former corresponds to the element of variety in a beautiful object, that of the latter with its unity. He explicitly excludes all other kinds of pleasure, such as the sensuous, from the proper gratification of beauty. He denies that the attribute of beauty belongs to fitness.
John Ruskin’s well-known speculations on the nature of beauty in Modern Painters (“Of ideas of beauty”), though sadly wanting in scientific precision, have a certain value in the history of divine attributes. Its true nature is appreciated by the theoretic faculty which is concerned Ruskin.in the moral conception and appreciation of ideas of beauty, and must be distinguished from the imaginative or artistic faculty, which is employed in regarding in a certain way and combining the ideas received from external nature. He distinguishes between typical and vital beauty. The former is the external quality of bodies which typifies some divine attribute. The latter consists in “the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of function in living things.” The forms of typical beauty are:—(1) infinity, the type of the divine incomprehensibility; (2) unity, the type of the divine comprehensiveness; (3) repose, the type of the divine permanence; (4) symmetry, the type of the divine justice; (5) purity, the type of the divine energy; and (6) moderation, the type of government by law. Vital beauty, again, is regarded as relative when the degree of exaltation of the function is estimated, or generic if only the degree of conformity of an individual to the appointed functions of the species is taken into account. Ruskin’s writings illustrate the extreme tendency to identify aesthetic with moral perception.
Addison’s “Essays on the Imagination,” contributed to the Spectator, though they belong to popular literature, contain the germ of scientific analysis in the statement that the pleasures of imagination (which arise originally from sight) fall into two classes—(1) primary pleasures, which entirely proceed The analytical theorists. Addison.from objects before our eyes; and (2) secondary pleasures, flowing from the ideas of visible objects. The latter are greatly extended by the addition of the proper enjoyment of resemblance, which is at the basis of all mimicry and wit. Addison recognizes, too, to some extent, the influence of association upon our aesthetic preferences.
In the Elements of Criticism of Home (Lord Kames) another attempt is made to resolve the pleasure of beauty into its elements. Beauty and ugliness are simply the pleasant and unpleasant in the higher senses of sight and hearing. He appears to admit no general characteristic of beautiful objects Home.beyond this power of yielding pleasure. Like Hutcheson, he divides beauty into intrinsic and relative, but understands by the latter the appearance of fitness and utility, which is excluded from the beautiful by Hutcheson.
Passing by the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose theory of beauty closely resembles that of Père Buffier, we come to the articulations of another artist and painter, William Hogarth. He discusses, in his Analysis of Beauty, all the elements of visual beauty. He finds in this the following elements:—(1) fitness Hogarth.of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as many ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which is only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of fitness; (4) simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure not in itself, but through its enabling the eye to enjoy variety with ease; (5) intricacy, which provides employment for our active energies, leading the eye “a wanton kind of chase”; (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our attention and produces admiration and awe. The beauty of proportion he resolves into the needs of fitness. Hogarth applies these principles to the determination of the degrees of beauty in lines, figures and groups of forms. Among lines he singles out for special honour the serpentine (formed by drawing a line once round from the base to the apex of a long slender cone).
Burke’s speculations, in his Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, illustrate the tendency of English writers to treat the problem as a psychological one and to introduce physiological considerations. He finds the elements of beauty to be:—(1) smallness; (2) smoothness; (3) gradual variation Burke.of direction in gentle curves; (4) delicacy, or the appearance of fragility; (5) brightness, purity and softness of colour. The sublime is rather crudely resolved into astonishment, which he thinks always contains an element of terror. Thus “infinity has a tendency to fill the mind with a delightful horror.” Burke seeks what he calls “efficient causes” for these aesthetic impressions in certain affections of the the nerves of sight analogous to those of other senses, namely, the soothing effect of a relaxation of the nerve fibres. The arbitrariness and narrowness of this theory cannot well escape the reader’s attention.
Alison, in his well-known Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, proceeds by a method exactly the opposite to that of Hogarth and Burke. He seeks to analyse the mental process when finds that this consists in a peculiar operation of the imagination, namely, the Alison.flow of a train of ideas through the mind, which ideas always correspond to some simple affection or emotion (e.g. cheerfulness, sadness, awe) awakened by the object. He thus makes association the sole source of aesthetic delight, and denies the existence of a primary source in sensations themselves. He illustrates the working of the principle of association at great length, and with much skill; yet his attempt to make it the unique source of aesthetic pleasure fails completely. Francis Jeffrey’s Essays on Beauty (in the Edinburgh Review, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 8th edition) are little more than a modification of Alison’s theory. Philosophical Essays consists in pointing out the unwarranted assumption lurking in the doctrine of a single quality running through all varieties of beautiful object. He seeks to show how the successive changes in the meaning of the term “beautiful” have arisen. He suggests that it originally connoted the pleasure of colour. The value of his discussion resides more in the criticism of his predecessors than in the contribution of new ideas. His conception of the sublime, suggested by the etymology of the word, emphasizes the element of height in objects.
Of the association psychologists James Mill did little more towards the analysis of the sentiments of beauty than re-state Alison’s doctrine. Alexander Bain, in his treatise, The Emotions and the Will (“Aesthetic Emotions”), carries this examination considerably further. He seeks to differentiate aesthetic from other varieties of pleasurable emotion by three characteristics:—(1) their freedom from life-serving uses, being gratifications sought for their own sakes; (2) their purity from all disagreeable concomitants; (3) their eminently sympathetic or shareable nature. He takes a comprehensive view of the constituents of aesthetic enjoyment, including the pleasures of sensation and of its revived or its “ideal” form; of revived emotional states; and lastly the satisfaction of those wide-ranging susceptibilities which we call the love of novelty, of contrast and of harmony. The effect of sublimity is connected with the manifestation of superior power in its highest degrees, which manifestation excites a sympathetic elation in the beholder. The ludicrous, again, is defined by Bain, improving on Aristotle and Hobbes, as the degradation of something possessing dignity in circumstances that excite no other strong emotion.
Herbert Spencer, in his First Principles, Principles of Psychology and Essays, has given an interesting turn to the psychology of aesthetics by the application of his doctrine of evolution. Adopting Schiller’s idea of a connexion between aesthetic activity and play, he seeks to make it the starting-point in tracing the evolution of aesthetic activity. Play is defined as the outcome of the superfluous energies of the organism: as the activity of organs and faculties which, owing to a prolonged period of inactivity, have become specially ready to discharge their function, and as a consequence vent themselves in simulated actions. Aesthetic activities supply a similar mode of self-relieving discharge to the higher organs of perception and emotion; and they further agree with play in not directly subserving any processes conducive to life; in being gratifications sought for their own sake only. Spencer seeks to construct a hierarchy of aesthetic pleasures according to the degree of complexity of the faculty exercised: from those of sensation up to the revived emotional experiences which constitute the aesthetic sentiment proper. Among the more vaguely revived emotions Spencer includes more permanent feelings of the race transmitted by heredity; as when he refers the deep and indefinable emotion excited by music to associations with vocal tones expressive of feeling built up during the past history of our species. His biological treatment of aesthetic activity has had a wide influence, some e.g. Grant Allen) being content to develop his evolutional method. Yet, as suggested above, his theory is now recognized as taking us only a little way towards an adequate understanding of our aesthetic experience.
Bibliography.[1]—(a) Works on General Aesthetics.
English and American.—There are no more important recent works which deal with the whole subject. The following will be found helpful: Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, pt. viii. c. 9, “Aesthetic Sentiments,” and the papers on “Use and Beauty,” “Origin and Function of Music” and others in the Essays; A. Bain, Emotions and Will, “Aesthetic Emotions”; J. Sully, Human Mind, ii. “Aesthetic Sentiment”: (Grant Allen, “Physiological Aesthetics” (Meth., Pl., Senses, Play); Rutgers Marshall, Pain, Pleasure and Aesthetics, and Aesthetic Principles (Meth., Pl., Play).
French and Italian Works.—M. Guyau, Les Problèmes de l’esthétique contemporaine (1884) (Pl., Play); E. Véron, L’Esthétique (1890) (slight Pl.); L. Bray, Du Beau (1902). (Pl., Play); P. Saurian, La Beauté rationnelle (1904) (Meth., Pl., Senses, Einf.); M. Pilo, Estetica (Pl., Senses): A. Rolla, Storia delle idee estetiche in Italia (1905) (full account of ideas of Dante and other medieval writers, as well as of modern systems).
German Works.—K. Köstlin, Prolegomena zur Ästhetik (1889)
- ↑ Only recent works are included. Important points in each are indicated by abbreviations, namely:—
Einf., Einfühlung (expressional element in form). Norm., for the normative function of aesthetics. Evol., for bearings of evolution. Pl., for theory of pleasure. Ill., for aesthetic illusion. Play, for Play and aesthetic enjoyment. Judg., for aesthetic judgment. Senses, for aesthetic value of higher senses. Meth., for method of aesthetics. Val., for aesthetic value.
