feel disgust at finding in Art the very thing we wished far away in Nature. Only when the same event in its progress assumes all shades of interest, and one not only follows the other, but springs necessarily out of it: when solemnity begets laughter, or misery, joy, or conversely, so immediately that the abstraction of the one or of the other becomes impossible-only then we cease to desire it in art; and art knows how to derive an advantage out of this very impossibility."

Herr Stahr sees in this passage a justification of Shakspeare's use of laughter in his tragedies. Yet, fine as it undoubtedly is, it appears to me to state only one half of the truth. As I have remarked before, the play of our emotional forces gives rise to two general laws of Art. The tendency of any feeling to occupy the whole of consciousness necessitates a certain harmony of impressions, while the rival activities of distinct emotional tendencies justifies a certain amount of relief. In addition to this, as Mr. Bain has remarked, the tension of mind in view of a serious and affecting spectacle acts very much like external constraint, so that a momentary relaxation brings with it the sense of relief, which is one mental antecedent of laughter. Hence a temporary transition of mind from the contemplation of a huge calamity to the recognition of some halfludicrous incident-if done with a master's hand, in conformity with the requirements of artistic truth, and in due subordination to the supreme love of harmony, as in King Lear, for example-affords an emotional relief which has nothing of painful discordance in it. We pass from tears to laughter when we read Shakspeare, not only because, as Lessing says, the exciting causes in the events themselves are so inextricably woven together, but because relief is a necessity of emotional life.

Another instance of Lessing's disposition to disparage the secondary and auxiliary influences of tragedy, may be found in his observations respecting the effects of Surprise (in the forty-eighth and following pieces). Following out some remarks of Diderot, he seeks to show that surprise has no place at all in tragedy, and he gives it as his opinion that it would be an advantage to return to the Greek custom of indicating beforehand by a prologue, the course which the events are to take. Regarded as a disparagement of the extreme craving for unexpected sensational effects, these remarks may no doubt be very just; yet they curiously leave out of sight the emotional sources of pleasure in the imaginative anticipations of a plot. It may be a striking proof of attention to artistic form, that a spectator is able to enjoy a thrilling tragedy just as much after he knows the ultimate catastrophe, as before.

Yet is not this piece of aesthetic asceticism somewhat unnecessary? and does not the exclusion from the drama of this universal instinct savour rather too much of a contempt for ordinary human nature? One knows that a drama is not the same thing as a romance, but one fails to see why imagination should be denied its satisfaction in the one any more than in the other.

One other omission of a similar character is worthy of mention. Lessing very rightly attacks the heroic species of tragedy so fashionable in his time, and, following Aristotle, contends that perfection of character, so far from quickening the tragic impression, deadens it, by removing the person from the range of our sympathies. Yet he does not tell us whether, or how far, our moral feelings may be appealed to for the purpose of enlisting our interest in the chief personages. It is only when a degree of virtue strikes us as unnatural and chilling that it repels our sympathetic interest from a character. If it be a truly human virtue it seems to attract and hold our sympathies more powerfully. Warm admiration, as we have seen, is closely related to affection, and seems to bring an object nearer, so to speak, to the radiating glow of our sympathy. We feel all the more for Othello in his error and its terrible consequences because we were at first so deeply impressed by his frankness, courage, and noble ingenuousness. These considerations should be borne in mind in estimating what Aristotle and Lessing teach respecting the introduction of a worthy person's calamity. It would be difficult, one suspects, to show that our exquisite interest in Cordelia's bitter woe depends in any degree on a recognition of some defect of character.

It thus appears that Lessing concentrated his attention too exclusively on the main and distinguishing features of tragedy, so as to overlook the many tributaries of emotional influence which help to fill up the great river of tragic impression. Yet these oversights are scarcely a discredit to one who effected so much in re-discovering the highest powers of dramatic art, at a time when these powers were nearly dormant. The Dramaturgy gave the impulse to all that is best in the modern German drama, and laid the foundations of that rich, speculative literature which has grown up along with it. More than this, we may still turn again and again to its pages for illuminating flashes and pregnant suggestions; and probably it will be long before any number of more systematic treatises on the subject render this resort unprofitable.

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A SCIENCE

OF ESTHETICS.

THE chaotic state of opinion on all matters relating to the Fine Arts seems to indicate that we are still far from the construction and even from the conception of an Esthetic Science. Speculation on art has always been characterized by a high degree of mysticism. In common with all departments of experience in which the emotional element is predominant, art has stubbornly sought to exclude the cold, gray dawn of scientific inquiry. With a special tenacity, indeed, she has wrapped herself about in the grateful gloom of a mystic twilight. For is it not her peculiar office to minister to the imagination, drawing the contemplative soul high above the region of fact and law? and would not any attempt to investigate her processes with the keen, measuring eye of science be an outrage on this supreme right of phantasy to live apart, undisturbed by thought of what is, and must be? No doubt art does often delight by means of the hidden and mysterious. And it is scarcely to be wondered at, perhaps, that so many of her worshippers have clung to the idea that all her power on the human soul is an insoluble mystery.

One may see, too, this same supremacy of the mystical in very much of what is offered as æsthetic theory. On the one hand, there are the metaphysicians, from Plato to the last of the Germans, who have descanted beautifully on Beauty, and argued with admirable dialectic skill that in its essence it is the partial revelation, dim through its sensuous medium, of the ultimate reality, the divine idea.* The intuition, by the divine element in the soul, of the supernal and unattainable glory is clearly no subject for the profane discussion of empirical science; and, accordingly, this sublime theory effectually

* But few English readers, probably, have any conception of the bulk and diversity of German metaphysical speculation on Beauty and Art from Baumgarten downwards. The fact that there is a German verb to express this species of speculation, aesthetisiren, may perhaps suggest the voluminous character of these discussions. The most complete account of the German systems is to be found in the histories of Lotze and Max Schasler.

silences all attempts to deal with beauty and the fine arts as a group of phenomena, complex indeed, but still open to observation and to analysis. On the other hand, we have the dogmatic critics, nimbly wielding a number of artistic principles, the origin and limitations of which too often escape their attention, and which they apply as indisputable intuitions with a promptness which may well infuse awe into their uninitiated readers.

One can hardly blame the majority of artists if, in the midst of this intellectual gloom, they have come to the conclusion that æsthetic speculation, whatever its intrinsic value, was never intended for them, and that they will effect more by a simple observation of what artists have done than by a study of the most elaborate treatises on what they ought to do.

Nor is it to be wondered at, perhaps, that, in view of this unscientific condition of aesthetic theory, the more thoughtful lovers and students of art have tacitly ignored the possibility of an objective doctrine of Art, and have fallen back on a more historical and individual method of criticism. Without troubling themselves about the question, what worthy art universally consists of, they have diligently sought to trace out the relation of artistic production to the artist's nature, education and social surroundings. This concentration of thought on the subjective side of art-production has been favoured by the growth of the historic interest in all regions of inquiry. Through a natural reaction against the contradictory and unverifiable conclusions of metaphysics respecting human nature and its destiny, contemporary thinkers have learnt modestly to occupy themselves with the actual developments of human nature as they reveal themselves in history. One may see this change of standpoint in the best contemporary ethical inquiries. Similarly, with respect to art, one finds that some of the finest critical thought has employed itself in studying the historical developments of the artistic spirit, and in separating the many fine and complicated filaments of spontaneous individual genius and of social influence which compose the roots of all great artistic achievement.*

Now it is surely a reasonable supposition that this line of investigation, however interesting, and fruitful of inspiring thought, is

Since this essay was put in type, Mr. John Morley, in a highly suggestive paper on Compromise, has called attention to a similar effect of the historical spirit in promoting a certain indifference respecting the objective truth of moral and political propositions. See the Fortnightly Review for April 18, 1874.

insufficient. All art, it may be urged, reveals, in addition to the play of individual genius and of social influences, the action of universal laws of human sensibility. The artist, however rapid and instinctive may be the activities of his inventive spirit, is aiming consciously or unconsciously at something which shall answer to many human ideas and satisfy many human desires. Strictly speaking, his creations are artistic only so long as they conform to these conditions; otherwise, they become simply the fine vagaries of a brilliant but ill-regulated mind.

One may argue, too, that a perception of the real objective significance of art is a valuable possession for the artist himself. It seems as if the age of naïve spontaneous production, swayed by no influence more palpable and distinct than that of the artist's emotional and imaginative impulses, has long since passed away. We look, now-a-days at least, for a reflective and highly conscious artistic labour. Few, perhaps, will question that such reflection, if not allowed to overweigh the spontaneous element, is a new force in the artist's mind. Who doubts that Da Vinci and Hogarth, Goethe and Schiller, Schumann and Wagner, owe something of their artistic power to the habit of meditating patiently and with philosophical breadth of view on the nature and aims of art ? *

The supposition that all art is something mysterious and insusceptible of analysis and generalization, can scarcely satisfy the thoughtful lover of art, who is accustomed to reflect, not only on the subtle differences of school and of individual artist, but on the feelings and ideas which pass through his mind in orderly sequence under the spell of a master-work. A very little consideration may teach such an one that, with all that is arbitrary, changeful, and purely relative in æsthetic effect, there is also an element of order and permanent uniformity. He may indeed look back in memory on the progress of his individual æsthetic development, the greater part of which, unlike that of ethic culture, lies within distinct view. While he sees much that was crude and evanescent in the progress of his taste and artistic judgment, he may see, too, something that has remained throughout, growing clearer and clearer, and gradually shaping itself into a well-adjusted emotional

Friedrich Schlegel had a clear vision of the value to artistic creation of a correct theory of art. He says in his work, Ueber das Studium der griechischen Poesie : "A degenerate and disorganized force needs a criticism, a censorship, and this presupposes a legislation. A complete æsthetic legislation would be the first organ of the æsthetic revolution."