ten.

the modern theories, beginning with the German systems, | is the form of adaptation (Zweckmässigkeit) without any
as being the most metaphysical, and having most affinity end being conceived. Finally, in modality it is a necessary
with ancient speculation. In German literature the two satisfaction, pleasing not by a universal rule, this being
divisions of metaphysical deduction and critical construc- unassignable, but by a sensus communis, or agreement of
tion of æsthetic principles are very sharply contrasted, taste. Kant is not very consistent in carrying out these
and nearly every writer on the subject is easily referred to distinctions. Thus, for example, he recognises in fitness a
one or other of the classes. On the one hand, we have particular species of beauty, namely, "adhering" as dis-
the laborious systematic philosophers, as Kant and Hegel; tinguished from "free" or intrinsic beauty, without re-
and on the other, men who entered upon æsthetic specula- cognising that this implies the presence of a notion. So,
tion either as connoisseurs of some special department, as in discussing the objective validity of our æsthetic im-
Winckelmann and Lessing, or even as productive artists-pressions, he decides that the highest meaning of beauty
for example, Schiller and Goethe.

Systematic
II. German Writers.-The first of the Germans who
treatises: attempted to fit a theory of the Beautiful and of Art
Bauingar into a complete system of philosophy was Baumgarten.
Adopting the Wolffian principles of knowledge, as modi-
fied by Leibnitz, he thought he was completing that
system by setting over against logical knowledge, whose
object is truth, æsthetic knowledge, which has to do
with beauty. The former is conceptive knowledge (be-
greifendes Erkennen), the act of the understanding, and
its result as the science of clear conceptions is embodied
in logic. Esthetic has to do, not with clear, but con-
fused conceptions (verworrene Vorstellungen), namely, sen-
suous knowledge. The beautiful is defined by Baumgarten
as the perfection of sensuous knowledge, and the ugly is
that which struggles against this perfection; and, con-
sistently with this view, he first employed the term
æsthetic (aesthetica) to denote a theory of the Beautiful.
He held that perfection, as harmony of object with its con-
ception or notion (Begriff), presents itself under three as-
pects:(1.) As truth for pure knowledge; (2.) As beauty for
obscure perception; (3.) As goodness for the capacities of
desire or will. It will be seen at once by the thoughtful
student that this mode of dealing with impressions of
beauty, &c., simply as intellectual elements (confused con-
ceptions), must fail to account for their emotional aspects-
feeling, which is the very soul of the aesthetic impression,
being radically distinct from conception and knowledge.
Still Baumgarten did service in separating so sharply the
provinces of logic, ethics, and æsthetics, and in connecting
the latter with the impressions of the senses. The details
of his æsthetics are mostly unimportant. From Leibnitz's
theory of a pre-established harmony, and its consequence
that the world is the best possible, Baumgarten concluded
that nature is the highest embodiment of beauty, and that art
must seek as its highest function the strictest possible imita-
tion of nature. Baumgarten had several disciples in this con-
ception of æsthetics, as Sulzer and Moses Mendelssohn.

Kant.

The next original philosophical scheme of æsthetics is that of Kant. His system of knowledge falls into three branches-the critique of pure reason, which has to determine what are the a priori elements in the knowledge of objects; the critique of practical reason, which inquires into the a priori determinations of the will; and the critique of judgment, which he regards as a connecting link between the other two, and which has to do with any a priori principles of emotion (pleasure and pain), as the middle term between cognition and volition. This judgment Kant divides into the aesthetic, when pleasure or pain is felt immediately on presentation of an object; and the teleological, which implies a pre-existing notion, to which the object is expected to conform. He attempts, in a somewhat strained manner, to define the Beautiful by help of his four categories. In quality beauty is that which pleases without interest or pleasure in the existence of the object. This distinguishes it from the simply Agreeable and the Good, the former stimulating desire, and the latter giving motive to the will. In quantity it is a universal pleasure. Under the aspect of relation, the Beautiful

is to symbolise moral good; and, in even a more fanciful
manner than that of Mr Ruskin, he attaches moral ideas,
as modesty, frankness, courage, &c., to the seven primary
colours of the Newtonian system. Yet he does not admit
that the perception of this symbolic function involves any
notion. Once more, he attributes beauty to a single colour
or tone by reason of its purity. But such a definition of
the form of the Beautiful clearly involves some notion in
the percipient mind. Kant further applies his four cate-
gories, with still less of fruitful suggestion, to the Sublime.
The satisfaction of the Sublime is a kind of negative plea-
sure created through the feeling of a momentary restraint
(Hemmung) of vital force, and of a subsequent outpouring
of the same in greater intensity. The feeling of the in-
adequacy of the imagination is succeeded by a consciousness
of the superiority of reason to imagination. The sentiment
is thus a kind of wonder or awe. Sublimity is either mathe-
matical, that of magnitude, or dynamical, that of nature's
might. He allows no sublimity to passions, as rage or
revenge. Kant has, too, a theory of the Ridiculous, the
effect of which he lays, oddly enough in respect to the rest
of his doctrine, in a grateful action of the body, the muscles
of the diaphragm, &c., giving a sense of health. This
action takes place on the sudden relaxation of the under-
standing when kept in a state of tension by expectation.
The cause of laughter, or the Ridiculous, may hence be
defined as "the sudden transformation of a tense expecta-
tion into nothing." He placed the beauty of nature
above that of art, which can be of value only mediately,
not as an end in itself. He classifies the arts according as
they express the aesthetic idea-whatever this may mean
after his exclusion of all definite conception from the per-
ception of beauty. Just as expression in speech consists
of articulation, gesticulation, and modulation, answering
to thought, intuition (Anschauung), and feeling, so we have
three kinds of art-(1.) Those proceeding orally (redende),
oratory and poetry; (2.) Those of visible image (bildende),
plastic art and painting; and (3.) "the art of the play of
feelings," namely, music and "colour art," which last is
not defined. Kant's system is very defective, and some
of its inconsistencies were pointed out by Herder in his
Kalligone, who lacked, however, philosophic accuracy.
Herder denied Kant's distinctions between the Beautiful,
the Good, and the Agreeable, saying that the first must be
desired as well as satisfying, and the second be loved as well
as prized. Yet herein Kant is decidedly superior to his
critic. Herder held, in opposition to Kant, that all beauty
includes significance (Bedeutsamkeit), and cannot affect
us apart from a notion of perfection. But here, too, Kant
is to be preferred, since his theory does not assume all
beautiful objects to contain some one element or form
capable of being detected. Kant's real additions to
æsthetic theory consist in the better separation of the
Beautiful from the Good and Agreeable, in the prominence
given to the emotional side of æsthetic impressions, and
in the partial recognition of the relativity of æsthetic
judgment, more especially in the case of the Sublime.
After Kant the next philosopher to discuss the meta- Schelling-
physics of the Beautiful and art is Schelling. He sought
I.

28

Hegel.

He defines the form of the Beautiful as unity of the manifold. The notion (Begriff) gives necessity in mutual dependence of parts (unity), while the reality demands the appearance or semblance (Schein) of liberty in the parts. He discusses very fully the beauty of nature as immediate unity of notion and reality, and lays great emphasis on the beauty of organic life. But it is in art that, like Schelling, he finds the highest revelation of the Beautiful. Art makes up the deficiencies of natural beauty by bringing the idea into clearer light, by showing the external in its life and spiritual animation. The various forms of art depend on the various combinations of matter and form. In Oriental or symbolical art matter is predominant, and the thought is struggling through with pain so as to reveal the ideal. In the classical form the ideal has attained an adequate existence, form and matter being absolutely commensurate. Lastly, in the romantic form, the matter is reduced to a mere show, and the ideal is supreme. Hegel classifies the individual arts according to this same principle of the relative supremacy of form and matter—(1.) The beginning of art is architecture, in which as a symbolic art the sensuous material is in excess. (2.) Sculpture is less subjected to matter, and, as representing the living body, is a step towards a higher ideality. (3.) Painting, which is the romantic art kar' oxýv, expresses the full life of the soul. By the elimination of the third dimension of space, and the employment of a coloured plane, painting rids itself of the coarse material substrate of sculpture, and produces only a semblance of materiality. (4.) In music, which employs pure tone, all the elements of space are suppressed, and hence its content is the inner emotional nature (Gemüth). Music is the most subjective of the arts. (5.) Poetry has the privilege of universal expression. It contains all the other arts in itself, namely, the plastic art in the epos, music in the ode, and the unity of both in the drama.

to engraft art upon his curious system of transcendental | contained in it for thought.
idealism in a manner which can only be faintly indicated
here. In Schelling's metaphysical system the relation of
subject and object is conceived as identity. Each exists,
yet not independently of the other, but identified in a
higher, the absolute. They may be conceived as two poles
representing different directions, but yet inseparably joined.
All knowledge rests on this agreement. Either nature, the
object, may be conceived as the prius, and the subject con-
structed out of it; or the subject may be taken as the prius,
and the object constructed from it. These are the two
poles of knowledge, and constitute the philosophy of nature
and the transcendental philosophy. The latter, like Kant's
philosophy of mind, is based on a threefold conception of
the powers of human nature. It consists of (1.) Theoretic
philosophy, dealing with perception; (2.) Practical philo-
sophy, discussing the will and freedom; and (3.) The philo-
sophy of art.
The aim of the last is thus expressed: The
ego must succeed in actually perceiving the concord of sub-
ject and object, which is half disguised in perception and
volition. This concord is seen within the limits of the ego
in artistic perception only. Just as the product of nature
is an unconscious product like a conscious one, in its de-
signfulness, so the product of art is a conscious product
like an unconscious one. Only in the work of art does
intelligence reach a perfect perception of its real self.
This is accompanied by a feeling of infinite satisfaction, all
mystery being solved. Through the creative activity of
the artist the absolute reveals itself in the perfect identity
of subject and object. Art is therefore higher than philo-
sophy. Schelling thus sets the beauty of art far above that
of nature. As to the form of the beautiful he is very vague,
leaning now to a conception of harmony in the totality of
the world (Weltall), and now to a Platonic conception of
primitive forms (Urbilder) of perfection. He has a very
intricate classification of the arts, based on his antithesis
of object and subject, reality and ideality. A curious
feature of Schelling's theory is his application of his one
fundamental idea to tragedy. The essence of tragedy is,
he thinks, an actual conflict of liberty in the subject with
objective necessity, in which both being conquered and
conquering, appear at once in the perfect indifference.
Antique tragedy he holds, accordingly, to be the most per-
fect composition of all arts.

Passing over Solger, whose æsthetic doctrine is little
more than a revival of Platonism, we come to Hegel. His
system of philosophy falls into three parts, all based on
the self-movement of the idea or absolute :-(1.) The
logic discussing the pure universal notions which are the
logical evolution of the absolute, as pure thought; (2.)
Philosophy of nature-the disruption of thought, the idea,
into the particular and external; (3.) Philosophy of the
spirit the return of thought or the absolute from this
self-alienation to itself in self-cognisant thought. Just
as the absolute, so has spirit a series of three grades to
traverse (a.) Subjective spirit or intelligence, relating
itself to the rational object as something given; (b.) Ob-
jective spirit or will, which converts the subjectivised
theoretical matter (truth) into objectivity; (c.) Absolute
spirit, which is the return of the spirit from objectivity to
the ideality of cognition, to the perception of the absolute
idea. This again has three stages—(1.) Art, in which the
absolute is immediately present to sensuous perception;
(2.) Religion, which embodies certainty of the idea as
above all immediate reality; and (3.) Philosophy, the unity
of these. According to this conception, the beautiful is
defined as the shining of the idea through a sensuous
medium (as colour or tone). It is said to have its life in
shining or appearance (Schein), and so differs from the true,
which is not real sensuous existence, but the universal idea

Several systems of æsthetics, more or less Hegelian in Dialectic character, can only be referred to in passing. Weisse of the defined æsthetics as the science of the idea of beauty, and Hegelians explained the Beautiful as the entrance of the universal or of the essence into the limited and finite, that is, the cancelling or annulling of truth (die aufgehobene Wahrheit). By thus recognising an internal contradiction in all beauty, he sought to develope, by a curious dialectical process, the ideas of the Ugly, the Sublime, and the Ludicrous. He treats each of these three in immediate contrast to beauty. Ugliness is the immediate existence of beauty. It appears as the negative moment in the Sublime, and in the Ludicrous this negativity is again cancelled and resolved into affirmation so as to constitute a return to the Beautiful. A like attempt to determine the relations of the Ugly, Comic, &c., as moments of the self-revealing idea was made by several Hegelians. Thus Ruge, in his Abhandlung über das Komische, teaches that sublimity is the aesthetic idea striving to find itself, together with the satisfaction of this striving. If, however, the idea lose itself, sinking away in a kind of swoon, we have the Ugly. Finally, when the idea recovers from the swoon, its new birth is attended with a feeling of amusement (Erheiterung), and then we have the effect of the Ludicrous. Rosenkranz, in his Esthetik des Hässlichen, conceives the Ugly as the negation of the Beautiful, or as the middle between the Beautiful and the Ludicrous, and seeks to trace out its various manifestations in formlessness in nature, incorrectness in artistic representation, and deformity or the disorganisation of the Beautiful in caricature. Schasler, again, seems to hold that the Ugly is co-ordinate with the Beautiful, being the motor principle that drives the Beautiful from the unconditioned rest of the Platonic idea, from the sphere of empty abstractness to actuality. This fundamental contradiction reveals itself

Vischer.

Other German systems.

as the contrast of matter and spirit, rigid motionlessness | complete systems are too numerous to be fully represented Incomplete
and motion, and appears in art as the antithesis of the here. Only a few of the most valuable contributions to the German
sublime and graceful (das Anmuthige), the latter containing theory will be alluded to. Winckelmann's services to the systems.
the Naïf, the Pretty, and the Ridiculous. Finally, Theodor development of plastic art do not directly concern us.
Vischer seeks to settle these subtle relationships in this Of his theory of plastic beauty, based exclusively on the
manner: He supposes the Sublime to be the sundering of principles of Greek sculpture, little requires to be said.
the æsthetic idea and its sensuous image (Gebild) from the He first pointed to the real sources of superiority in antique
state of unity constituting the Beautiful, the idea reaching creations, by emphasising the distinction between natural
as the infinite over against the finite of the image. The and ideal beauty, the aesthetic value of contour as an
image now resists the sudden rupture, and in asserting ideal element, the beauty of expression as the manifestation
itself as a totality in defiance of the idea becomes the Ugly. of an elevated soul, and consisting of a noble simplicity
The Comic, again, is the result of some partial and appa- and a quiet grandeur. But by too exclusive an attention
rently involuntary recognition of the rights of the idea by to Greek art, and indeed to sculpture, his theory, as an
the rebellious image. Schasler says, in criticising the attempt to generalise on art, lacks completeness, making
views of Vischer, that it is difficult not to be satirical in little room for the many-sidedness of art, and narrowing it
describing the dialectic artifices to which the idea is here down to one, though an exalted, ideal.
compelled, little suspecting how easily any similar attempt
to adjust relations between these ideas, looked at objectively
as movements of the supreme idea, may appear equally naïf
and funny to a mind not already oppressed with the resist-
ing burden of its own abstractions.

these, are the effects of every tragedy, and that it is false | contribution Zur experimentalen Esthetik a series of dramatic art to attempt to represent either the sufferings of a perfect martyr, or the actions of some monstrous horror of wickedness, as Corneille and the French school had urged; lastly, the interpretation of Aristotle's purification of the passions as referring to this very fear and pity, and pointing to a certain desirable mean between excessive sensibility and excessive callousness. Schasler says that if Lessing had had an Aristotle to lean on in the Laokoon as in the Dramaturgy, it would have been more valuable. Others might be disposed to say that if he had been as free from the traditions of authority in the Dramaturgy as he was in the Laokoon, the former might have contained as much in the way of real discovery as the latter.

Germans in this mode of systematising is apparent. All the characters of beauty in external objects, as a flower, of which the principal are size, unity and variety of parts, intensity of colour, grace or flexibility, and correspondence to environment, may be summed up as the ideal grandeur and order of the species. These are perceived by reason to be the manifestations of an invisible vital force. Similarly the beauties of inorganic nature are translatable as the grand and orderly displays of an immaterial physical force. Thus all beauty is in its objective essence either spirit or unconscious force acting with fulness and in order. It is curious that Lévêque in this way modifies the strictly spiritual theory of beauty by the admission of an unconscious physical force, equally with spirit or mind, as an objective substratum of the Beautiful. He seeks, however, to assimilate this as nearly as possible to conscious energy, as immaterial and indivisible. The aim of art is to reproduce this beauty of nature in a beautiful manner, and the individual arts may be classified according to the degree of beautiful force or spirit expressed, and the degree of power with which this is interpreted. Accordingly, they are arranged by Lévêque in the same order as by Hegel.

IV. Italian and Dutch Writers.-There are a few writers on æsthetic subjects to be found in Italian and Dutch literature, but they have little of original speculation. The Italian, as Pagano and Muratori, follow French and English writers. One Dutch writer, Franz Hemsterhuis (18th century), is worth naming. His philosophic views are an attempt at reconciliation between the sensational and the intuitive systems of knowledge. The only faculty of true knowledge is an internal sense, nevertheless all true knowledge comes through the senses. The soul, desiring immediate and complete knowledge, and being limited by its union with the senses, which are incapable of perfectly simultaneous action, strives to gain the greatest number of the elements of cognition or ideas in the shortest possible time. In proportion as this effort is successful, the knowledge is attended with enjoyment. The highest measure of this delight is given by beauty, wherefore it may be defined as that which affords the largest number of ideas in the shortest time.

beauty. His views are highly metaphysical and Platonic The intui-
in character. The Beautiful and the Good are combined in tivists.
one ideal conception, much as with Plato. Matter in itself Shaftes-
bury.
is ugly. The order of the world, wherein all beauty really
resides, is a spiritual principle, all motion and life being
the product of spirit. The principle of beauty is perceived
not with the outer senses, but with an internal—that is,
the moral-sense (which perceives the Good as well). This
perception affords the only true delight, namely, spiritual
enjoyment. Shaftesbury distinguishes three grades of the
Beautiful, namely, (1.) Inanimate objects, including works
of art; (2.) Living forms, which reveal the spiritual forma-
tive force; and (3.) The source from which these forms
spring, God.

In his Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty Hutcheson. and Virtue, Hutcheson follows many of Shaftesbury's ideas. Yet he distinctly disclaims any independent self-existing beauty in objects apart from percipient minds. "All beauty," he says, "is relative to the sense of some mind perceiving it." perceiving it." The cause of beauty is not any simple sensation from an object, as colour, tone, but a certain order among the parts, or "uniformity amidst variety.' The faculty by which this principle is known is an internal sense which is defined as "a passive power of receiving ideas of beauty from all objects in which there is uniformity in variety." Thus Hutcheson seems to have supposed that beauty, though always residing in uniformity in variety as its form, was still something distinct from this, and so in need of a peculiar sense distinct from reason for the appreciation of it. But his meaning on this point is not clear. This faculty is called a sense, because it resembles the external senses in the immediateness of the pleasure it experiences. The perception of beauty, and the delight attending it, are quite as independent of considerations of principles, causes, or usefulness in the object, as the pleasurable sensation of a sweet taste. Further, the effect of a beautiful object is like the impression of our senses in its necessity; a beautiful thing being always, whether we will or no, beautiful. In the second place, this sense is called internal, because the appreciation of beauty is clearly distinct from the ordinary sensibility of the eye and ear, whether emotional or intellectual and discriminative, many V. English Writers.-In the aesthetic speculations of persons who possess the latter intact being totally destitute English writers, we find still less of metaphysical construc- of the former. Another reason is, that in some affairs tion and systematisation than in those of French thinkers. which have little to do with the external senses, beauty is Indeed, it may be said that there is nothing answering to perceived, as in theorems, universal truths, and general the German conception of æsthetic in our literature. The causes. Hutcheson discusses two kinds of beauty-absoinquiries of English and Scotch thinkers have been directed lute or original, and relative or comparative. The former for the most part to very definite and strictly scientific pro- is independent of all comparison of the beautiful object blems, such as the psychological processes in the perception of with another object of which it may be an imitation. The the Beautiful. The more moderate metaphysical impulses of latter is perceived in an object considered as an imitation or our countrymen have never reached beyond the bare asser- resemblance of something else. He distinctly states that "an tion of an objective and independent beauty. Hence we find exact imitation may still be beautiful though the original that the German historians regard these special and limited were entirely devoid of it;" but, curiously enough, will not discussions as so many empirical reflections, wholly devoid allow that this proves his previous definition of beauty as of the rational element in true philosophy. Schasler speaks" uniformity amidst variety" to be too narrow. He seems of these essays as "empiristic æsthetics," tending in one direction to raw materialism, in the other, by want of method, never lifting itself above the plane of " an æstheticising dilettanteism." English writers are easily divisible into two groups-(1.) Those who lean to the conception of a primitive objective beauty, not resolvable into any simpler ingredients of sensation or simple emotion, which is perceived intuitively either by reason or by some special faculty, an internal sense; (2.) Those who, tracing the genesis of beauty to the union of simple impressions, have been chiefly concerned with a psychological discussion of the origin and growth of our æsthetic perceptions and emotions.

Lord Shaftesbury is the first of the intuitive writers on

to conceive that the original sense of beauty may be
"varied and overbalanced" with the secondary and subor-
dinate kind. Hutcheson spends a good deal of time in
proving the universality of this sense of beauty, by show-
ing that all men, in proportion to the enlargement of their
intellectual capacity, are more delighted with uniformity
than the contrary. He argues against the supposition that
custom and education are sources of our perception of
beauty, though he admits that they may enlarge the capa-
city of our minds to retain and compare, and so may add to
the delight of beauty.

The next writer of consequence on the intuitive side is Reid.
Reid. In the eighth of his Essays on the Intellectual
Powers he discusses the faculty of taste. He held, on the