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and intellectual organ. Similarly, a review of the history of art must disclose to a fairly thoughtful mind not only the wide and apparently unlimited variation in form of production and in its regulative taste, but also the constant tendency to a certain consensus of æsthetic feeling and judgment, and to the recognition of an ideal excellence, by moving towards which, each art acquires a greater permanent value.

It is, one may venture to think, this discoverable tendency in all æsthetic development which makes a science of aesthetics possible. On the one hand, if it is to be a science, ready to accept every fact, and to reason from it, and not a series of unverified deductions from à priori principles, it must adopt all that the staunchest advocates of an unfettered individuality assert with respect to the relative value of beauty and of all possible canons of art. Indeed, it will have to admit that no one principle of æsthetic effect, however universal and permanent its influence appears to be in the development of the arts, has a simple and absolute validity. For is it not conceivable that, in the course of myriads of ages, human organism and conscious faculty may undergo such changes, as to render some seemingly permanent source of enjoyment inoperative? What a change, for example, would be brought about in all our æsthetic experiences by the development of a new organic sensibility-not at all an impossible supposition if evolution be the actual order of things. Yet, happily, a theory of life and practice does not require an absolute, but only a relative permanence of human nature. It is sufficient, for example, if our ethical doctrines have a relative validity, not only for ourselves, but also for many new modifications of human nature. In like manner, it will suffice, if one can discover tendencies in æsthetic idea and sentiment sufficiently distinct and uniform to be raised to a law of art, so long as art itself remains what we now conceive it. But while seeking to extract this element of permanence, æsthetic science will be very fearful of making it wider than the facts warrant, and thus of overlooking the vast region of the variable and the indeterminable in the effects of art. Not of course that any phase of a passing taste, any species of crude artistic judgment, is an insoluble phenomenon, insusceptible of affiliation to psychological and historical law. What is here meant is, that such variations do not help to furnish the final standard, or the ideal end, which æsthetic science, as a doctrine of practice, is mainly concerned in determining.

It will at once be seen, from this tentative definition of the nature

of aesthetic science, how it is related to Psychology. Psychology, as it is usually conceived, is an abstract science, which discusses the laws of sensation, thought, etc., as they present themselves in all varieties of the individual human mind, and does not concern itself, primarily at least, with any sequent order discoverable in the development of our intellectual and moral nature. Thus, psychology will analyze and explain the growth of a given emotion, say the moral sense, without enquiring when this emotion first shows itself in the progress of the human race. But this temporal order among the concrete phenomena is an essential part of æsthetic investigation, which aims at discovering what point æsthetic culture is always tending towards. That is to say, æsthetics will rest in part on abstract psychology and in part on anthropology, or the science of human development.

*

On the other hand, it is evident from this conception of an æsthetic science that it will derive a part of its data from the History of Art. A just conception of the evolution of aesthetic ideas and sentiments needs to be verified by a study of the actual order of progress of the arts themselves. That is to say, one will have to examine the laws of growth and of transformation among the arts, from their infancy among rude uncivilized races, up to their finest developments among the cultivated peoples of our own age and of antiquity. In carrying out this inquiry great care will have to be taken in eliminating all that is accidental in the successive manifestations of artistic production, and in abstracting only that which is due to a real intellectual and moral progress.

Thus a theory of aesthetics would have to proceed by means of historical research supplemented by psychological explanation. The widest possible knowledge of all that art has done and sought to do would need to be completed by an inquiry into the law and tendency of these variations, on the supposition of a general progress in intellectual and other culture. The truths thus arrived at, when interpreted as the consequences of general psychological laws, would furnish the axiomata media which a concrete and practical science like that of the fine arts requires. A very similar line of inquiry, it may be said, has been carried out with respect to ethical subjects. The universal elements running more or less distinctly through all moral phenomena have been

* I have called attention to this peculiarity of general or abstract psychology in the opening essay.

defined and formulated, and while the relativity of moral feeling and judgment with respect to age, country, individual temperament and education has been fully maintained, the tendency of all moral standards to approach one another has been adopted as the foundation of a final theory of the ethical end. If this is so, one does not see why a theory of the highest ends of art having equal range of validity is rendered impossible. In the following remarks I shall attempt, by help of the general conception thus roughly defined, to indicate very briefly the probable direction and nature of æsthetic inquiry.

In approaching the subject of art, its nature and effects, we are at once met by a difficulty respecting the extent of the objects and pleasures denoted by the term æsthetic. The germs of art have been found by Mr. Spencer, putting an idea of Schiller into a scientific form, in the impulses of play (Spieltriebe); and there is no doubt that emotions and impulses, embodied in what is usually called art, betray themselves in earlier and ruder productions. Thus, for example, all the imitative and fanciful side of children's play has clearly an affinity with artistic creation. On the other hand, as a mere overflow of spontaneous energy, seeking no delight but that of vented energy and of movement, play is less obviously connected with art, even though it be true that all artistic production springs in part from such spontaneous impulse. The essence of art may be provisionally defined as the production of some permanent object or passing action which is fitted not only to supply an active enjoyment to the producer, but to convey a pleasurable impression to a number of spectators or listeners, quite apart from any personal advantage to be derived from it. According to this conception, the earliest and crudest forms of art would be found in such simple devices as personal adornment, or the donning of gay colours, and the display of manual or vocal skill, undertaken not as a pleasurable activity to the individual himself, but with a distinct intention of impressing and dazzling the mind of his neighbours. Thus it is a distinguishing mark of artistic activity that it is fitted to afford an immediate delight by the medium of a visible or audible impression, which delight owes nothing to suggestion of personal gain, but is available for a number of different minds.

This conception obviously excludes all hypotheses of some one eternally fixed quality of art, some essence of Beauty. The labours of all the metaphysicians have not yet succeeded in discovering wherein this subtle entity consists, and a science of art can derive

no advantage from the further prolongation of the search. Inductive research clearly shows that the properties of art in its successive developments are innumerable, and can only be subsumed under some such conception of pleasurability as the one just given. Hence, the foundations of a genuine science of art must be sought in the nature and laws of the feelings which it is fitted to gratify. Assuming that the essence of art is to gratify certain emotional susceptibilities, we have to examine into the precise nature and laws of these pleasurable feelings, and, if possible, to deduce from these some principles fitted to be a scientific basis for artistic practice.

A brief examination of all artistic gratifications thus conceived, as they are exhibited not only in contemporary art, but also in that of the recorded past, is sufficient to show us that they are by no means purely artificial growths, dependent on the development of art itself, but consist in great part of enjoyments afforded by preartistic and natural objects. Thus, for example, the brilliant ornaments of a savage owe their charm to the play of visual sensibilities which were first exercised by natural objects, such as sky and foliage, bird and beast. So again, a picture by Wilkie pleases the observer by reproducing in artistic forms scenes of happiness and merriment in simple daily life. Once more, a poem like Thomson's Seasons, not only gratifies the ear by sequences of verbal sound and cadence rendered pleasing in the progress of social life, but presents faint images of those changing phases of nature which have impressed and delighted us again and again in the swift succession of the years. From these examples we may see that art, in its first and simplest aspect, is a mere variation and expansion of pleasures imparted to the eye and ear by nature, whether inorganic or organic, by sky, sea or mountain, tree, bird or quick-feeling and far-compassing man. Hence, the first step in æsthetic inquiry seems to be to determine the nature and elements of natural beauty, in the widest sense of this expression. By adopting Mr. Spencer's conception of aesthetic delight, we may say that art supplies a supplementary vent for pleasurable energies fostered and developed during the natural progress of the life-functions. In other words, art gratifies by giving additional play and temporary relief to impulses, gradually built up by the actions and reactions of the external environment and the organism.

The psychological classification and explanation of these pleasures has been carried to a considerable degree of perfection. I need but to refer to such writers as Alison, Professor Bain, and Mr. H. Spencer,

343 together with those German Naturforscher who have sought to discover the precise laws of pleasurable nervous stimulation in impressions of colour and tone. On the other hand, the psychologists, with the exception of Mr. Spencer, have done little or nothing towards tracing the order of growth of these several gratifications. What remains to be done in this direction may perhaps be thus indicated.

First of all, the best classification of the pleasures which thus afford the raw material of artistic impression has still to be decided on. This should be as exact as possible, psychologically considered, and still have a direct bearing on artistic results. It should, seek, moreover, to recognize and embody those empirical ideas of artistic effect which dominate in popular criticism. Possibly, some such scheme as the following might suffice: (1) The Primary Pleasures of Stimulation, dependent on certain organic conditions of single impressions. These would include the passive sensations of light, colour, and tone, and the active sensations of visible movement and form. (2) The Secondary Pleasures of Stimulation, dependent on certain organic conditions of a plurality of impressions. These include the gratification due to Novelty or freshness of impression, and the pleasure which attends a Harmonious stimulation in tone and in colour. These organic conditions apply to all other modes of pleasure as well. (3) Pleasures of ideal revival when the idea assumes the form of Immediate Inference, namely, the gratifications derived from a perception of spatial facts, the pleasures resulting from a sympathetic reading of human language and emotional movements, etc. (4) Pleasures of ideal revival when the idea presents itself as a Recollection, whether distinct or vague, that is to say, the enjoyments which accompany the moods of memory, reverie and aesthetic contemplation. This class includes the delight afforded by complex natural objects, pre-eminently landscape or still life. The emotional influences of music also belong to this category. (5) Pleasures of intuition which involve a higher form of Intellectual activity, namely, the recognition of some Relations or Qualities of objects. Under this head would be included the sentiments corresponding to the Amiable and the morally Admirable, the Ludicrous, the Sublime, and the Beautiful, in its various aspects of unity, proportion, and adaptation. (6) The Pleasures of Imagination in its most extended signification, including the gratifications which accompany the filling-up of the unknown, in space and in time, the transformation of the real by

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