, bring into focus, certain general qualities ; and though, in our present stage of mental development and experience, we can get a kind of general idea of a quality without the name, or seem to feel as if we could, it is at least highly doubtful whether we could have ever reached the power without the process of thought only made possible by the de- velopment of language. The higher steps become 1 " A Text Book of Psychology," J. Sully, 1892. 2 " Collected Essays," vol. i. pp. 590 et seq. 198 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY possible by means of the verbally embodied results of the lower " Language is to the mind what the arch is to the tunnel. The power of thinking and the power of excavation are not dependent on the word in the one case, or the mason's work in the other ; but without these subsidiaries neither process could be carried on beyond its rudimentary com- mencement." 1 Now we may consider it one of the functions of art to embody a general conception of some subtle kind, and to seize and offer for consideration some- thing which has not yet found a word by which it can be expressed, but which has at the same time an appeal to any observer who has sufficient know- ledge and experience and quickness of apprehension to catch it : and for him the particular work of art is the peg upon which he hangs his conception ; unformulated otherwise, it only exists for him there. In many cases this appreciation of the idea may lead to a new name being found. It must often happen that a work of art gets part of its charm by suggest- ing some conception vague perhaps, but of real interest which is as yet nameless, and, not having any known symbol, cannot be fixed and so brought into the focus of consciousness ; to music perhaps this would apply particularly " And, as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's power Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings A local habitation and a name." For example, the Capitoline Zeus conveys a 1 Hamilton, quoted by J. Sully, op. dt. t p. 262. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 199 very distinct impression of a quality of command, fatherhood, royal dignity, and steadfast inflexi- bility ; and there is no doubt that part of its charm lies in this generalised conception of a number of subtle qualities for which we have no definite ex- pression when combined, and we are pleased at the opportunity of thus grasping a conception of unity combining variety, in the novel aspect of such qualities synthesised into one. When emotionally aroused, the quicker beat of life leads to an enhanced celerity of thought ; suggestive hints are quickly taken up and conceptions are made, not necessarily intended or thought of by the artist, but latent, or rather struck into being by the excitement into which the mere beauty of his work has roused the mental qualities through the aesthetic sense. Much is unconsciously or half-consciously conveyed by the artist ; full of numerous carefully studied ex- amples, he tries to evolve a conception of the type not the mere average, but in the direction of the beautiful and his work may become the standard, and as it were a symbol, almost a word, by which we call up to ourselves a certain conception. The Venus de Milo is a conception of a certain aspect of female beauty that we can use as a symbol, a word full of emotional significance. Certain forms of art, such as that of sculpture, may offer a generalised concept of a number of images of a tactual or muscular nature of which we are really so little conscious that we should perhaps never think of resuming them under a name. Hegel suggested that a gem-cutter must have his ideas in 200 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the form of muscular and tactile feeling, for he cannot so much as see his minute work. So in all art the well-practised artist, with his attention fully directed upon what he is trying to express, is almost unconscious of the actual details. The sculptor's sense of touch moulds the delicate, subtle curves ; the painter plays on his colours almost as a musi- cian on his notes ; in the result, there may be numerous subordinate, probably subconscious gene- ralised conceptions of line and colour that have a strong appeal to the highly trained observer, who will, so to speak, discover them, isolating and drawing attention to effects of this nature which in a great number of cases were not perceived defi- nitely, and lay in the marginal subconsciousness of the artist himself. We may, however, be sure that one of the great attractions in art is this power of acting, so to speak, as a point of crystallisation for the vague and floating ideas which have never been seen in their true relationship from the want of a symbol upon which to focus the attention. It is probably due to the inability to perceive and realise relations that any form of drawing a picture is meaningless to the most intelligent animal, unless, owing to the sign and colour, or something in the arrangement, it amounts to an actual illusion of the real thing. Conceptual thought rising into ideal construc- tion will be considered under the head of imagi- nation and the constructive faculties of the intellect. What is for the moment of importance is to recog- nise the practical value of conceptual thought, in MEANING AND EXPRESSION 201 order to show a clear and obviously advantageous reason of each advance in intellectual faculty, and therefore of the origin of the pleasure in the exer- cise of it. The power of forming concepts de- \ velops and makes possible the formation of systems that will afford guidance in the affairs of everyday life that is to say, a generalised scheme, or plan, } that will enable us to deal more promptly and more effectually with new situations than by the crude and wasteful method of discovery by trial and error, which is the only way possible to mere sense ex- perience, in the absence of rational thought. When a child has lost or wants something, he looks aimlessly about, here and there, until perhaps he comes upon it, this simple trial and error having probably proved successful as a rule. The follow- ing experiment, described by Professor L. Morgan, 1 will illustrate the point : A ball was dropped in a grass field, and a number of adults and children started from a stake in the middle to look for it. Naturally the young ones meandered about, search- ing one corner several times, missing others, finally coming on it, if at all, by chance. With adults the search was, as a rule, methodical. A moment's consideration was enough to form the idea that by going in an increasing spiral, or by a regular gridiron course, it would be easy to make sure of examining each part of the field. They had a definite reason why the particular course was adopted, and why it was bound to be successful. An animal would, of course, trust to the hap- 1 " An Introduction to Comparative Psychology," p. 279. 202 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY hazard style, unless trained to cover the ground regularly. The result of sense experience alone is, as a rule, in a simple life a sufficient basis for expecta- tions of a practical kind, without the need of any higher conceptual process. A dog seeing its master in a black coat and top hat will go back and lie in its corner, while a tweed coat and hat brings him barking and jumping in the expectation of a walk. Speaking loosely, we say the dog infers from the one that he will be left behind, and from the other that he will be taken. There is, of course, no need for any reasoning ; the tweed coat and cap are, as a matter of simple sense experience, connected with walk. No doubt a very large number of our own actions are based upon this immediate expectation, or, if we like to call it so, direct inference, keeping out of it the idea of a chain of reasoning. In this way a kind of restricted reason, or intelligent expecta- tion, exercised its function for a long time before reason, in the full sense, came on the scene to explain the meaning and set forth the relation- ships. But when conceptual thought has become a habitual intellectual: process, and systematic generalisations have become, as it were, a second nature, we find that the significance of a situa- tion, in relation to some general concept either already present or simultaneously formed in the mind, may arise as quickly and as completely as the meaning of a situation does for simple sense experience. It is to this circumstance that an object may give rise to an instantaneous feeling MEANING AND EXPRESSION 203 of pleasure without any conscious or apparent process of thought. So we have the sudden in- tuitions flashes of insight which suddenly light up some tangled maze of ideas and facts, and in a moment give the generalised concept that brings them all into order. Long pondering over a subject, the careful scrutiny of many facts relating to it, the arrang- ing and rearranging of ideas is suddenly illumi- nated by a conception that seems to come, as it were, from nowhere, though often some additional fact or a side light may be the obviously exciting cause. In such cases we may call the logical pro- cess implicit, and the logical relations must be sub- sequently traced out and rendered explicit. The logic comes after the insight. Many people see their conclusions, and then find the reasons to support them. But we only find these pieces of brilliant insight in minds fully capable of explicit reasoning. The flash of insight which was aroused in Newton by the falling apples presupposes all the wide resources of his highly-trained brain. Omne ignotum pro magnifico, if we cannot under- stand it, it must be wonderful ; so we attach more importance to the sudden idea coming from no- where than to the carefully thought out conclusion of logical deduction. We find often enough that the exponent of some new theory of the world in a new religion, after perhaps a long course of reading of Oriental metaphysics and vague thinking, sud- denly announces scientific thought and method to 204 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY be delusion and a snare, and that the truth can only be conceived by getting half glimpses from a world not usually accessible to sense, which come through the subconscious mind when left without control, and that in this way they can reveal things that no amount of thought and scientific investigation can ever approach : whereas in truth the very means by which their own information is gained is only rendered possible by the method of logical thought that they despise, and that if the rational mind had not discovered and perceived relationships, and built up the fabric of conceptual thought and abstract idea, the irrational or subconscious mind could not ever have had the ideas upon which they base so much. The whole trend of progress lies in the conscious and rational apprehension of objects and ideas that to begin with are marginal or unconscious. But while the teacher and the philosopher must keep to the clear light of reason if they are to help the world on its way, and to advance the growth of knowledge, to the artist we may give full liberty. We do not ask him for facts, for definite informa- tion, for rules of conduct or a theory of the uni- verse and the ultimate destiny of man. From him we ask for beauty, for pleasures that shall appeal to our highest sensibilities. The artist can search out and eagerly fix his attention on beauty of all kinds wherever he can find it ; he can let the sense im- pressions sink into his soul, and then, with sudden uprush from his unconscious or subconscious sense, there may spring a new conception, not of things MEANING AND EXPRESSION 205 he cannot know, but a new aspect or relation- ship of things perceived, combined in a new way, accentuating the features that appear beautiful. It is the vague imaginings, the dim suggestions, the stirring of the emotions to which our tempera- ment and training will fit the appropriate thoughts, that we want from the artist. Just as we go to nature, and feel in the woods and the hills the sense of mystery in things, and the grandeur of the universe in the stars ; so the artistic mind, feel- ing these more deeply, can show us the way to see them, and we are the better, and our mind the fuller for it. Life is the richer for the value and the good that we have got, and for which we can never be too grateful, for in such good lies the great part of our higher intellectual pleasure. We must not, however, confuse such intellectual plea- sure with knowledge. It is not usually the fact, and there is no reason why it should be, that the artist is necessarily of great intellectual calibre or of profound wisdom. The fact that he can impress us with the mystery of things in an intense degree does not mean that he is thereby explaining them or taking us nearer to the real meaning. All our sense of life, our feeling, our joy in living is strengthened and intensified. The sense of vitality is enhanced because every excitement of a pleasurable emotion at once increases the pulse of life, and makes the whole being beat more quickly ; but it is our natural sympathy with nature that is being trained, not our intellectual comprehension of it, for beauty appeals primarily to feeling, not to intellect, however much 206 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the wider powers of the intellect share in the total pleasure and are touched through feeling. It is interesting to note that art seems deeper and more profound the more incapable it is of definite expression, and it is in music perhaps that we find this most accentuated. Music, with its matchless strength of appeal to emotion, is often credited with a deep significance. It is undoubtedly a wonder- ful spur to all the faculties, but can it give us any- thing not already there ? can it do more than drive home our own thoughts, in new connections per- haps, and with an added emphasis never before realised, from its extraordinary appeal to the senses ? In his book on "The Philosophy of the Beautiful," Professor Knight says : " Music appeals to us more directly than either painting, sculpture, or architecture does j because it dispenses with everything except the medium of sound. In so doing it takes us closer to reality than any of the other arts can. . . . It carries us towards the underlying essence of things the Ding an sich not by intellectual discernment, but by simple intuition ; not by circuitous scientific analysis, but by a synthetic process of what may be called divination or second sight. "He (the musician) works not analytically, but by a perpetual unconscious synthesis ; and, as soon as he begins to create, the ideas with which he formerly struggled in in- artistic moments, and which he now tries to express, flow along a subterranean channel. The ' fountains of the great deep' are broken up, and in his creative art he ' Sees into the life of things.' The musician's insight cannot be described as either wholly intellectual or altogether emotional. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 207 " Music touches many problems, and drops them again. It skirts the margins of others. It takes up some questions, and without answering them shows that they are unneces- sary. It throws a plank across the chasm which all ontology discloses, by which we may cross securely to the opposite side." It would be easy to fill books with similar quota- tions in which this wonderful insight and know- ledge of the meaning of things is attributed to the musician and music. In one sense, no doubt, it is true beautiful music does produce the effects de- scribed in a sufficiently qualified hearer. But the real truth of the matter seems to lie in the phenomenon already discussed, of the objectification of emo- tion ; because we feel these things, deep thoughts, profound suggestions, we believe them to be in the musician and in the music, and because he sug- gests them we think he also must understand them. When we have these same feelings of the infinite and the ideal, of truth and goodness, and of the pro- found mystery of the world stimulated by watch- ing the stars on a fine clear night, in the growing twilight of a beautiful country, or in the sympathy of love we know that they are in ourselves called up by the emotional excitement for which the parti- cular circumstances are responsible. So it is with music ; the great musician, with his perfect sense of harmony, can produce by his beautiful creations a wave of emotion that stirs us to the very depth of our being, and under the spur we feel old thoughts with a new significance and depth, and we have a warm, emotionally realistic, feeling of truths 2o8 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY perhaps till then mere intellectual concepts, so that they may seem, when really felt, to be actually new. All our ideas are so suffused with a new warmth and appreciation, and so many ideas are touched and started and seen in new combinations, that our very inability to take them in to do more than be half-consciously aware of them gives us the feeling of a profound vastness and depth of knowledge. But does this delightful vague reverie always, or even often, lead to a higher knowledge, or a finer life ? do we find ourselves actually wiser or the world the better ? In all the arts we find that in exact ratio to their definiteness of form the intellectual will predomi- nate over the emotional. The great novelist will be a man of observation, a shrewd interpreter of character ; the poet may vary from the philosophic to a highly emotional temperament, but as his mes- sage is more clear and definite the more will he be intellectual ; and advance in any art is marked by a growing regard for an appreciation of form. In the appreciation of beauty of form arises the difference in aesthetic corresponding to the difference between sensation and the perception of relations. A simple perception of a pleasing object, or col- lection of objects, without consciousness of the distinction or relation of the parts, would be a sensation, not a perception of form. As we have seen, the aesthetic value of an object is due to the particular mode of stimulation upon certain sense organs, but if to this there be added a consider- able contribution from memory and training, the MEANING AND EXPRESSION 209 resulting pleasantness will be due, not only to the pleasing sensation, but also to the apperceptive reac- tion, and the latter will become more important as the object relies for its form and influence upon the experience and knowledge of the observer. The apperception of form depends just as simple ap- preciation of sense impression upon constitution, age, congenital tendency, but also, and to a larger degree, upon experience, training, and knowledge. The less definite the object, the wider the scope and the greater the necessity for the play of mind in finding some particular aspect of perception which will determine the form ; though it must be remem- bered that the form is only indefinite, as far as it is incapable of arousing a suggestion of something experienced or known. A cloud, for instance, has a perfectly definite outline, but remains indeterminate for us until its form, previously vague, turns into something that we can recognise, an animal, or a ship, or some other thing that we know. It would be no more and no less really definite, but as soon as we were able to impose a recognisable form upon it, there would be not only the brilliance of colour and the beauty of its light transparent look, but a new value added in the form that we had found for it. It is the exercise of the apperceptive faculty that gives the interest and pleasure found in indeter- minate objects, to the vague, the incoherent, and the suggestive. The more this is appealed to by the artist, the greater the richness presumed in the observer's mind, the less the power of the performer. 2io ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY A simple and poorly-equipped mind is nonplussed and bewildered by vague indeterminateness, and turns away to simpler things with a helpless feel- ing, or with annoyance amounting to openly expressed contempt. The artist not artist enough, or of natural genius without sufficient patience to acquire thorough technical skill, or to work out his ideas, is sure to delight in the region of vagueness sketching, hinting, suggesting, stimulating, but not informing or imparting ideas. There is no doubt that such a nature has a feeling of immense profundity, or mighty significance, of being always on the verge of a masterpiece which somehow is never executed. To a certain extent this is a per- fectly legitimate and proper feeling, for the limits imposed by our materials for expression, colour, form, sound, words, make it impossible to express the full reality of experience. The most perfect mastery of technical skill will not be exhaustive, and there must be always left a fringe that can only suggest by no means the least valuable part of a great work of art. So that where there is really profound thought and mastery of material, there will still be a felt inadequacy of expression, so that an appeal must still be made to the observer to help the imperfection from his own store of ideas and experience. But this is really a different thing to the point to which we were referring, and comes after all the resources of a thoroughly learnt art have been exhausted. It may be that thoughts can be too subtle for the coarse medium of words ; but that, if true, and not merely due to want of more care- MEANING AND EXPRESSION 211 ful thought, is no excuse for saying that, as no words can really express the thought, it matters little what words are used, trusting simply to a vague sug- gestiveness. What is felt as depth is too often in- competence, and a very simple thing is unutterable if we have not learned to speak. We may be pretty sure that habitual indulgence in incoherence and vagueness is a sign of want of thought, of a poet or a painter who has not mastered their craft, without denying that there may be at the back of it a soul of immense but inexpressible genius. A public, widely educated, pluming itself on its ability to understand and appreciate, is a great snare to the artist, who is apt to be led into unauthorised experiment, whimsical efforts after originality, to throw off a sketch or an idea before it has matured or been really worked out, by the certainty that it will find admirers who are only too ready to take crudeness for strength and origi- nality, vagueness for sublimity each anxious to proclaim that, however meaningless it may appear to the vulgar, to them it is full of a subtle and refined beauty, and, by their asseveration of its greatness, force adherence from many too con- scious of their own inability to judge. The attraction of the indefinite is a point of great interest in the question of the emotional response to beauty. If we are to accept the view that the pleasure in form and beauty is due to the content or expression, to the recognition of unity in variety, of the realisation of the ideal within the real, or any of the numerous explana- 212 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY tions of beauty that refer it to an intellectual per- ception, it is very difficult to see any reason for the aesthetic pleasure in a subject that becomes more beautiful the less clear and denned it is as a photograph, for instance, which is made more " artistic " by the simple expedient of putting it a little out of focus. We have maintained that we must look at aesthetic emotion as made up of the natural response of a number of innate reactions, which may have in many cases lost all use, or even meaning, but still remain capable of arousing dimly-perceived states of feeling, which in turn, by the process previously described as the analogy of feeling, arouse others, and thus set in motion innumerable trains of ideas, the connection being in the similarity of feeling, all of which in their turn react upon and increase the total emotion. In this case it is not difficult to see that the very fact of a thing being indeterminate would allow a freer play of these obscure feelings, from the fact that the mind having no definite idea would not to the same extent tend to keep the feelings and ideas in a particular direction ; in this way the vague suggestive painting, and the rhythmical cadence of some kinds of poetry that is apparently almost meaningless, come very near to music, and share its illusive suggestion of power to impart knowledge and ideas. Although suggestive indeterminateness of form has this great power in arousing emotion, it has many disadvantages. It is by its nature ambiguous, and so obscure and uncertain in the effects it may MEANING AND EXPRESSION 213 produce. Where no definite meaning is to be conveyed, as in architecture, music, landscape painting, decorative art, and so on, the lack of form is perhaps less objectionable, though the observance of form, and the demand for it, in these branches of art is a sign of increasing appreciation. Form is not perceivable by the ignorant or untrained, by whom the arts are re- garded simply as a delightful source of emotion, or as a soothing or exciting influence ; but who would be content with this as their full and best function ? The need for definiteness of form in literature, when the actual " sense " values of the parts is small, is too obvious to require elaboration, though even here certain effects are got by in- tentional formlessness, as in the writing of the symbolists, who try to express ideas, perhaps hardly possible to articulate, the suggestiveness of which might be lost by precision ; but meaning- lessness is soon reached, and the imagination of the reader has to supply the want. The indeter- minate in form requires the observer to furnish the completion, and the power to do this must vary with the capacity of the different persons. The object will be beautiful to him who can make it so, ugly to another to whom it remains unsug- gestive and unintelligible. To the observer who has a well-equipped and active mind, many works of art may appear beautiful from which he gets but little value ; he is presented with no new object, and can only fit to the vague object some previous experience. He is not taken away from 214 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY his own stock of ideas and his imagination drawn into a new path ; he is not enriched by some new beauty. There is, however, the vague emotional stimulus, and a creative mind, rich with observa- tion, may perhaps from the excitement catch some new and delightful idea ; but it is his previous study of the definite forms which nature provides, or which the artist has moulded to new concep- tions, that has enabled him to do this. The in- determinate has this advantage, that it cultivates spontaneity of ideas and imagination, and so makes the mind find many a thing intelligible that might otherwise remain unnoticed or unin- teresting. Without this power of imposing order upon the indefinite, all would be chaos, without form and void. It often happens that some object, fluid, changing, indeterminate, by stimulating the perceptive activity of mind, will seem more beautiful and sublime, to have a deeper significance, to have more life and possibility, than one which presents a single un- changing form, however beautiful. And yet the whole object of the activity is to reach definite form, and we see no beauty until we have intro- duced it. But there is, in dealing with the incom- plete, the feeling that we have not yet reached the best that it can suggest that there is something still behind, if we could but see it, that seems to give a suggestion of infinite possibility. This in- stability of form can hardly be a real advantage, for the beauty fixed by some stroke of genius keeps constantly what can only be reached by the MEANING AND EXPRESSION 215 imagination, if at all, in some especially propitious moment. We may find the perfect, definite form become monotonous, and prefer the transient gleams of a beauty that is always eluding us in the indeterminate. This is no doubt due to the illusion which lends a mysterious charm to the in- definite and undefined by its suggestion of infinite perfection. And yet perfection involves finiteness, and nothing, in fancy or nature, can be perfect with- out realising a definite type or form, the result of apperception. There is a widely prevalent habit of mind which, incapable of realising any particular thought or idea in its perfect clearness and beauty, yet is aware of its haunting presence somewhere in the background. The brain is too full many ideals, innumerable tendencies of thought, and inarticu- late cravings teem in a confused emotion, so that if a single definite image be presented, it seems inadequate, perhaps by reason of its very perfect- ness. The power of concentration, of serious attention that would make possible real appre- ciation of the particular excellence, is wanting. It is easier to wander in the vague yearnings of half- thoughts and semi-visions, and the height and exal- tation of the mood seems somehow in proportion to the incapacity to think or realise anything cohe- rent. The total of the emotions may be imposing ; there is the suggestion of an infinite meaning or purpose, and what seems to come nearest the ideal craved is not any one definite form, but something which, with a pervasive thrill, will stimulate the 216 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY indeterminate emotion with hints and haunting suggestiveness of an infinite beauty. Thus infinite perfection a contradiction in terms and incapable therefore of realisation is suggested, and is apt to be regarded as something higher, of deeper' signifi- cance than any determinate beauty. 1 We are expected very often to find the greatest expressiveness in the indeterminate, which, as a matter of fact, expresses nothing. A confused jumble of promptings and feelings will give a sense of profundity ancj significance ; the awak- ening of many incipient thoughts and dim imagin- ings will give an illusion of infinite perfection ; and we attribute to the object with which this emotion is connected a mysterious power and some deep meaning. The sense of being on the verge of a perfect comprehension of reality and ultimate truth may accompany certain vague states of conscious- ness that lie between sleeping and waking. Prof. James 2 describes how such states may be induced by the gas administered for dental operations. " Nitrous oxide and ether, especially nitrous oxide when sufficiently diluted with air, stimulate the mystical con- sciousness in an extraordinary degree. Depth beyond depth of truth seems revealed to the inhaler. This truth- fades out, however, or escapes at the moment of coming to ; and if any words remain over, in which it seemed to clothe itself, they prove to be the veriest nonsense. Never- theless, the sense of a profound feeling having been there persists." 1 "The Sense of Beauty," pp. 145, 146. G. Santeyana (1905). 2 "The Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 357. MEANING AND EXPRESSION 217 Such feeling of significance is in itself of little value. It is a potentiality of imagination, and only when it begins to be realised in definite ideas does any real meaning arise in the mind. The highest aesthetic good does not lie in vague possibilities, but in the number and variety of finite perfections. Progress does not lie in formless emotion and aim- less reverie, but in the direction of discrimination and precision, in seeing in nature the typical forms of things and enshrining them in art, to train the imagination to see as many beauties as possible and realise them in creative adaptation to environment. If we prefer so to describe it, utility organises the world into definite species and aggregations of matter. Only certain forms are in harmony with the laws of gravity, which disintegrates some forms while solidifying and perpetuating others. The eye is instantly offended by any obvious departure from this law, however ingeniously contrived, and thus comes to recognise certain types or forms as perma- nent and satisfactory. We have already traced the natural harmony between beauty and utility, though it is clear that our aesthetic delight is not based upon a conscious recognition of practical advantages, else many hideous things would be beautiful, and Socrates' contention be true that he was really more beautiful than a certain handsome youth, because his protuberant eyes were better a/lapted for seeing, his large mouth for eating, and wide nostrils for breathing. This seems to reduce the theory to an absurdity, and yet it has much truth in it. If a nose, and eyes, and mouth like 218 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY those of Socrates were so necessary and so advan- tageous to survival that such a conformation had been developed by natural selection, we should inevitably consider them beautiful ; somewhat in the way, perhaps, that the Hottentot admires his women, whom we consider repulsively ugly. Beauty may be constituted by the imagination with utter ignorance of, or indeed profound contempt for, practical advantage, and yet it cannot get away from the necessary and the useful, for the neces- sary must be the common and the habitual, and therefore the basis of the type, from which imagi- native variations are created by accentuating the attractive features. We have already shown that the unconscious response to the useful is one of the factors of our aesthetic pleasure. If this is true of the instinctive stage, it is perhaps as strong in the derivative stage, where apperception adds all sorts of outside influences, and brings the knowledge of fitness and utility into play. It does it, however, as a rule, in an indirect way ; we may not be con- sciously affected by the obvious utility or want of it in a beautiful thing, but we do recognise that the artist is limited by practical conditions, and we generally find our pleasure in a thing is increased by a knowledge that it is useful as well as beautiful a sense of waste roused by the useless or fictitious will do much to prevent enjoyment in an object, and so deprive it of beauty. This is an adventitious complication ; the intrinsic value of a form is not really affected by it. It is interesting to note that as appreciation of MEANING AND EXPRESSION 219 form requires a higher mental equipment, so it comes late in the progress of art. Training and quick powers of perception are required to grasp it. A child or a barbarian delights in colours, and decorates with rude masses of strong hues before he begins to formulate designs ; and appeal to sense is made by lavish colour, rich material, and profusion of ornament, long before simple beauty of form. So in music ; to many it never has more than a sensuous or sentimental value ; with educa- tion comes the power to distinguish form, and with it a keener pleasure. Even in sculpture the earlier work was covered with gilding and colour, until gradually the pure form won its way by the increas- ing power of discrimination and keenness of appre- hension. So there are two main lines of advance or effect ; first there is the form this is the useful type, developed by need for its own advantages ; this receives the ornament of colour or profusion of detail with its appeal to sense. The ornamenta- tion itself of the form will direct attention to it ; the more pleasing will be selected ; any feature that seemed attractive would be accentuated, and the ornament used to emphasise and bring out more clearly the delicacy of form, and finally the orna- ment be subordinated to the form. Thus we accept and make use of forms, the original direc- tion in which they would be shaped determined by utility; and by continual perception weave them more and more into our own feeling, making them more beautiful and expressive. We do not necessarily like a new thing at once, 220 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY because it is useful, but if it is really necessary it appeals to our practical approval ; and as we admire its ingenuity we become accustomed to it gradu- ally, until we should come to miss it, and in time there will be formed a type which will be capable of being made pleasing. Chimneys at one time were considered an ugly excrescence to be concealed as far as possible; sloping roofs have so determined, by their practical utility, the usual finish to a house that we like them, however much we may at times think we should prefer the open balustrades against the sky. The ever recurring mingling of the useful form and the more beautiful development has so complicated the feelings that we cannot divest our- selves of the almost subconscious approval of the economy or fitness the sense that a form so long borne by some particular thing must be right, so that we do not ever question it. But this is often a slow process : first of all, the new form may take a long time to develop into the best shape for its practical use ; and then the habit that will ulti- mately produce the toleration, ripening into plea- sure, may be of long growth. It is difficult to judge of the question at the present day with regard to the introduction of new and useful forms ; these appear with such rapidity that we have not had time to assimilate them, and they have not had time to find their final type. It may be that iron and steel construction will develop into a form in which we shall find real beauty ; the motor car develop the graceful lines that will make it a pleasure to the eye. But we may at MEANING AND EXPRESSION 221 least go so far as to say that if the appearance of utility does not constitute effect, it at least modifies it glaring obvious unfitness will spoil anything ; while a clear, practical utility will at least insure toleration for the most rude and awkward-looking contrivance. If we think of it, it is almost neces- sary that utility should keep watch, as it were, over beauty ; the laws of natural selection and survival must exclude the useless, give value to the useful ; to run riot in pursuit of a beauty which had no connection with practical advantage would run counter to human advance and happiness, and end in confusion. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have, as it were, a natural dislike to mere wanton extravagance and lavish waste. It is this curious contradiction between the obvious connection join- ing beauty and utility, on the one hand, and the almost passionate dejiial of the artist and lover of beauty that utility has anything to do with it, on the other, that creates a great stumbling-block. The answer lies, as we hope to have shown, in the fact that all forms to have survived must have been at one time useful, and that our likings and tend- encies must have been developed to like and appreciate things only because they were useful in the first place, but that the likings and tendencies remain long after the disappearance, owing to change of environment, of the particular objects at all events, as useful objects upon which they were formed, and thus they come to form the tastes which seem so inexplicable, and in their later forms have, in a great majority of cases, no 222 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY perceivable relation to the useful. Thus there is a tendency to deny the connection to which the faculty owes its very existence a phenomenon common to the other instinctive emotions when they reach the region of the ideal. If we realise this, we can keep clear in our minds the connec- tion of beauty and utility without wishing to maintain that it is in its essence nothing but the expression of a moral or practical good, however much such a view appeals to people of a certain temperament. The direction in which the par- ticular form will be varied will not necessarily lie in the direction of present utility, but in the direc- tion in which lie our aesthetic tastes ; certain features or certain appearances appeal to our innate tendencies, and these are selected. The practical man, looking at an object to improve it, regards it entirely from the practical side, with a view to further utility ; the artist dwells on those features of it that are agreeable, and, in idealising it, those are the points with which he will deal. The artist is always, often perhaps unconsciously, looking for the possibilities of beauty everywhere. " For this reason the world is so much more beautiful to a poet or an artist than to an ordinary man. Each object, as his aesthetic sense is developed, is perhaps less beautiful than to the uncritical eye ; his taste becomes difficult, and only the very best gives him unalloyed satisfaction. But while each work of art and nature is thus apparently blighted by his greater demands and keener susceptibility, the world itself, and the various natures it contains, are to him unspeakably beautiful. The more blemishes he can MEANING AND EXPRESSION 223 see in men, the more excellence he sees in man ; and the more bitterly he laments the fate of each particular soul, the more reverence and love he has for the soul in its ideal essence. Criticism and idealisation involve each other. ^ The habit of looking for beauty in everything makes us notice the shortcomings of things ; our sense, hungry for complete satisfaction, misses the perfection it demands. But this demand for perfection becomes at the same time the nucleus of our observation; from every side a quick affinity draws what is beautiful together and stores it in the mind, giving body there to the blind yearnings of our nature. Many imperfect things crystallise into a single perfection. The mind is thus peopled by general ideas, in which beauty is still the chief quality ; and these ideas are at the same time the types of things. The type is still a natural resultant of particular impressions; but the formation of it has been guided by a deep subjective bias in favour of what has delighted the eye." 1 1 " The Sense of Beauty," p. 122. G. Santeyana (1905). CHAPTER IX IMAGINATION THE imaginative faculty is very generally looked upon as in some way peculiarly belonging to art and aesthetic feelings, so that by many people, who let their attention dwell too exclusively on its fanci- ful side, and its aloofness from useful and practical work, the imagination is apt to be regarded as a delightful adjunct to life, belonging rather to the region of unreality and make-believe, than to the prosaic needs of everyday life. Although its im- portance in the aesthetic field cannot be over-rated, it is not one whit less useful in every other walk in life. If we confine our attention merely to the vagaries of imagination, and choose to disregard its highly important intellectual functions, we fall at once into a complete misapprehension both of its nature and use. For when duly controlled by reason, imaginative activity not only leads on to the grasp of new facts, but prepares the way for the higher processes of thinking. If we had not this power our reproductive memory would merely repeat or reproduce things, always in the way and in the same connection that they had occurred, and progress would be slow or impossible. It is the disciplined imagination of the man of science 224 IMAGINATION 225 that enables him, as it were, to throw his mind in advance, suggesting a theory the logical support and proof of which may take years of investigation, but without this imaginative insight the investigation would be aimless and wanting in definite direction. Where reason and deduction fail, imagination steps in, and is often the means of suggesting a truth that may not become scientific fact for centuries. Ruskin shows how the very relativity of knowledge is a strong proof of the value of the imagination. The higher one's conceptions reach, the more sub- jective they are ; our highest ideals, those of God, are necessarily the work of the imagination in its noblest form. "No man has seen God at any time ; so the same faculty , which may be abused to create a lie must be used to discern f^ a truth." l In this sort of broad meaning imagination becomes belief, the intuitive grasp of universal truth, or at least truth for the person who is prepared to accept it and prove his belief by action. In religion and art we cannot attempt to prove our imaginative insight by any strict process of reasoning, for we are dependent upon imagination alone as soon as we leave the firm ground of sense perception, so we trust the imagination when it tells us things that we find ourselves ready to believe ; though these ideas are, of course, modified by the reason as far as it will go ; we test our imaginative creation by the analogy of things that we know, and in this way to a large extent judge of the value Painters," v. 9. 226 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY of the idea. In religion, where such imagination carries with it the implication of absolute truth, it is described as revelation. Faith and the theories of life of the philosopher if accepted, and of real influence upon their actions, are forms of imagi- nation believed to be true, not because they are capable of scientific demonstration, but because the man to whom they bring the sense of conviction, and who lives up to them, is actually aware of an effect upon himself, in some new moral energy, some new warmth of meaning in life, by which they prove, to him at least, their divine origin. When some idea or conception strikes home with this " emotion of conviction," as Bagehot described it, argument and proof are superfluous ; the notion carries with it testimony of truth, as the prophecy in " The Lady of the Lake " bore its own guarantee by the very vividness of the vision. " At length the fatal answer came, In characters of burning flame, Not writ in words, nor blazed on scroll, But burnt and branded on my soul." We have already considered the simple repro- duction of past impressions, experiences, ideas, in what are called representative images, which were, for the sake of simplicity, considered as mere copies of the previous sensations ; but by imagination in the ordinary sense of the word we mean more than this we combine parts of different sensations to form new wholes. If we imagine a place about which we have read, or some event in the future, we go beyond any actual experience, and the images IMAGINATION 227 of memory are in some way transformed, modified, and recombined in a novel aspect. This process is often called constructive imagination, in order to distinguish it from the simpler form, though it is obvious that no hard and fast line can be drawn between the two. In the earliest stage we find simply the passive imagination of merely formal representation de- scribed above, which soon passes into creative imagination. In a simple form this may take the form of illusion. The experience of the external sense is modified, or transformed, by the con- struction put upon it by the mind. In such cases belief in its reality is naturally present, since no distinction can be made. The imagined form is, as it were, directly perceived, and has the same effect as if it were real. Perhaps the earliest stage of imaginative creation proper lies in animism, in the propensity to attribute life and personality to everything. This seems a stage, peculiarly strong in children, which has to be passed through by every one, and is long or short according to indi- vidual character. To this is due the growth of myth and the anthropomorphic interpretation of nature of early savage races. It is clearly inad- missible to think of early races inventing their mythology as a kind of allegory of the effects that they observed in nature. Their interpreta- tion was spontaneous ; the presence of the gods was a literal impression. Superstition arose from i incapacity to discriminate the objects of the imagi- nation from those of the understanding. Imagina- 228 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY tion is not to be blamed for superstition. Men were superstitious, not because they had more imagina- tion in those days, but because they were not aware that they had any. The mental processes, as we have already seen, can always be paralleled by a similar physical pro- cess. What, then, is the physical parallel to the creative imagination ? Probably the best way to find an answer to this question will be to inquire how far, or in what form, imagination can be said to exist in the animal kingdom. We have already emphasised the important part played in all process of thought by movements, and psychology at the present day recognises that the idea of a movement is, as it were, a movement begun, and that repre- sentations include motor elements, because all re- presentations are remnants of past perceptions, and perceptions presuppose movements to some extent. It is this motor element that tends to cause an image to be externalised, or objectified outside ourselves. Now all imagination is teleological ; it has an end in view. We want some thing, whether we are inventing a fairy tale, or a theory to explain the movement of the stars. Professor Ribot l draws a suggestive parallel be- tween voluntary activity and creative imagination, pointing out that imagination, in the intellectual order, is the equivalent of will in the realm of movements. This he justifies by a process of reasoning somewhat as follows : growth of volun- tary control is progressive, slow, and liable to 1 " An Essay on the Creative Imagination," p. 9 (Trans.), 1906. IMAGINATION 229 frequent check. The individual has to become slowly master of his muscles. Reflexes, instinc- tive movements, and the motor manifestations of emotions provide the material for voluntary move- ments. The will does not inherit any movements ; it has to co-ordinate and associate, which it can only do by dissociation of previously experienced movements which it recombines : it has to win its own right to rule. In the same way the crea- tive imagination does not appear complete. It begins with images simply repeated, becoming more complex as it develops. Another strong point of resemblance lies in their subjective char- acter. Imagination is personal its movement is from within outwards, thus contrasting with in- tellect, which is objective, impersonal, receiving from outside ; for intellect, it is the outside world that directs. For the creative imagination and the will it is the inner world that dictates the course; the inner, my world of my imagination, as opposed to the world of others, of the under- standing. Imagination and will have one end or one purpose in view act only with a view to some end ; the understanding, in its restricted sense, notes facts and is satisfied with proofs. We are always wanting something, and our ima- gination is always at work to gratify it. This suggestive analogy between the will and the creative imagination need not be pushed further, but it serves to emphasise the great part played by the motor elements. We have already, in an earlier chapter, tried to show the importance, or rather 230 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the essential nature, of the motor manifestations as the very basis of feelings and tendencies, and the part played by motor sensation in incipient movements is the idea. If, then, we analyse the cause of the creative imagination, we shall find it ultimately in the needs, tendencies, desires of man's nature, which, in their earliest manifesta- tions, are expressed in movements or tendency to movements. These are the stimuli. The possi- bility of creation lies in the spontaneous revival of images. In those animals endowed only with simple memory any sensation from without will bring into consciousness former experiences i.e. reproduction without new associations. But in human beings from about the second year, and, perhaps, in some of the higher animals, we get a further stage, in which there is what may be called a spontaneous revival, in which ideas come together without any apparent antecedent. Ideas work in some latent form by analogy and subconscious elaboration, which, grouping with new associations, form the elements of the act of creative imagination. So far we may be fairly cer- tain in attributing imagination to animals. The fact that dogs and other animals have dreams, and at times even appear to be subject to de- lusions when excited, is sufficient proof of this. But when it comes to attributing to them the power of active synthesis, of intentionally re- uniting images to form novel combinations from them i.e. true creative imagination we must, I think, conclude that such a faculty is very slight, IMAGINATION 231 if existent at all. As Romanes points out, abstraction is a necessary preliminary to creation, and that with- out language abstraction is very weak. 1 We have already seen that there is little, if any, ground for attributing to animals the power to form concepts. Their power of creative imagination, then, is in exact ratio to their power to dissociate qualities. But while we must deny imagination in its true sense to animals, there is, as M. Ribot points out, one direction in which they do display if not creative imagination at least creative power, or invention, of a kind which we may call fancy. This is purely motor, and shows itself in play. The movements of animals are very numerous, they are often new and continually varied. Here we have imagination acting in an almost purely motor character ; it consists of ideas or images, of move- ments, that are perhaps hardly conscious, being immediately translated into movements. Nor need we see any difficulty in dissociating, or splitting up the elements or parts of the movements to form new combinations, for in bodily activities the mere wish or idea of a movement is sufficient, the neces- sary muscular adaptations following unconsciously. We see also in children how the predominance of the motor system tends to make them at once trans- late ideas into movements. As long as creative imagination or invention is confined to movements, we may credit the higher animals with it. As Mr. Hobhouse puts it, speaking of animals : 1 " Mental Evolution in Man," chap. x. (1888.) 232 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY " Imagination, if it can be said to exist, takes the form of immediate frolicsome action." 1 All constructive or creative imagination consists in modifying and recombining sense experience ; whether we are dreaming the wildest impossi- bilities of delirium, picturing the North Pole or the Sahara, or fancying ourselves back in the middle ages, we have nothing from which to form our mental pictures but portions of sense ex- perience. It is, then, fairly obvious that two pro- cesses are necessary : in the first place, dissociation, or the separating up into components ; and secondly, a process of combination. We can take the head of a man, and in imagination put it on an animal, talk of mountains of gold, invisible men, &c., just as in muscular experience we can dissociate cus- tomary movements and form new combinations, to imagine ourselves flying, and so on. Of course, all these processes of separation and recombination are limited ; very closely knit associations are difficult to break up. Total impressions, of which the ele- ments have never been separately sensed, are often impossible to dissociate it is scarcely possible to imagine a solid body which could be felt but which was completely invisible ; many things can be imagined with difficulty, i.e. visually realised, such as the fact that the dwellers in the antipodes are walking head downwards relatively to ourselves. It is the power of dissociation that is of the greatest importance for imagination ; a too com- plete repetition in memory is a hindrance to creation, 1 " Mind in Evolution," 1901. IMAGINATION 233 so that too good a memory may be a disadvantage to creative thought. Just as ignorant and intel- lectually limited people, in giving an account of an occurrence will invariably repeat the whole story verbatim each time, important and unimportant points, all on a dead level ; they cannot select. Such minds are poor in inventive capacity. The useful memory holds the interesting ; it is not systematised in the kind of routine form that has to repeat a whole poem to get at one line ; its ideas are in small, readily detachable, groups, plastic and easily combining in new forms. Active production takes place by the regrouping of the dissociated elements, which may be done in various ways : Association by contiguity repro- duces the order and connection of things according to the habits of the nervous system : Association by resemblance one thing may be more or less like another, or may be recalled in conjunction with it from the mere accident of having been present in consciousness at the same time. But the essential, fundamental, element of the creative imagination in the intellectual sphere is the capacity of thinking by analogy by partial, imperfect, accidental, resem- blances. Through its almost unlimited pliability, its unstable, ever varying processes, analogy can equally give rise to original and valuable invention or the most impossible absurdities. The process is so arbitrary, capricious, and open to all kinds of influences, that it is impossible to formulate any law or order in the method of its working. We see it at work in the early myth, in at once attributing 234 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY feelings and desires to anything, that can in any con- ceivable way be supposed to have any connection with them. The wind, the trees, the rivers all show movement a sufficient suggestion for the sense of analogy to see life. Using analogy as meaning some kind of resemblance, there is obviously little that would not be covered by it. Quick imagina- tion lies in this power of rapidly seizing upon re- semblances, and if the person is also endowed with a temperament of a rational and exact nature, he will follow up the suggestions, tracing them out, establishing the fitting and the congruous ; elimina- ting the inconsistencies until a logical and rational end has been achieved. In this sort of way it often happens that imagination is a substitute for reason as well as the provider of materials. In a person of a different temperament the fanciful analogy will lead to imaginative ideas and scenes which may form the basis of stories or works of art. The influence of the emotional state upon the imagination is patent and obvious ; it is indeed the very basis, and without it no creative imagination would take place. However apparently cold and calculating intellectual imagination may appear to be, there is indisputable evidence that all forms of creative imagination involve elements of feeling. For all invention presupposes a want, a tendency, an unsatisfied impulse. The work itself is, broadly speaking, accompanied by feelings of pleasure, and if thwarted, by discomfort, slight though the feel- ings may be. It is, of course, more obvious in the various forms of aesthetic creation, because in IMAGINATION 235 these the feeling produced is the important matter, while in ordinary invention it is so complicated by the meaning and ultimate use of the product, that the feeling tone is apt very often to be over- looked. Common experience is sufficient to prove that all emotional dispositions influence the crea- tive imagination. As we have seen, the main in- fluence in determining what memory shall retain is interest, so that the very material upon which imagination is to work is already selected by our innate dispositions. Naturally the imagination will again accentuate the points that we care about. Another interesting way in which the emotional factor works is shown in the fact that representa- tions that have been accompanied by the same emotional state tend to become associated simply through the emotional resemblance. We have already mentioned this in speaking of the analo- gous phenomenon of coloured hearing. An important point in reference to the emotional factor in imagination should be emphasised here. We have already seen how, at the bottom of the feelings and emotions, beyond and more funda- mental than the agreeable and disagreeable states of consciousness, lies the motor element the tendency to, or away from, which is the very basis of development ; and it is in the gratification of these innate tendencies that we find the spur to the creative instinct, and creative instinct springs directly from this motor element. We have already discussed the question of the constructive or creative instinct in one more or less limited - . ' UNIVERSITY] OF / 236 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY sense ; here we mean it in its widest significance, in the sense of getting or trying to get, whatever is desired. To talk of a creative instinct, as such, is more or less meaningless ; it must be devoted to creating something, and that something must be desirable any of our needs, tendencies, or desires, can cause or call out a creative act each instinct, for food, water, sex, has its appropriate object. The preservation of life may produce innumerable instinctive creative acts, each of which meets some need. All the available faculties will be called into use to try and provide for the needs or tendencies ; but were men devoid of feelings there would be no creation, for there would be no pleasure in the result. The needs by themselves are of course powerless ; no degree of hunger will provide the ingenious means for satisfying it, in the absence of the cerebral control and reasoning faculty, if circumstances are sufficiently difficult. There must be first a need ; secondly, the combination of images, ideas, dissociated elements of experience, which will be recombined and objectified in appro- priate form or action. So it is that resourceful- ness ; the ability for far-seeing, prudent action ; forecasting probable events, and thus the ability to take full advantage of them ; avoidance of risks in fact, all the qualities that go to make up the wise and clever type of man lie in a wide well-developed imaginative power, controlled by rational delibera- tion and critical acumen. The imagination will suggest every conceivable contingency, the reason will weigh their relative likelihood and importa n ce. IMAGINATION 237 M. Ribot 1 divides all the work of the imagina- tion under the two heads of aesthetic and practical ; this division depends upon the idea that art has its beginning in superfluous activity, first shown in the form of play, a view which we have tried to prove untenable ; but in spite of this division, he shows clearly that there is no difference in the psycho- logical mechanism. This fact is surely too obvious to require proof, the useful creation of one genera- tion is often merely an aesthetic pleasure to a later. The work of the imagination is primarily useful ; even the creation of myths, and religious concep- tions, and the first efforts at explaining the world around arise from a pressing need. Man has to act in reference to the apparently higher powers that he finds around him, and so he imagines ways and means by which, if he cannot subdue, he may at least conciliate and turn them to his service. The fanciful answers to primitive curiosity were thought to be intensely practical. There is no need to draw any line of separation ; all kinds of invention and creation are the work of the imagi- nation oriented according to the individual char- acter, leading some to mechanical, financial, and scientific branches, others to painting, poetry, or music, and so on. So we find the imaginative faculty, when allied with a clear, logical temperament, likely to develop in the direction of scientific or useful invention, although in certain phases and periods of art the clear-cut, accurately defined images and definitely 1 " Essay on the Creative Imagination," 1906, 238 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY realised forms show a highly disciplined and con- trolled imagination. As the intellectual control gives way to the emotional feeling, we find a tend- ency towards the vague, the indistinct, and the suggestive, until we reach a stage usually de- scribed as mysticism, in which everything becomes ambiguous, obscure, symbolic. Some aspect of a thing, important or not, comes into relief, not because we recognise its importance, but arbi- trarily selected, because it has an instant appeal by the pleasure it affords. Such forms have no part in the regions of practical life, where vague images and approximate suggestions have to be rigorously eliminated ; but in the domain of the romantic and fantastic, and especially in the production of mythical and religious ideas, it has a vast field for its exercise. The mystical imagination represents invention in its purest, most untrammelled form ; it rests upon feeling and imagination, which then represent, or rather replace, the intellectual faculty. The mystic, as a rule, regards the experiences of sense as vague illusions, or at best as giving suggestive hints of the true reality ; perception, therefore, is of little value; reasoned thought and scientific deduction is a snare ; the truth is, as it were, felt, by a kind of construction in images, to many of which no words, or at least no adequate description can be given. The chief principle of the mystical imagina- tion is the tendency to find or locate something of the ideal in the sensible to discover a message or a meaning in every occurrence, inexplicable rela- IMAGINATION 239 tionships in common phenomena ; to feel that there is in all things a supernatural principle that is always expressive if the mind can only penetrate to it. To put it shortly, everything is or may be a symbol, and mysticism is, as it were, thinking symbolically. Concrete images are transformed into symbolic images, and so used ; this process is extended to perception of all kinds, so that any form of nature or art takes on an added value as a sign or a symbol. To a certain degree, of course, all art is symbolic ; and we have already dealt with the question of the indefinite in relation to beauty, but we are now considering the somewhat exaggerated degree usually known as mysticism. We find among certain nations, certain indi- viduals, or even in certain periods, that both in literature and art vague forms and suggestive but indeterminate shapes have been preferred to more precise delineation. This form of art cares nothing for clear and exact representation of the existing world of reality ; it aspires to record the subtle fleeting shades of feelings and ideas, the true inwardness of the soul. Consequently, in their works, whether in words, in plastic art, or in paint, everything seems to float in the dim incoherence of a dream things happen in no actual period of time, in no existing place it is, as it were, an attempt to get the freedom from particularity that music has. Words to the symbolist suggest an emotion, not a definite idea : thus a word must, as far as possible, be deprived of its intellectual 2 4 o ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY association, of its customary meaning, and the significance formed by habit. This can only be accomplished by using it in some unusual way, or in such a combination that its ordinary acceptation is no longer possible ; the sense of strangeness gives a vague and mysterious suggestion ; precision is lost, and the mind of the reader can wander free among any images that may be aroused. Such poetry is pronounced unmeaning nonsense by one ; to another, with a wide, discursive imagination, numerous odd unthought of ideas arise, and he finds it full of deep suggestion. This process of attempting to deprive words of all definite meaning, leaving them only an emotional significance, ends in turning the poetry into a beautiful rhythmical utterance, with musical qualities, but with all mean- ing eliminated ; it becomes only sound, and as such, inferior to music. The resulting obscurity and unintelligibility, whether in poetry or painting, is, as a rule, an inseparable part of mystic work ; so much so that it has become, as it were, a criterion or essential sign. This is due, as M. Ribot 1 shows, firstly, to the fact that mystical imagination, being guided solely by the logic of feeling i.e., subjective is likely to be full of gaps, jerks, and sudden transitions, difficult for another to follow; secondly, it makes use of the language of images, which are subjective symbols that is to say, he uses as signs or symbols words or forms that have already a fixed and universal meaning, but in a sense entirely his own ; he is apparently speaking a common 1 Op. cit., p. 224. IMAGINATION 241 language really it is a tongue of his own fancy. It is not surprising that it is difficult to understand. As this mystic or symbolic view of things be- comes exaggerated, it leads its votaries into curious absurdities. Analogy and symbolism are pushed to extremes. Earnest students, in a kind of mad- ness of belief in the sacred character of the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, having lost all sense of the distinction between literal and figurative sense, set to work with a freedom as great as that of the early inventors of myth. Individual letters and words are endowed with mystical significance ; no extra- vagance is too great ; the meaning of the whole sentence is one thing, the meaning of the units another. The first and last letters of the words, the number of the words in the sentence, the number that corresponds to the letter in the Hebrew alphabet, there is nothing that has not been strenuously asserted to have a mystical message. Sacred numbers with marvellous meanings are always turning up in the old oriental religions, the number of letters in the name, stars millions of miles apart in space form a system that contains the future of an individual to any one who can read it, and so on. Mysticism arises probably given a person of the right temperament from a belief in the absolute, combined with a strong feeling of the relativity of the data of human knowledge. For if the material upon which reason is to work be rejected as sub- jective, neither the senses, nor the understanding, nor all the vast superstructure raised by learning, Q 242 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY reason, or imagination must be allowed to delude us ; the only safe path lies in abstention from all reasoning at all ; the thoughts must be kept con- stantly upon the truth that everything is nothing in comparison with the one. Argument with one who is thoroughly imbued with the real feeling of mysticism is obviously futile ; facts cannot arouse him, for he does not deny that we see them : reason cannot convince him, for reasoning is a human and therefore finite faculty, which is pretending to a validity which it cannot prove. " The ideal of mysticism is, accordingly, exactly contrary to the ideal of reason ; instead of perfecting human nature, it seeks to abolish it ; instead of building a better world, it would undermine the foundations even of the world we have built already; instead of developing our mind to greater scope and precision, it would return to the con- dition of protoplasm to the blessed consciousness of Unutterable Reality." l While the crudity and absurdity of an exaggerated mysticism are patent, we can fully appreciate the immense influence that it has in stimulating all forms of art by its fascinating suggestion of the mysterious and the unseen, the emphasis on the importance of something besides the material that appeals to sense. It is just as absurd to condemn, with Dr. Nordau, every sign of mysticism as proof of degeneracy and incipient insanity, as to accept the ravings of mystics who really are insane as being necessarily wonderful because we are unable to understand them. The right touch of mystical 1 "Interpretations of Poetry and Religion." G. Santeyana. 1900. IMAGINATION 243 imagination will give us that sense of something beyond, which adds a feeling of depth and worth to the everyday world ; a refreshing sense of in- exhaustibility to our surroundings ; a wholesome corrective to the feeling of knowing the reason of everything that an incomplete knowledge of science is only too apt to induce. CHAPTER X INSPIRATION THE fact is well known that, in the case of certain persons, or at certain times, the act of creative imagination is accompanied by an emotional crisis, the principal characteristic of which is perhaps suddenness; an idea or set of ideas arises in the mind, already complete, formed, as it were, without any conscious effort or even intention, with a sense of its being impersonal, a revelation from outside. "With Chopin creation was spontaneous, miraculous; he wrought without foreseeing. It would come complete, sublime." These sudden moments of creation we call inspira- tion. It is hardly to be wondered at, that primitive peoples attributed such sudden, overpowering flashes of insight as due to a direct inspiration of the gods, as the Greeks to Apollo, or in the middle ages to supernatural agencies, spirits, angels or demons, even a modern poet may invoke the muse to inspire his song, clinging to the old tradition. We are still far from any complete scientific explana- tion of this state, and speak of it in various terms that still suggest abnormal, if no longer super- 244 INSPIRATION 245 normal, qualities. It appears so far removed from the ordinary processes of reason and consciousness, it is not under the control of the will ; it is capri- cious, appearing unexpectedly, not when wanted we can no more summon it than we can sleep and dreams ; its comparatively rare appearance and often overmastering strength all combine to invest inspiration with characters that suggest interference from another world. Lately the idea has been gaining ground that the phenomena of inspiration, sudden religious conversion and other analogous forms of interruption of the conscious life, are due to an irruption into consciousness from the sub- conscious mind. The relation of the subconscious faculty to revivalist conversion and the revelations of religion has been very suggestively worked out by Professor James. 1 One result of this line of thought has been a tendency to invest the subconscious mind with a halo of sanctity ; it becomes elevated into a posi- tion of extreme importance as the channel of com- munication with the unseen and higher powers of the universe. In fact an explanation of the more complex higher psychical qualities is, by one class of thinker, satisfactorily found by postulating all sorts of wonderful qualities and powers in the sub- conscious mind. For example, Dr. Campbell, in his "New Theology," explains that subconscious mind is the means by which the immanence of God is perceived by humanity. The spirit world was supposed by the late Mr. 1 " Varieties of Religious Experience," 1902. 246 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY L. H. Myers to reveal itself to mortals through the same channel. Any one who accepts the view that the beauty we feel and know consists in glimpses of an absolute ideal, which we get in favoured moments, might similarly accept some such tran- scendent quality of the subconscious as the means by which we discovered beauty. We have already tried to show what a large part is played by the sub- conscious mind in giving the feeling of beauty by combining a number of impressions and memories below the threshold of consciousness. The part played by the subconscious processes of the mind, and the somewhat unbalanced mental conditions that do at times accompany imaginative creation are of such importance in all questions of artistic endeavour and enjoyment that we must consider them with some care. It must at first sight be obvious, that a life devoted exclusively to the stimulation of the emotional and imaginative functions, such as that of the artist, would lead naturally to a certain degree of eccentricity, because it would increase the tendency to give way to the sway of the emotions in preference to reason. The artistic nature is, not only by temperament, but by training as well, likely to be of more unstable mental equilibrium than those whose lives have to be com- pletely governed by matter of fact. In order to get some idea of the working of sudden inspiration, we shall do well to consider it in somewhat exaggerated examples, because we are more likely to find the constructive imagination in its most obvious and untrammelled form. The ordinary painter, working INSPIRATION 247 on lines taught to him by others, or handed down by tradition, and keeping to fixed forms by imita- tion, will not help us much. Those for whom art is an acute fever ; the genius who makes the pattern, and strikes out a new path the leaders ; they are likely to show the well-marked signs of the sudden inspirations of genius for which we are looking the exalted emotional sensibility, the abnormal psychical visitations, visions, and trances, which often mark the sudden outbursts of creative imagination. Such peculiarities, unless they can show results of value, are in the ordinary person classed as patho- logical, and indeed are so. The fact that it is possible to show that in many men of genius there are certain abnormal qualities has been seized upon as a basis for a theory, and certain recent writers have tried to prove that genius is bordering upon insanity. " Genius," according to Dr. Moreau, " is but one of the many branches of the neuropathic tree." Dr. Lombroso has written a book in order to prove that genius is a symptom of hereditary degeneration of the epileptical variety, and is allied to moral insanity. In a book published a few years ago, Dr. M. Nordau 1 tried to show that all forms of art were a form of degeneration, and by showing that men who were in some way diseased were capable of producing works of genius, proceeded thereupon to impugn the results of genius and to depreciate the value of their work. In an earlier chapter we were at great pains to 1 " Degeneration," 1895. (Trans.) 248 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY emphasise the close dependence of mental states upon bodily conditions, and this psycho-physical connection has been so far established that we are most of us ready enough to discount people's views in terms of their bodily condition ; we attribute the pessimism of one to bad digestion, the incur- able optimism of another to his physical health ; we trace the source of a passionate religious feeling to a life starved of legitimate objects of emotion ; but although we thoroughly and completely accept this principle, we must take care to avoid falling into the vice of what Professor James 1 has happily de- scribed as "medical materialism," if, as he says, this is not too good a name for a line of thought whose chief fault is narrowness and the vice of little knowledge. " Medical materialism finishes up Saint Paul by calling his vision on the road to Damascus a discharging lesion of the occipital < cortex, he being an epileptic. It snuffs out Saint Teresa as an hysteric, Saint Francis of Assisi as an hereditary degenerate. George Fox's discontent with the shams of his age, and his pining for spiritual veracity, it treats as a disordered colon. Carlyle's organ-tones of misery it accounts for by a gastro-duodenal catarrh. All such mental over-pretensions, it says, are, when you come to the bottom of the matter, mere affairs of diathesis (auto- intoxications, most probably) due to the perverted action of various glands which physiology will yet discover. . . . And medical materialism then thinks that the spiritual authority of all such personages is successfully undermined." We may accept fully the assumption involved in 1 " Varieties of Religious Experience," p. 13. INSPIRATION 249 the above that there is not a single one of our states of mind, high or low, that is not conditioned by the state of the organic processes ; but does the condition under which the thought was evolved tell us anything as to its real significance ? The imaginative theories of science are as fully coloured by organic conditions as those of art or religion, but we do not ask for the conditions under which they were evolved in order to judge of their merits. To some people religious conversion is worth nothing unless accom- panied by a sudden crisis of emotion in which the truth is really felt ; the poetic frenzy seems to add a lustre to a poet's work it seems to be a guaran- tee or sign of intense feeling. We do attribute superiority to certain states of mind or feeling as being higher than others, but our judgment has nothing to do with the organic conditions. The reason of the difference lies entirely in the result, as judged by our delight in apprehension of it, or our reasoned conviction of its ultimate value. The feverish brilliance that sometimes at night seems to solve many a difficult problem is praised if our calmer reason the next day can approve ; we do not put it down as necessarily valueless if we after- wards find that our temperature may have been 102 or more when it burst upon us. We have already tried to show that the present dignity and value of our intuitive desires is absolutely inde- pendent of their origin ; no matter how lowly the source of the tendency, the idealised conception is none the less sublime. So with our inspirations no matter the bodily condition under which they 250 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY are produced, it is the discrimination of the feel- ings and the reason which ultimately decides their value. No doubt we may scrutinise the origin as one of the factors in deciding upon their worth, and shall therefore be influenced to some degree thereby. But if some new idea is produced which makes a real living difference to us, the idea is of that much value no matter how originated. In moments of mental excitement we produce many glittering notions and conceptions, but we have to wait the test of reason and subsequent effect in order to decide whether they are gold or alloy. Thus we come back to the general principles which empirical philosophy has always shown must be the ultimate criterion in the search after truth, i.e. the general consensus of reasoned opinion. Many forms of religious and dogmatic philosophy, in their desire to find a test that shall be an immediate touch- stone of truth, without waiting for the future to decide, have found in " origin " the proof they desire. Revelation, visions, dreams, possession by the spirit in prophecy, and so on, have all been invoked as a warrant for the truth of the doctrine or revelation put forward by various founders and teachers of religion just as the apparent truth of the oracle at Delphi was, so to speak, guaranteed as genuine by the ecstatic trance into which the priestess was thrown. Among the visions, and trances, and assertions of supernatural revelation, however, it has often happened that some were too patently worthless INSPIRATION 251 to be regarded as divine ; and history is full of elaborate attempts to find some method by which true and divinely-inspired raptures could be dis- criminated from the counterfeit presentment sent by the evil one. In the end it had to come back to judgment by results ; by their fruits were they to be known. 1 If ; then, we are to place no re- liance upon origin as a proof of worthlessness or of value, we must, in either case, simply take it for what it is worth, considering the question of origin, for we cannot overlook it merely as one of the factors in forming our opinion. We can therefore proceed to consider the question of inspiration, and the raptures and emotional excitement of the crea- tive artist, undeterred by the fear that a morbid con- dition, or abnormal development, will be considered necessarily to detract in any way from the value of the productions. That Napoleon was an epileptic was of small comfort to the general whom he had outwitted by a brilliant inspiration in tactics ; nor does it matter if many cases of brilliant genius are accompanied by certain forms of emotional excitement that at times seem near insanity. Dr. Nordau, in a torrent of angry invective, classes artists except, perhaps, a few of a very simple kind as degenerates, patho- logical monsters, holding up any parts of their works that seem particularly marked by exaggera- tion to a fierce ridicule by which he tries to con- demn all their productions. Indeed, so far from 1 See " Varieties of Religious Experience," pp. 18-20. Professor James. 252 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY judging by results, Dr. Nordau claims that origin is actually the only true test : "Thus this book is an attempt at a really scientific criticism which does not base its judgment of a book upon the purely accidental, capricious, and variable emo- tions it awakens emotions depending upon the tempera- ment and mood of the individual reader but upon the psycho-physiological elements from which it sprang? 1 Also he points out that the critic trained exclusively in literary and aesthetic culture is obviously the worst possible guide owing to his necessary ignor- ance of the pathological character of the works of degenerates. Foolish critics there may be who proclaim as beautiful what is only unintelligible, and many people there will be who persuade themselves that they see marvellous beauties in things that are either repulsive or commonplace. But to make these representative of all art, and then to claim that we are not to judge of a work of art by our emotions, which are the only possible criterion of " value" i.e. what is really a good for us in art is to maintain an obviously impossible position. But both in Dr. Nordau's " Degeneration " and in Professor Lombroso's " Man of Genius " this exaggerated side of genius and morbid develop- ment of art is far too much insisted upon, and the examples of famous, or rather notorious, men are selected as much for their striking eccentri- cities as for the greatness of their productions. There is, too, no definite direction of abnormality. 1 "Degeneration" (1895), Introductory Dedication to Professor Lombroso. Italics are ours. INSPIRATION 253 We find in Lombroso that great creative artists are very tall or very short, strong or puny, deformed or handsome, slow and late in developing or un- usually precocious, morose and misanthropic or cheerful and too much addicted to pleasure. What it amounts to is that men already marked out as different from the general run of men, by their superiority in one line, are likely also to differ in others. If we wish for creations that are to make a greater appeal to our emotions than we are capable of making for ourselves, we must find them in those of a more highly strung and emo- tional temperament, in those who are capable of seeing beautiful relations strongly enough to record and show them to us, who require to be told how to see, and can only perceive them when thus set out. This may result in, or even necessitate, what are called pathological conditions, reaching, when exaggerated, to insanity, just as, in the opposite direction, commonplace stupidity may descend to imbecility. It is only reasonable to suppose that a great development of the brain in one direction must be, in many cases, at the expense of other qualities. If we can imagine some despot breed- ing men, as we breed animals, he would breed for genius by selecting the emotional temperament and the imaginative brain in order to accentuate those features, while attempting to keep strength of reason with freedom of imagination. The most emotional would be likely to develop talent and genius in the more emotional of the arts, such as music and poetry, in which branches the greater 254 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY number of the examples of exaggerated emotional excitement are found. We must also remember that appreciation of art requires the same qualities in a lesser degree that the creator possesses, so that, whether lovers of beautiful art or creators, there are few of us who will escape if we accept Dr. Nordau's dictum that "art is the slight beginning of a deviation from complete health." At all events, we may be glad of so good a reason for the want of complete health, which may be said among civilised nations to be universal. In any case such a statement is ridicu- lous when one looks back at the story of art, and its immense influence as a teacher and a civilising agent from almost prehistoric times, and the fact that, as a rule, art is most flourishing in the most virile and progressive periods of a nation, still more to those who believe that in taste we are appealing to old in- stincts developed in the struggle for existence. We might with equal truth say that to fall in love was a deviation from complete health, because some, or many, people commit foolish excesses and do foolish things from love. If we look at no works of art or genius except those that bear some taint of exaggeration in meaningless excitement, it is not difficult to believe that it is merely a sign of pathological mental conditions that should be promptly and effectually put an end to ; but to condemn the whole domain of art because there are in it a large contingent of melancholiacs, hypo- chondriacs, and persons subject to hallucinations and periods of undue emotional excitement, is as INSPIRATION 255 unnecessary as it is to condemn all religious feel- ing because the passionate resolutions wrung out of excited converts at a revivalist meeting are not always followed by consistent right living. There is no special connection between eccen- tricity and easily excitable natures and a well- developed intellect, for as a rule people of this type are apt to be intellectually feeble. There is, however, no doubt that such a form of psycho- pathic temperament does carry with it to an unusual degree the faculty of doing things and so achieving, if not glory, at least notoriety. The very ardour and excitability of character and the emotional susceptibility tend to bring ideas home with a force that leads to instant action. An attrac- tive conception becomes at once a belief and is acted upon, reason being held in abeyance under the sway of the emotions to think a thing worth doing is to start instantly upon it ; their ideas possess them ; good or bad, they must put them in force or die. Such a temperament, coupled with a fair intellect, will come before the world, whereas a hundred far cleverer men, lacking this emotional impulse, will pass unnoticed, and the very exuberance and intensity of this feeling, and its accompanying cranks and whims, will force public attention to them, and thus help to provide examples of the insanity of genius. Two qualities especially characteristic of inspira- tion are firstly, the suddenness of the effect ; there may, or may not, have been long periods of think- ing over and brooding upon the question, though 256 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY this is a very usual preliminary, then, when the mind is perhaps turned to something else, the answer or result seems to come with a flash : secondly, the feeling of impersonality, to which attention was drawn above ; there is in nearly all personal descriptions of inspiration a strong insistence upon the feeling of some other power superior to the individual, strange and unknown, using him as a tool ; he seems to be, as it were, a passive spectator of some astounding process performed through him from outside, and it is common to find the assertion on the part of the producer that he had nothing to do with it. We must notice here that it is easy to find every gradation of the process, from a simple good idea that flashes suddenly into the mind, up to the complete state of rapt ecstasy in which all power of control and reason is in abeyance. Again, such states are not peculiar to art creation ; in great inventors, great leaders, and, above all, the founders of new religions, and their inspired teachers, we find the same phases ; generally there is the time of doubt, of intense thought and anxious study, then a quiescent period of varying length, followed by the crisis, the flash of inspiration, in which the secret is revealed, and a new truth, a new view of life, a great creation, is suddenly laid before the astonished recipient. Theology, com- bining with these apparently supernatural mani- festations, the ideas of grace and election, accounts for the result by supposing that the spirit of God is particularly present at such times. INSPIRATION 257 Professor James has discussed and described the religious aspect of inspiration in his now classic work, " Varieties of Religious Experience," in which there can be found a copious store of illustrations. The parallel between the descrip- tion of their feelings given by great artists in the moment of creation, and those of religious leaders originating new doctrines, or new aspects of old truths, is curiously close, and to any unprejudiced observer the process is psychologically identical. It is unnecessary to transcribe at length any ex- amples ; the evidence of the existence of this real, definite overwhelming of the conscious life by something that in moments of inspiration of any kind seems to come in and take possession of the whole being, is well known. Unless we are prepared to admit, for all these sort of activities and effects, a supernatural origin, we must accept in some form or other the theory that they are due to a subconscious mind process, or unconscious cerebration ; though it is natural enough that any one who has passed through this overmastering experience should look upon it rather as something miraculous than as a natural process. An interesting point arises here Are we to con- sider that there is some special virtue in this sudden complete invasion ? Is a work of art that is the result of slow and painful effort something different from, and perhaps in some way inferior to, the startlingly instantaneous product of inspired frenzy ? Are we to believe, with the revivalists, that R 258 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY true regeneration must be marked by a crisis in which the person is completely carried away on a wave of emotional conviction ? that the people who have experienced this are for ever different from the rest of the world, and that the man who becomes good by slow degrees and severe exercise of will is deficient in some quality only to be attained by the cataclysmic conversion ? It seems to be generally accepted that this more or less irresponsible, sudden, inspiration is a kind of hall- mark of truth and value, in religion or art ; the possessor of such a faculty is indeed apt to assume a superiority, and to claim a certainty of Tightness ; he has a feeling of absolute knowledge. This atti- tude is apt to be accepted, more or less uncon- sciously, by the general public, astonished by the very inexplicability of the phenomena. And yet, if there be a difference in kind, we cannot detect it in the result, which after all is the real test. Are the most fervent and most completely converted sinners at a revival meeting in any way distinguish- able afterwards ? Are the discoveries of a Newton or a Helmholtz less wonderful than the cosmic interpretation of a Swedenborg ? Can we detect something in the writings of Coleridge that is wanting in Shakespeare ? Is the passionate music of Wagner something of a different kind to that of Beethoven ? In short, are we to consider the sub- conscious imagination the true and deep source of genius, and the other superficial, shallow, and of no real significance ? In a previous chapter great stress was laid upon INSPIRATION 259 the marginal fringe in the field of consciousness on the fact that, in addition to the object or idea immediately in the focus of attention, there were always present a large number of other sensations and impressions ; all of which are, we must sup- pose, registered by the subconscious mind, for we find the appropriate reactions made without any conscious intervention. The mental fields are continuously succeeding one another, each with its centre of interest, fading to a margin towards which the objects are less and less consciously perceived. These fields vary enormously ; they may be very wide, allowing masses of truth to be seen and grasped together, giving glimpses of relationships even beyond the apparent field. At other times in time of pain or fatigue the field seems to narrow almost to a point. Different persons vary very greatly in this width of field. A great turn for organising and theorising means a very wide field, in which a vast array of facts and ideas are held in one all-embracing view. We have already pointed out that there seem to be different and partly overlapping fields for the conscious and subconscious mind ; numerous sen- sations, and the thoughts, memories, and associa- tions aroused by them, although extra marginal and unnoticed by the conscious mind, are yet noted, as it were, and stored up, exerting an influ- ence upon the sum total of feeling. This existence of an awareness, if the word may be used, existing beyond the field of direct consciousness that is, subliminally casts a strong light upon the various 260 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY phenomena of the inspiration of genius, and the sudden new light thrown by the junction of ideas in a novel combination without the help of the conscious brain. Although, to see the working of this in a marked form, we have to regard and discuss somewhat exaggerated instances, we may be quite sure that what the genius has in excess the ordinary man has in a less noticeable degree. If a man have a strongly-developed ultra-marginal faculty, and at the same time be of an emotional and impulsive nature, there will be, first of all, an unusual tendency to sudden incursions from the subconscious level, which will, in the absence of any idea as to their source, be simply felt as sudden impulses to act, or of obsessive ideas, or even of hallucination ; secondly, such ideas will, owing to his temperament, be little checked by reason, or will even, under certain conditions, especially if connected with religion, be actually encouraged by his reason, from the idea that there is something of extreme value in such manifestations. In cases of entire loss of control, the emotional excitement gains complete ascendency, and is likely to result in incoherent noises, speaking with tongues, groans, shrieks, and hysterical laughter ; in fact, all the usual concomitants of sudden conversion, such as are often to be seen at a revivalist meeting, where every means are taken to allow the emotional excitement unchecked play. Under such conditions we find various forms of abnormal mental conditions, one of the most frequent being hypermnesia or exaltation of memory, INSPIRATION 261 which reaches a pitch of acuteness suggesting crea- tion, or invention, rather than actual recollection (but as a rule such abnormal power of memory is a loss rather than a help to real creation, as the more nearly memory comes to complete redintegration the less room there is for novel combination). Putting on one side the exaggerated cases, we can see all through our ordinary life the continual up- rush of fully formed ideas that seemed to have been worked out subconsciously ; in the minor cases we usually term them intuitions, and are always apt to attach a particular value to them, one reason perhaps being that they are, by the very method of their formation, particularly apt to jump with our in- clinations, and so to be believed more readily. But we must remember very clearly that Tightness or value have nothing to do with the process ; many people have felt themselves truly inspired, and have had all the vagaries and strong eccentricities proper to genius, but the outcome of the periods of excite- ment has resulted in nothing of the slightest value. Such cases are naturally soon forgotten and attract but little notice. We have innumerable intuitions, t.e. sudden complete judgments not reached by any process of reasoning, that are utterly wrong ; these we disregard, and are apt to confine the term in- tuition to those that are found to be correct. The Christian distinguishes his religious ecstasy from that of the Mohammedan or the Hindoo pro- nouncing one true, the other false yet in each case they are psychologically identical processes, and accompanied by the inner sense of a fuller, more 262 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY certain knowledge. We must, I think, accept the conclusion that there is no more virtue in the sudden blinding flash of insight accompanied by the sense of rapt exaltation, &c., than in the slower processes by which a truth or creation may be arrived at. We cannot find that there is any possibility of grouping discoveries or creative works by any such criterion as the method of production. It is all a matter of temperament and differs probably chiefly in degree. One man will create nothing except in these sudden periods of inspiration, followed as a rule by an infertile time of inaction ; another will reach this end by a slow progress. Newman was able by a careful and patient study of the patristic literature to convince himself that the Roman Catholic was the true religion, which he there- upon accepted with implicit belief, but apparently with little or no emotional crisis. To one tempera- ment genius truly lies in the capacity to take infinite pains, to another in the ability to seize and make use of rare moments of sudden inspiration. Be- tween these two lies all the ingenuity and inventive capacity of the ordinary man, who is, as a matter of fact, making use of his imagination all day long, and for ever jumping to conclusions, reached by no conscious process of reason. We can notice one form in which the subcon- scious mind helps to make, what seem at first sight unconnected associations by utilising, but keeping below the level of consciousness, some of the con- necting links. A recalls B, and B recalls C, but B being at the moment of no interest, we get in con- INSPIRATION 263 sciousness A and C together, the middle term B acting as the unnoticed transition between two ap- parently unrelated things. This so-called " mediate " association is extremely common. The name of one friend of mine instantly reminds me of Napoleon and Lord Rosebery ; a certain amount of intro- spection revealed the connection. He had been sent to St. Helena when I last saw him, and I was continually reminded of him in reading Lord Rose- bery's account of Napoleon's imprisonment there. We may easily imagine that a number of mediate terms may be in this way omitted, remaining below the threshold of consciousness, and thus result frequently in unforeseen relations ; the tempera- ment of the person determining which are of sufficient interest to force their way into the focus of attention. Any one idea may call up a host of associations, those that are considered most attentively being those that appeal to the particular temperament. For example, the word London will arouse all kinds of ideas and images, the majority of which will be in the vague marginal fringe extending outwards, becoming fainter and less distinct ; no actual line can be drawn, and we may easily suppose them passing on into the subconscious region, each idea perhaps spreading and ramifying, touching all sorts of associative memories until they happen to come together in a relation sufficiently novel or interest- ing to arrest the attention. The receptive vastness of London, into which all lines and roads seem to run, suggests the simile of a great mouth, and we perhaps 264 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY speak of the all-devouring monster ; the aptness and suggestiveness of the simile strikes the imagination, and, with the rapidity of thought, the current is set and we fill up the details and carry out the analogy. The artist is always on the look out for these sort of illustrative analogies, and, as we have already seen, the conscious mind can give orders, as it were, to the unconscious to look out for and call attention to any view or point that is required. The trained musician, the skilful player, the clever workman can teach their subconscious helper to adapt each action to the intention and wish of the conscious mind without any definite instruction as to details, and thus so automatically adjust the mechanical details that the whole attention can be concentrated upon the main object. So the sub- conscious mind of the thinker, the inventor, the poet, the painter, is, as it were, trained to keep an eye upon all the innumerable associations by con- tiguity, resemblance, analogy, chance, &c., and draw attention to the suitable ones. This is, of course, a somewhat fanciful description, attributing a power unwarrantably to the subconscious mind, and yet it is difficult to over-estimate the delicacy and accuracy of our half conscious and subconscious faculties. It would lead us too far from our subject to discuss here the phenomena of hypnotism ; but it throws so much light upon the working of the subconscious mind in connection with inspiration, that we must mention one or two points that seem of special interest. In the first place, it helps us to realise how delicate INSPIRATION 265 sense perception can be, and how keen the faculties can become under certain conditions. The great delicacy and sensitiveness of the different organs of sensation, going far beyond anything that is noted by ordinary consciousness, have been frequently referred to and are of fundamental importance to the suggestions that have been made as to the origins and reasons of our feelings for beauty. It will, therefore, be of interest to illustrate this from certain experiments that have been made upon persons in the state of hypnosis, because this con- dition offers peculiar facilities for such investiga- tion. Professor Moll draws attention to the extreme degree of sensitiveness that is sometimes displayed in hypnotised persons, and the important bearing that this may play in explaining phenomena that is apparently supernatural. After describing some experiments with regard to the sense of touch, he goes on to say : "The senses of pressure and temperature become some- times much more delicate. The hypnotic recognises things half-an-inch distant from the skin, and this simply by the increase and decrease of temperature (Braid). He walks about a room with bandaged eyes or in absolute darkness without striking against anything, because he recognises objects by the resistance of the air, and by the alteration of temperature (Braid, Poirault, Drzewiecki). D'Abundo produced enlargement of the field of vision by suggestion. " Bergson has described one of the most remarkable cases of increased power of vision. This particular case has been cited as a proof of supersensual thought-transference, but Bergson attributes the result to hypersesthesia of the eye. In this case the hypnotic was able to read letters in a book 266 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY which were 3 mm. high ; the reading was made possible by a reflected image of these letters in the eye of the operator. According to calculation the reflected image could only have been o. i mm. The same person was able without using the microscope, to see and draw the cells in a microscopical specimen, which were only 0.06 mm. in diameter. " A case of Taguet's, in which an ordinary piece of card- board was used as a mirror, is said to have proved quite as strong a hyperaesthesia. All objects which were held so that the reflected rays from the card fell upon the subject's eyes, were clearly recognised. The same thing is shown by a great increase in the sense of smell. A visiting card is torn into a number of pieces, which are professedly found purely by the sense of smell ; pieces belonging to another card are rejected. The subject gives gloves, keys, and pieces of money to the persons whom they belong, guided only by smell. Hypersesthesia of smell has often been noticed in other cases. Braid describes one case in which the subject on each occasion found the owner of some gloves among a number of other people ; when his nose was stopped the experiments failed. "The muscular sense again requires a few words. This sense informs us of the position of our limbs at a given moment. The great dexterity of movement, which is some- times found in deep hypnosis, must be ascribed to an increased acuteness of this sense." l Great accuracy of observation is shown in the power of recognising differences between things that appear to the ordinary person to be identical. Numerous experiments have been made in which the hypnotised person is deprived of the power of seeing some particular thing or person. For 1 "Hypnotism," p. 114. Albert Moll (1906). INSPIRATION 267 instance, he may be told that he cannot see or hear one of a number of people in a room, whereupon he will be apparently quite oblivious of that person's pre- sence, but all the same if that person actually gets in his way he will avoid him, inventing if necessary some reason to account for his particular action or movement. An experiment on somewhat similar lines, made by Janet, is related by Professor James, 1 who placed in the lap of a medium, upon whom he was experimenting, called Lucie, a num- ber of small squares of cardboard with numbers upon them, telling her that all of them which were a multiple of three were blank. Upon waking she read off the numbers, but any which con- tained 3 as a multiple, such as 12, 18, 24, &c., were apparently blank. The interesting point about these striking experiments lies in the fact that per- ception and a certain degree of calculation were necessary in order to select the figures that she could not see ; that is to say, that in such a case processes of ordinary thought and calculation can be carried on without any conscious knowledge of the process, while the result is correct and striking. We cannot describe further experiments, but we may briefly summarise some of the results that throw a certain light upon inspiration and artistic production. In the first place, as Dr. Moll clearly shows, consciousness is necessary for hypnotism in order to receive and appreciate the suggestion ; a certain degree of will and power of concentrating the attention make the work of the operator more 1 " Principles of Psychology." William James (1890). 268 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY easy. The whole process consists in making a suggestion to a person so that he accepts it with implicit belief, and acts upon it exactly as if it had existential reality. These ideas may be communi- cated by the voice in words, or by movements no matter how, as long as the hypnotised person clearly understands what is required of him. Dr. Moll, 1 in discussing the theory of hypnosis, points out two well-known, but insufficiently-con- sidered, features of ordinary mental life (i) that men have a certain proneness to allow themselves to be influenced by others through their ideas, and in particular to believe much without making logical deductions ; (2) that a psychological or physiological effect tends to appear in a man if he is expecting it. If we wish to convert a person by argument, the case is nearly won if we can get our opponent really to visualise and consider the idea we are trying to put before him. Every one is liable to be carried away by an idea, and no one believes only that which has been logically proved. An idea, if it happens to hit a person's tempera- ment, will be promptly accepted, and may to a considerable degree oust conscious and logical reason ; the artist who, by harmonious effects of beauty has raised the emotional standard, can often drive home an idea that would otherwise be disregarded, or even disliked ; this is very noticeable with regard to religious ideas, and their emotional accompaniments of music and cere- mony. The idea may easily become dogmatic 1 Op. '/., p. 241. INSPIRATION 269 belief. The second statement is too well known to require emphasising expectant attention has so obviously a marked influence in producing the result. Upon these two very simple and patently true statements, a large part of the hypnotic effects become more easy to appreciate. Under the conditions of hypnosis the person is very easily accessible to ideas ; the idea once accepted, everything that militates against it is disregarded ; utterly so, if the hypnotic effect be strong and the person well trained in it, partially so in other cases ; things that cannot be disregarded are somehow worked in to form part of the idea. There is a similar state in dreams, when we accept the ideas that come as absolute reality, with a complete disregard of their utter incon- gruity, as easily as the hypnotised person ; we can be young again or old ; we can dream our- selves a king or a hero, or even commit crimes, but always, as in hypnosis, with a curious thread of rationality running through it all, which works everything into the particular idea that is at the moment holding the field. If we read a number of illustrative examples of experiments in hypnotism we see how they pass through every step, beginning with suggestion of probable things and actions easily carried out, until they reach a' pitch in which nothing is too impro- bable or outrageous to be believed ; but in them all we find convincing proof of the fact that processes of thought, memory, calculation, &c., analogous on 270 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY all lines to our ordinary conscious mental processes, can go on without our being aware of it, and that the result of these processes can act with astonish- ing force, carrying all before it, leaving the will and the conscious reasoning faculties absolutely power- less before the overpowering impulse. Professor James has suggested the method in which this sort of subconscious process could produce the various effects of sudden conversion. It is equally suited to account for the phenomena of inspiration in artistic creation, and also in appreciation, which we can find in every degree from simple liking to ecstatic enjoyment. Under the sway of some over- mastering idea that has suddenly " swum into his ken," the great artist or inventor or scientist often becomes blind and deaf to everything and every- body that does not help him in it he is, as we say, hynotised by it ; this is, however, really only an exaggerated stage of processes that are always going on in everybody. Most writers, in touching upon the question of genius, dwell upon usually strongly-marked charac- teristic of persistent, tenacious attention devoted to one object. Many popular sayings are also witness to it : " Genius is only long patience," attributed to Newton ; or, " Always thinking of it," and so on ; one of the fundamental marks being the existence of a firmly-fixed, ever active idea which is always at work consciously or unconsciously, and always urging them to renewed effort. There is obviously a close parallel between a person under the sway of, and entirely dominated by, some idee fixe to INSPIRATION 271 which everything is subordinated, and a subject under the influence of an hypnotic suggestion against which he is powerless to strive. Stories of inventors are full of illustrations of the extraor- dinary lengths to which an overmastering idea can carry its originator. But here there is an obvious parallel again the person who is entirely domi- nated by an idee fixe to which everything is subor- dinated, to which everything is made in some way to refer, is under a despotic sway which he cannot break. These obsessions, or fixed ideas, may end in brilliant invention or in the lunatic asylum ; for where they pass the point of a strong stimulus or incentive to research in some particular direction, and become a complete obsession, they exercise a profound influence upon the mental faculties, and the control of the reason is powerless to maintain a sense of relative importance of ideas ; but the very sense perceptions themselves are subordinated and rendered nugatory, nothing is believed that cannot be harmonised with the idea, the sufferer is hypnotised with no power of awakening. Within reasonable limits the strong guiding idea is an im- mensely powerful source of effort, but we have to judge of it entirely by the effect or results achieved. If it produces, or is trying to produce, something of value in the practical, aesthetic, scientific, moral, social, or religious field, it is good ; if, judged by our standards of life, the object is a worthless one, the ardent pursuer of it is put down as an eccentric or a crank. We have already discussed at some length the 272 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY work of the subconscious mind with regard to simple reaction and automatic movements, which were, so to speak, relegated to it by consciousness, and were then by practice and habit carried out more certainly and more unerringly than the most careful attention could secure. Are we, then, to consider the function of the subconscious mind, in its power of reasoning and calculating, as some- thing different in kind, not in degree only, from the conscious mental process ? We saw that the con- scious mind, in handing over certain actions or response to the ordinary stimuli of the sense organs, always did so with an understanding that at any particular noise or any particular reference, &c., the conscious attention was to be invoked. We see the same thing happening with regard to simple relationships and subconsciously noted inference the striking, the unusual, the unexpected, being generally sufficient to call in the conscious mind. Let us apply this to the creative imagination. We are by the slightest introspection aware that there is a continual uprush into the mind of ideas and relations and so on, the majority of which are too absurd to be even considered ; others are discarded after a moment's consideration ; others may hold the field for a time ; of some, however, our con- scious mind decides that they are good. What is chiefly wanted is a conscious appreciation that is quick to see the bearings of a given idea ; how often, when some great discovery is made, do we feel that we might so easily have thought of it our- selves ; very likely the idea has occurred often, but INSPIRATION 273 we have not been able to see its true relationship. As the mental equipment of men varies, so some will have a continual supply of ideas, strange and marvellous, but without a sufficiently critical judgment they chase will-o'-the-wisps and think them real ; others have strong reason and clear heads, but have not a sufficiently diffluent imagina- tion their ideas are too orderly, and repeat in too orderly a sequence to provide the novel and suggestive relation ; they are, perhaps, intensely alive to the discoveries of others, and help to prove and test them, but they are themselves barren. When the two unite an unending crop of sugges- tive ideas with a well-disciplined judgment we have a type capable of anything, the particular bent which it will take being determined by the tendencies of the individual. The upshot of this is the suggestion that in the phenomena of the sub- conscious there is nothing new or marvellous, but simply the development of the natural process which we see from the beginning of the sharing of work between the conscious and subconscious pro- cesses of thought, there being no real difference but simply an interchange ; the same result may be arrived at subconsciously or with full conscious- ness. Generally speaking, it is chance, or rather our temperament, that decides what shall be the object of attention ; and it often happens that the very keenness of the desire will prevent the invention coming by thinking too hard ; simply because it is by its action forcing the associations in a parti- S 274 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY cular direction, which happens to be a wrong one just as it can upset and spoil some process that has become automatic by practice and habit, by interfering with well-learnt movements. When the control is released, the associations run together in every conceivable variety of ways, and the right collocation comes with a sudden flash, and, as it were, an inspiration an idea which seizes upon and dominates the entire personality, forcing every- thing into its particular direction. It is, as it were, a return to the system of trial and error. The moment the right solution is found, all our atten- tion is concentrated on that, so that we easily over- look the vastly greater number of useless and valueless ideas. Then the conscious rational mind having approved the idea, comes in and fills up the gaps with all kinds of reasoning and logic. By leaving ourselves passive we give greater freedom to ideas of all kinds to come in ; the threshold of consciousness is low, and we pass freely and easily from idea to idea. We have no need to postulate a new method or process for subconscious associa- tions and ideas ; but the existence of this power of association and suggestion, carried on below the level of consciousness, with its accompanying extreme delicacy of sense perception, does help us greatly to understand the way in which beautiful objects can have so strong an effect in arousing feelings and emotions in addition to, and apart from, any conscious intellectual process. CHAPTER XI ART AND LIFE CONCLUSIONS All nature is but art, unknown to thee ; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; All discord, harmony, not understood ; All partial evil, universal good ; And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear, whatever is, is right. POPE, Essay on Man, Ep. I. 289. MAN realises his environment, broadly speaking, in two ways : either by a logical or scientific observation of cause and effect ; or by aesthetic appreciation. These two methods are usually con- trasted, and are apt to be considered in some way as fundamentally opposed; and yet, if we trace them both back, we shall find them springing eventually from the same root, and often, though perhaps unknown to each other, working in col- laboration. They both start from the emotional craving of the human being to realise the world in harmony with human needs and desires. The emotional basis of the most apparently intellectual conceptions is insisted upon by Herbert Spencer, who points out in the preface of his autobiography, with reference to the synthetic philosophy : " One significant truth has been made clear that in the genesis of a system of thought, the emotional nature is 275 276 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY a large factor : perhaps as large a factor as the intellectual nature." It is only as the condition of human activities that the facts and provisions of nature become intel- ligible or practically important. For the world can only justify itself to the mind by the free life that it allows there ; observation of fact and experience of nature are valueless until they become, under the spur of human impulse, the starting point for a creative movement of the imagination the basis for ideal construction. To think that the aim of man is accomplished when he has recorded, or perhaps in a way, and to some degree, explained as a chain of physical causes, the chance happenings of nature, and his contribution thereto, of impulsive instinctive ac- tion, is to forget the privilege of human beings that of using nature as food and substance for their own lives, spiritual as well as physical. However much the animal impulse may be the starting point, the development of reason has found a nobler form of gratification, and the best and highest part of it consists in the power of imaginative creation ; it is significant that man has attributed the gift of creation, with all the other higher functions that he can conceive, to God as highest ideal. Man has but his five senses with which to gather a few of the infinite vibrations of nature a moderate degree of intelligence, with which to thrash out the harvest of the senses, and many an irregular and passionate impulse that plays havoc with what interpretations he can make, Though ART AND LIFE 277 the equipment be small, the task that he under- takes, in his moments of ambition, is immense. Undaunted by the poverty of his materials, he pro- ceeds to construct a picture of all reality, to com- prehend not only his own origin, but that of all the universe, to find the laws that govern the cause of both, and to forecast their ultimate destiny. All through the ages, as far back as any records go, and in the most primitive races of man, we find this all-powerful aspiration, due, as we have already suggested, to the need for conformity to environ- ment ; if we are to be in harmony with the universe we must know the path we are to tread. When one faculty fails him in reaching his end, he summons another to his aid ; finding sense and reasoning unequal to the task, he makes use of imagination, which is brought into the service of his instinctive desire, and made to do the work of intelligence. Moreover, the men of the most pro- found intellect are most apt thus to use their imaginative faculty, for the very depth of their knowledge makes them most keenly aware of the inadequacy of their resources, while they realise more fully the greatness of the problems of life. These are also the minds that most earnestly desire to find a solution that shall be noble that shall give an authoritative sanction to their highest aspirations. This conclusion, so passionately de- sired, may be, or rather, by the nature of the case, must be, one that the understanding, demanding verification and proof based upon sense experience, cannot reach. There must, then, be an ever present 278 ORIGIN OP THE SENSE OF BEAUTY dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desire, unless some step is taken beyond the understanding. Where, then, can he turn for the wider view, the deeper harmony, for which his soul longs ? Only to imagination, for that is the only faculty left. It is the imagination which must give to religion and metaphysics the large ideas, the all - embracing survey, the great and emotionally satisfying theories of life, in which alone the higher type of mind can find congenial rest. The intuitions or inspirations which science is not yet able to use are the groundwork of religion, metaphysics, and art. Man inevitably fashions his perceptions of the world around him into images, and whether they are scientific or artistic, the plea- sure in the result, when it is pleasing, is due to the same emotion at bottom ; to one the conception of the law of the conservation of energy comes with a wave of the same soul-satisfying emotion that is aroused in another the first time that he hears with real appreciation a beautiful rendering, say, of a symphony of Beethoven. To a certain degree we weigh the great generalisations of science, as we do those of religion, by the way in which they strike home to us by the extent to which they seem to help us on our way to understand more fully our environment, and so to be of assistance to us by helping us to live in greater harmony with it. As Herbert Spencer has put it, in his chapter on Eternal Life : " Perfect correspondence of organ- ism to environment would be perfect Life." Such a life is rational happiness the attainment of what ART AND LIFE 279 is really desirable, and is the aim, conscious or unconscious, of all effort, of all endeavour. A harmony that is one in appearance only, that lies in imaginary passions, in rhythm and declama- tion, with its roots in nothing real, is unmanly, and can bring no lasting joy, can offer nothing but an illusive and momentary delight, which is far from a true and rational pleasure. So religion can turn to mere ritualism, art to exaggerated symbolism and romanticism ; living in a world of visionary pleasures that do nothing to alleviate or render more toler- able the real evils of the world. As knowledge deepens and experience grows, the unreal becomes less interesting ; the child is happy in a world of make-believe to the mature, the conditions of existence, as they become known and recognised, are the only conditions of a beauty that has value ; no architect would care to design a building if he were bidden to do so without regard to the laws of gravity and constructional necessity. That is to say, that in art, as in life, the best result can only be reached when intelligence has full play it must represent the whole. Just as action in practical affairs is doomed to failure unless the actual condi- tions are understood, so is that of the imagination, unless it is reared upon a true appreciation of the world and the natural instincts of man. The great value of art lies in its power of bringing happiness ; from the rational pursuit of which people are drawn aside by many a foolish impulse and ignorant mis- interpretation. Since art, therefore, has, as we have pointed out, its springs in all the needs of life, the t 280 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY closer it keeps to the elementary human desires and ; the natural means of providing satisfaction, the nearer it is to beauty ; but as long as art is merely concerned with providing material satisfaction it is an industry. Industry rises to art when it is carried out to the satisfaction and delight of all human desires, providing not only for the needs of the body, but meeting the sensuous and aesthetic demands ; pleasing the eye and delighting the mind as it suggests some reconciliation between the higher aspirations of the soul and existing reality, touching delightfully the imagination as it stirs the emotions, by the beauty that it has created ; art will then be responsive to all human nature, satisfactory to reason, pleasing and beautiful to sense. Thus, as special attention and distinction is paid to the directions in which pleasure is found to lie, the fine arts begin to emerge from the industrial. The workman becoming an artist will try to realise an ideal in his work, something which, transcending the merely immediate utility, will be an expression unconscious perhaps of an aim and will touch a wider and greater value, until the obviously useful becomes lost sight of in a re- moter good, fixing in some plastic material a thought or feeling that may bear fruit for genera- tions. "Art," says G. Santeyana in his "Life of Reason," " is action which, transcending the body, renders the world a more congenial stimulus to the soul." If we translate this from the ideal to the practical, from the spiritual to the material, we see that the prototype of art is activity devoted to ART AND LIFE 281 making the environment more suitable to the organism. To this is added suggestive meanings and new ideas of nature, an appeal to the ideal instincts, some hint of the meaning of nature. For real and complete satisfaction in a work of art we must feel that value has been added to the world, that life has been in some way enriched and made fuller. In a sense, therefore, art is the interpretation of environ- ment by helping towards harmonious adjustment. This it does by its power of hinting at a meaning. There is no need to suppose that any particular message must be consciously, or deliberately, the intention of the artist ; as G. Eliot said, "The words of genius bear a wider meaning than the thoughts which prompted them." He feels a sense of the mystery of life, a meaning in things, a beauty or some suggestion of harmony which he cannot express or even formulate ; he tries to show us the thing as it appears to him, to let us see it through his eyes, so that at least we may share his feelings ; and if his effort is successful he wakens the old instinctive cravings, and fills us with undefined longings, so that there grows a sense of a deeper meaning in life, a higher and a wider sphere than the mere everyday existence ; the senses are quickened, and under the spur we succeed in combining portions of experience in some new untried way, and find a connection unthought of before. So a great work of art leaves us with a fuller, richer sense of life ; it helps us a step upon the way to self-realisation as a " vehicle for intuition " 282 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY of the world around us. Beauty gives us the best hint of ultimate good that we can get, and beauty, however defined, must be based upon harmony. The need for harmony in the organism, and be- tween the organism and its environment, is obvious indeed life is impossible without a modicum at least of such harmony, and, according to Metch- nikoff, 1 all our hills are due to disharmonies. So that it does not seem straining probability to speak, as we have suggested above, of an instinct for harmony with environment. This instinct would then be the basis of many emotions and the source of cravings and desires difficult to particularise, as it became complicated by the baffling impulses and feelings of fully developed life. Given such an instinct, it is not difficult to trace an imaginary sequence ; we see it for ever engaged in its effort to get at one with nature, to catch the meaning and the note of its surroundings. When first it takes outward form it appears in the animism of the savage in rude music, coarse and rough ornament, in idols and temples, strongly utilitarian ; but even in its rudest forms it is impressed with the feeling of a world not accessible to sense, hinting at its imagined purpose, symbolising the mystery and the meaning behind the simplest object ; always, whether in religion or art, representing the effort for the higher, offering the greatest good that can at the moment be conceived ; growing more spiritual and ideal with the rise in moral and intellectual development. 1 "The Nature of Man." ART AND LIFE 283 This brings us to the close relation between religion and art, between which there are so many points of close similarity that it is not difficult to maintain that they are parallel manifestations of the same motive. We have already tried to show that art is the outcome, the idealised, conceptualised, stage of activities originally necessary to survival ; that, in accordance with a law of universal validity, the simple physical pleasures gradually develop into corresponding mental pleasures in the region of the ideal. We see the same process passed through by religion. We may, if we choose, limit the word religion, just as we may and do limit the word art to the final stages, refusing to apply it to the earlier practical forms upon which it was grafted. The myth, the animism, and the fetichism of the savage have nothing in common with the religious feeling in the sense with which we now use the word, and yet we can trace an almost un- broken development from the early deities endowed with every sort of repulsive attribute into types of idealised humanity. Jahva, the god of the Hebrews, delighted in human sacrifice ; a step forward, and a priest discovered that the blood of animals would be equally acceptable. From the god of a tribe he became the ruler of the universe, a father dispensing universal justice. No longer protecting and fight- ing for the tribe only, he allowed other tribes to inflict loss and damage ; this was then regarded as a punishment, and so the growing spiritual en- lightenment gradually evolved a religion. Religion in its primitive stage was purely selfish, 284 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY practical, and utilitarian ; it represents the con- scious effort of man to get on his side in the struggle powers believed to be stronger than human. The god had to be deceived by stratagem, bribed by sacrifice, persuaded by prayer, or overpowered by incantation, to work solely in the interests of the individual person or tribe ; the whole relation was one of barter ; the god had to earn his sacrifice, and was imagined to demand it as a right for service done. The first beginning of religion was a delibe- rate effort inspired by the struggle for existence. The men or tribe that had the most correct know- ledge of the meaning or purpose of the so-called higher powers that is, nature would feel that they had an advantage. In order to make an effective, or what would be felt as an effective, sign of their power and a means of communication between the external but unseen powers and the internal idea, some form that could be perceived was necessary. Much of the early ornament, drawings, pantomime, &c., simply represent this desire ; and so we see art, if we like to call it so, on its imaginative side suggesting ideas, myths, analogies, on its construc- tive representing them by signs in some plastic form. Here we see at the very outset the beginning of that close and long-lasting connection between art and the expression of the religious feelings. They act and react upon one another, and it is hard, or rather impossible, to separate them, whether we try to estimate a line of demarcation in the rude but significant figures of the savage, or between the aesthetic emotion and religious enthusiasm in the ART AND LIFE 285 magnificent art of the middle ages. We can, how- ever, safely say that they together represent and register man's intellectual and moral advance, his effort to read the meaning of the world, to find a moral order in the universe, and to show us how to live in harmony with it. Professor Hoffding, in " The Philosophy of Re- ligion," traces the fundamental basis of religion in the belief in, or the desire for, the conservation of value. In religion we can be content with a mediate or future value, so that we may accept or even welcome pain and suffering, in the belief that it will in the end result in value. The sense of beauty is a perception of value, but a present or immediate value, which art attempts 'to register and so preserve ; it is not primarily concerned with any value which may be suggested by the meaning con- veyed. If we attribute pleasure in beauty to the meaning i.e. a remote value we trespass upon moral values rather than aesthetic. What religion requires in order to exert its power in the fullest degree is a belief in the remoter value as strongly as in the immediate perception, for then we can perceive at once suffering and pain as a value i.e. they are the means to a desired end, and so become in themselves desirable. Here art comes to help, and by appealing directly to the sense of beauty it gives the feeling of immediate pleasure (sense of value), and so is able to suggest the double idea of mediate and immediate value. " In this lies the explanation of much of the con- fusion into which questions of art have fallen ; to 286 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY one the whole meaning of art is in the meaning or expression, in the thought conveyed, to another it is concerned with nothing but the immediate pleasure produced. To Ruskin, art, religion, and morality were inextricably confused together ; every beautiful thing was a tribute to God. " Art perfects morality," he points out, and again : " No art can be noble which is incapable of expressing thought, and the nobler the thought the nobler the art." Other writers again indignantly disclaim that ques- tions of morality have anything to do with art. We have tried to avoid this ambiguity as far as possible by keeping clearly in view the distinc- tion between the instantaneous appreciation of the beauty of an object with the emotion thereby aroused and the intellectual process, by which, as the meaning is seized, all the ideas set in motion by the associations that are so rapidly brought into play come in to swell the total feeling ; drawing attention to the fact that the rapid rise, and often far greater effect of the latter, tends to submerge, and so very frequently to hide altogether, the ori- ginal simple sensuous pleasure. The forms of fine art being aimed at, the excite- ment of the emotions is naturally utilised by any one who is capable of doing so, in order to drive home an idea, and so to make the person whom it is desired to impress, feel it, as well as under- stand it, and this is equally the case whether the idea lies in the aesthetic, moral, ethical, or religious field, because the stimulation of one emotion is the surest way to awaken another. ART AND LIFE 287 Beauty touches the world most profoundly when it is most clearly able to suggest a real harmony between the conception of some ultimate good and the immediate pleasure to which it gives rise. If, then, rational happiness were made the test of all pursuits and institutions, the more beautiful they would be, the more numerous and the more pro- found the points of fusion with the mind and the ideal feelings. It would then happen that the crea- tion and discovery of beauty would no longer be the task of a few, dealing with a visionary world, but beauty would be, so to speak, the test of effi- ciency, and would be an inseparable part of every- thing. For all things would be viewed not only in the light of their ultimate value, but of their capacity to give rational pleasure, and this pleasure being the gratification of the tendencies of human nature, it would be at once expressed in a perceptible beauty. The function of art is to mould the formless, to give a more excellent shape to some existing mate- rial, to find or make a harmony between the real that is, and the ideal that reason craves. Thus, were it openly recognised that happiness is the proper aim of life, we should see the fine arts restored again to their ancient glory, again they would touch life at every point ; for not only would they produce harmonies and beauties and tell of glorious ideas, but they would at the same time be expressive of the real and felt aspirations of humanity, and thus would strike home to emotions that were sincere because natural, 288 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY In a sense, no doubt, ultimate happiness is the avowed object of our institutions, our religious beliefs, and theories of life ; but we fail so often to see, or refuse to recognise, the direction in which it lies, we have so long been taught to consider our instincts as animal and therefore despicable, that we cling to the belief that moral advance, and with it true happiness, must lie in crushing and thwarting them ; though it is still the case that one or other of these despised in- stincts is the cause of the pleasure that is ap- parently gained by subduing them all. We are, however, beginning now to realise more clearly that to these physical instinctive desires and im- pulses is due not only all the value and good in life, but equally the highest and noblest aspira- tions of which the human mind is capable. So far from real progress being in the direction of banishing them from all influence upon our life, until we reach the stage of the sexless, emotion- less, ideal of the ascetic, we shall gain most by the widest appeal to all those of the instinctive desires that can subserve the higher functions of the mind, not by stamping them out, and thus destroying all that gives value to the world, but realising that it is the abuse, not the use, of a function that is harmful. The natural impulse is raised by the mind and the imaginative faculty into the regions of the ideal, producing pleasures more airy and delightful, more elevating and last- ing, than those of sense alone, the physical pleasure becoming a psychical delight. ART AND LIFE 289 " The fact that everything which we admire as true, beautiful, and good has been evolved under natural con- ditions gives a religious character even to the idea of nature. It contains the motive of the idea of an ethical order of the universe, in consequence of which the inner- most essence of reality, the innermost force of natural evolution, cannot be foreign to that which works out in human ideals." l In this lies the true line of advance, so that we can realise clearly that, so far from its being dero- gatory to some ideal delight to have its basis or origin in an animal instinct, it is a tribute to the mind of man, and a guarantee of the permanence and depth of the feeling. An eminent physiolo- gist 2 has pointed out : " The greatest happiness in life can only be obtained if all the instincts that of workmanship included can be maintained at a certain optimal intensity. But while it is certain that the individual can ruin or diminish the value of its life by a one-sided development of its instincts e.g. dissipation it is at the same time true that the economic and social conditions can ruin or diminish the value of life for a great number of individuals." No one would, of course, take this to imply that progress or happiness lay in the unrestrained indulgence of any instinct to which the inclina- tion of the moment was strongest, but to the rational acceptance of the fact that our natural feelings and inclinations are the source of our pleasure, and that thus they should be guided, 1 "Outlines of Psychology," p. 262. H. Hoffding, 1904. (Trans.) 3 Professor Loeb, " Comparative Physiology of the Brain." (1900.) T 290 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY controlled, and elevated, not looked upon as something base to be ashamed of. The idea that any display of emotion is bad form, with the artificial restrictions that are put upon the ex- pression of feeling, has undoubtedly reacted unfavourably upon art. It is impossible not to feel that the arts are, at the present time, somehow impotent ; inspiration is sought in copying ancient models; in unidealised realism ; we seem to be in a stage " When the great thought that slips the bound of earth and sky Gives way to craftsmanship of hand and eye." Technical skill is undoubtedly great ; vast numbers of works of art are produced, but somehow the effect produced is small. Art plays an unimportant part in the life of the generality of men. Some- thing of the same inability to touch life is to be seen in religious affairs. Religion, ignoring the ^very tolerable heaven which a sufficient moral advance would produce on earth, bids us disregard the world and its delights, and look to a greater and eternal delight hereafter. This has but little appeal to the ordinary man full of longings and desires, crying out for satisfaction here and now longings and desires for the things that are in this world, and due to the conditions of this world. Schools of art and museums are instituted in order to fan the flame of artistic appreciation that is suffering principally from the aloofness from life that this treatment does so much to foster. Art must be native, genuine, inevitable ; but to be so it must be expressive of real and genuinely felt ART AND LIFE 291 emotions. Unfortunately, we have become accus- tomed to look upon art as something far removed from the sober business of life, as some pleasant by-path ; and the more removed it is from reality and everyday life, the more those who practise it and enjoy it plume themselves upon being idealists. So tender a plant must be preserved from the rough contact of the world. Art has suffered incalculable damage from this idea of separation from practical life : so strong indeed is the feeling, that we feel it to be in some way suitable that an artist should be a dreamer ; unbusinesslike ; standing aloof from everyday affairs. Thus the spirit and the only force that can make art live have been stolen away from it, and art, instead of being an influence irradiating life, tends more and more to become the plaything of our leisure hours. In the golden age of an art it is all pervasive ; even the homely utensil of the kitchen will have its subtle appeal to the eye, because, where the artistic spirit is present, it is not sufficient that a thing should just do it must look well ; every product of the workman who loves his work, as an artist must, carries some indefinable but easily perceived suggestion of his feeling. The products of an artistic nation like the Japanese, even the cheapest and simplest things, have a character, a quaint or pretty turn, an in- describable something that pleases the eye and tickles the fancy. To Leonardo da Vinci per- haps the most artistic artist that the world has seen art touched everything ; nothing lay outside 2 9 2 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY the domain of the artist. In his note-books we find, on the same page perhaps, a mathematical calculation, a diagram of some ingenious piece of apparatus, and a beautiful drawing of some object, such as a spiral shell, with a note upon some peculiar effect of light and shade. All nature held the potentiality of beauty : he could dissect a body, and feel a thrill of emotion at the beauty of nature's methods ; he was an engineer of wide reputation ; and he created the subtle and marvellous beauty of the Mona Lisa. In him the spirit of art showed itself in the never-resting desire to improve upon everything, to know more about all phenomena, to see beauty in everything. Technical dexterity and the mastery of material were necessary in order to convey -the most delicate differences, to catch and fix some fleeting beauty, some subtle play of light and shade, and to interpret more fully the meaning that he had found in nature ; they were still only the means, and as such of the greatest importance, but kept in due subordination to the real ends of art. At the present day art has become so confused with skill in drawing and painting that a moderate degree of dexterity in either is popularly supposed to make the possessor, ipso facto, an artist ; we cannot even teach drawing in a school without its being called art teaching ; although such drawing is in reality a simple and useful piece of technical skill, having the same rela- tion to art as reading and writing to literature. So accustomed have we become to this feeling that there is some quality peculiar to painting and ART AND LIFE 293 drawing, that many people, when they find them- selves looking at a picture, at once put on a special attitude, not unlike that which they put on with their Sunday clothes in going to church ; the result is an unnatural state of mind, and they are reduced to an effort to judge intellectually what fails to move them emotionally, and fails largely, because of the training and habit of mind which has taught them to dissociate what they call " works of art" from any sort of natural feeling and everyday life. Perfectly natural expression of feeling would no doubt do something to improve art ; and if people would say at once what they felt, instead of stop- ping to think whether they ought or ought not to admire, there would be some chance of art at least being expressive of the general feeling. Art, as we have seen, is in its early stage skill devoted to improvement of environment, in provid- ing a source of gratification for some need, or pleasure, in response to desire ; and it is its power of making progress possible by perpetuating, and registering, each step made, that rational action and imaginative creation are thus able to leave its trace in nature. For until art arises all advance must be internal in the.brain, and so die with the individual ; art has established and provided instruments by which the outer material is moulded into sympathy with inner values, and the idea is registered in some corporeal sign that will remain, and so become a starting point for future advance ; it is this function of art that has led to the suggestive expression that art is "reason propagating itself/' 294 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY The fruits of experience stored up in an improved environment make life easier for the oncoming gene- ration, enriching it on all sides ; thus the arts touch life at all points as they subserve all parts of the human ideal, to increase man's comfort, knowledge, and ideal delight. Beauty then arose, as far as it was produced artificially, as an incident ; art, in its useful and practical attempts at progress, occasion- ally produced some result, or incidentally furnished some effect, that gave an unexpected delight and pleasure to the beholder that stimulated his emotion and aroused his feelings, setting his imaginative faculties in train with the accompani- ment of ideal pleasures. A chance rhythm, some combination of colour or sound, some suggestive effect of form, touched off the obscure feeling which the mind, unconscious of the r source, natu- rally attributed to the object, and this intuition of value in the object gave rise to the feeling of the beautiful. The aesthetic value is thus inextricably mixed up with the practical and moral in actual fact, so that, however we may recognise theoretical distinctions between them, it is impossible to sepa- rate them practically; and when we do so, the result is apt to be misleading. If a certain part of a piece of work is described as fine art, it gene- rally involves an abstraction from the object which has many other non-aesthetic functions. The man of an artistic nature does what he has to do fitly, lovingly, and therefore very often whether he means it or no beautifully. Anything that in appealing to a man's senses by its appearance ART AND LIFE 295 rouses an emotion of pleasure, and touches thereby his imaginative faculties, has aesthetic value ; but to attempt a delimitation of the exact qualities to which this is due, apart from the occasion, the use, and all the circumstances of the object, is an im- possible task ; we can only regard them as an appeal to man's inmost being, to his deep-seated sympathy and emotional response to nature, the cause of which we have already discussed at length. This is the reason that we have, in the foregoing pages, gone at perhaps too great a length into the growth and origin of the instinctive desires, in which it is possible to see, or at least to conjecture, how the mere vital necessity of conformity with environment may be conceived to lead to the curious aptitude with which man's heart goes out, as it were, to nature ; and as this instinct is early, so it is deep-seated. There is little doubt that, were it given freer play and more suitable en- couragement, it would show a far stronger and more definite reaction ; for such is the elasticity and adaptability of human nature that not only can an instinct become highly specialised, but there is hardly a natural desire that may not be stifled, and as organs and muscles weaken by disuse, so may an instinctive tendency become dull for want of exercise. Just as the other instincts and emotions are raised either to serve the highest aspirations of man, or to s-erve for simple sensual gratification, so will the aesthetic sense be what it is made. We may use the emotional response to beauty of colour and 296 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY sound merely as an added relish to the enjoyments of the lower senses, or we may add its stimulating suggestiveness to help the soul forward on its highest flights, to find the intellectual harmony that can satisfy the human ideal. If there is a purpose in the universe, and we could understand it and live in conformity with it, we should have attained perfect happiness. Religions have always offered this explanation, and have for ages been the acknowledged source of such in- formation, and no doubt the absolute whole-hearted believer may find complete intellectual rest in a perfect harmony between himself and his God. But we no longer go to religion for actual know- ledge. As Mr. Haldane, in "The Pathway to Reality," points out : "The immediate inspirations of Art and Religion give exquisite hints of the truth to all, but it is only the iron logic of philosophy that can, after long striving, break through the bewildering incrustations of existence, and give some direct justification of the spiritual life." Through all religion runs, as a main current, the idea of perfect harmony between man and his environment. Particular religions come to an end when they fail to meet the highest aspirations of their followers, but only to be revived in others more fitted to the growing intellect and knowledge, for the instinct is not weakened, whether it be expressed in the subtle metaphysics of the Oriental, the ethical system of the agnostic, or the Utopian dream of the social reformer. ART AND LIFE 297 "Rien n'est beau que le vrai," says Boileau. Beauty has often been denned as truth, and this much, at least, is certain that nothing can appear beautiful to any one to whom it is not truthful as far as he is capable of appreciating the fact. The essence of truth is harmony, perfect correspondence between the idea and the reality, and any artist aiming at beauty cannot help also aiming at truth. We may say then, that of all the various impulses to art, as indeed of science, the greatest and the most directly responsible for the highest and best production is the craving to understand self in nature, to know the truth, to see the path that the human being is to tread, and how to keep in it. As Hegel has put it : we start with man's universal need to set the seal of his inner being on the world without in order to recognise himself therein. We may, for a time, be overwhelmed and stunned by the greatness of the task ; we may give up the quest, and try to find rest for our soul in some emotionally satisfying religion, or passively accept the verdict of "ignorabimus " to let our art suggest to us only the mystery and glamour of the world, to accept the mystical suggestion in the place of intellectual effort. But this does not last ; the old instinct reasserts itself, we see with ever renewed force that our evils are due to disharmonies ; we turn to science to help us, but her aid, though it may be sure, is slow. Religion, metaphysics, philosophy, each offers us a solution, and some find peace there. To all, art, with her power of creating beauty, offers her solace ; she is nature's 298 ORIGIN OF THE SENSE OF BEAUTY spokesman and interpreter, and so we send the artist back and back to nature. If he cannot tell us the way, he can at least create an ideal world for us, in which we may catch a glimpse of a pure and perfect harmony, a momentary resting-place in the never-ending struggle to realise, with full understanding, ll Nature's unchanging harmony." INDEX ABNORMAL, the, usually the ugly, 134 Absolute beauty, 21 /Esthetic theory, 32 emotion, 94, 1 06 feeling and primitive in- stincts, 131 feeling in animals, 188 judgments, 6 pleasure, 108 pleasure and utility, 24 pleasure not disinterested, 10 Allen, Grant, 19, 25, 140 Analogy, thinking by, 233 of sensations, 73 Appreciation of beauty, 3, 155, 285 Aristotle, 7 Art and beauty, 287, 294. and happiness, 288 and imitation, 13 and life, 279, 290 and nature, 7 and play, 31, 164 and progress, 293 and religion, 283 and sex emotion, 160 and skill, 155 and utility, 157 disinterested, 31 impulse, the, 158, 170 primitive, 29, 184 production, 175 the spirit of, 291 Artist, the, 155 seq. the, and beauty, 204, 222 the, and nature, 281 the, and the workman, 156, 280 BALANCE, 58 Baldwin, J. M., 164 Balfour, A. J., 21 Beautiful, the, and the good, 6 meaning of the, 23 Beauty, I absolute, 2 1 and art, 287, 294 and pleasure, 9 as pleasure objectified, 17 and truth, 297 and utility, 24-27 appreciation of, 3, 7 definitions of, 15 dependent upon the senses, 21 feeling for, and primitive instincts, 131 feeling for, non-rational, 5 natural, 9 relativity of, 14 universality of, 14 Berenson, B., 165 Bethe, A., 120 Bosanquet, B., 7, 32 CENTRAL nervous system, m- 113 Choice, 142 impulsive, 143 instinctive, 143 Colour, 52, 91, 138 and birds, 141 and insects, 140 and sound, 52 harmonies in, 145 in flowers, 140 Concepts, 195 Consciousness, 119 seq. Creative instinct, 171 299 300 INDEX Curiosity, 98 Curves, appreciation of, 58 DA VINCI, L., 291 Darwin, F., 119 Definite, the, and the indefinite in art, 208 ECCENTRICITY and genius, 253 Eliot, George, 281 Emotion, 86 seq. sesthetic, 94 and feeling, 93 and imagination, 235 motor elements in, 90 of sex and art, 101 Emotional consciousness and life, 2 Environment, need for conformity with, 132 recognition of suitable, 132 Expectancy, a cause of decorative art, 180 Eye, stimulus to the, 49 FAMILIAR, the, pleasure in, 98 Feeling, 61 seq. and ideation, 69 and imagination, 234 and sensation, 64, 68 and will, 70 earliest form of, 68 inertia of, 69 tone, of sensations, 65 value of, 4 Fere, Ch., 66 Forel, A., 140 Form, 213 and colour, 219 determinate and indeter- minate, 213 visual perception of, 53 GANGLION, the, 112 Genius, 252, 270 and insanity, 247 Goethe, 46, 61, 62, 63 Good, the, and the beautiful, 6 Groos, K., 28 Grosse, .,25, 26 Guyau, T. M., 26 HALDANE, R. B., 296 Hamerton, P. G., 60 Happiness and art, 285 Harmony, 279, 282 instincts of, 136 of nature, 298 Heliotropism, 126, 129 Hennequin, E., 25 Higher and lower senses, 10, 48 Him, Y., 26, 157, 167, 184 Hobhouse, L., 231 Hoffding, H., 46, 72, 285, 289 Hypermnesia, 260 Hypnotism, 265 IDEATION and feeling, 69 Imagination, 230 seq. and emotion, 235 and feeling, 234 and myth, 227 and superstition, 228 and will, 228 creative, 232 in animals, 230 mystical, 238 Images, 80 Indefinite, the, 209 Insanity and genius, 247 Insects, consciousness in, 120 Inspiration, 244 seq. and organic conditions, 249 and the subconscious mind, 245 sudden, 255 Instinct, 86 seq. and reflex action, 1 14 of harmony, 136 of recognition, 97 Instinctive pleasure and utility, 30 tendencies, survival of, 93 Intuitions, 261 JAMES, W., 216, 245, 248, 251, 257, 267 Jennings, H. J., 121 KANT, I., 25 Kinsesthetic sensations, 50 Knight, W., 206 INDEX 301 LANGUAGE and thought, 197 Lapsed intelligence theory of in- stincts, 114* Lee and Thompson, 151 Light, influence of, 62 Lloyd Morgan, C., 190, 192, 193, 20 1 Loeb, J., 112, 113, 117, 123, 128, 148, 174, 289 Lombroso, C., 247 Longinus, 8 Lotze, 55 Ludicrous, the, 22 MACDOUGALL, 39, 42, 56, 153 Magic and art, 183 Marginal sensations, 83 Marshall, R., 163 Memory, 119 Metchnikoff, E., 282 Moll, A., 265, 267, 268 Moral judgments, 6 Moreau, P., 247 Mosso, A., 66, 67 Mtiller, M., 197 Muscular sensations, 59 Music, 73, 206 primitive, 28, 29 Mysticism, 238, 241 NATURAL beauty, 9 Nature and art, 7, 9 Nervous system, the, 37 Nordau, M., 161, 247, 251 ORGANIC sensations, 50 Organs of sensation, 48 Origin no criterion of value, 250 PAIN and pleasure, 75 Peckham, G. W. and E. G., 123, 172 Perception, 83 Perceptual systems, 84 Plants, memory in, 119 Plateau, F., 140 Play instinct and the origin of art, 164 Pleasure, 74 seq. a feeling not a sensation, 75 and emotions, 90 Pleasure and pain, 75 Preferences, instinctive origin of, no Primitive art, 29 Profundity, illusions of, 216 Psychology, 35 RAYMOND, G. L., 18 Reason in animals, 194 Recognition, instinctive pleasure in, 97, 133 Reflex action, 36, in Relations, perception of, 189 Relationship, spatial, 54] Rhythm, 147 seq. auditory, 152 in music, 151 in ornament, 150 mechanical, 147 nervous, 149 organic, 147 Ribot, T., 24, 228, 237, 240 Romanes, G. J., 231 Ruskin, J., 19, 225, 286 SANTEYANA, G., 4, 17, 216, 222, 242, 280 Schiller, 25, 28 Seneca and art, 8 Self-assertion, 103 Self-expression, 169 Self-realisation, 104 Sensations, 35 seq. analysis of, 47 and feeling, 64 and perception, 43 as psychical elements, 42 double aspect of, 74 feeling tone of, 65 kinsesthetic, 50 marginal, 83 organic, 50 qualitative character of, 69 relativity of, 80 simple, 42 tactual, 60 visual, 51 Senses, higher and lower, 10, 49 and art, 51 Sex feeling and art, 101 Sound and colour, 52 302 INDEX Space, perception of, 54, 57 Spatial relationship, 54 Spencer, H., 25, 28, 160, 161 275, 278 Stereotropism, 127 Stumpf, 57 Subconsious, the, mind, 44 the, and inspiration, 245 sensations, 68 Suitability to environment, 132 Sully, J., 181, 197 Symbolism, 239 Symmetry, 182 Sympathy, 102 TASTE, 18 formation of, 106 Tropisms, 116 Types, 219 UNITY in variety, 95 Utility and beauty, 24 the basis of types, 1 78 VALUE, made by feeling, mediate and immediate, 285 WALLASCHEK, R., 29, 151 Washburn, M. F., 122 Will and feeling, 70 and imagination, 228 Workmanship, instinct of, 174 Wundt, W., 73, 114 THE END Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co. Edinburgh &* London ^^SSflSRs** Oo YB 22928 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY