Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/234

Rh 216 STHETICS Beautiful and the Good or morally Worthy. Aristotle further distinguished the Beautiful from the Fit, and in a passage of the Politics set Beauty above the Useful and Necessary. Another characteristic of the Beautiful fixed by this thinker in the Rhetoric is the absence of all lust or desire in the pleasure it bestows. This is an important point, as suggesting the disinterested and unmonopolising side of aesthetic pleasure. The universal elements of beauty, again, Aristotle finds in the Metaphysics to be order (rats), symmetry, and definiteness or determinateness (TO cl/HoyAe i/ov). In the Poetics he adds another essential, namely, a certain magnitude, it being desirable, for a synoptic and single view of the parts, that the object, whether a natural body or a work of art, should not be too large, while clear ness of perception requires that it should not be too small. At the same time he seems to think that, provided the whole be visible as such, the greater magnitude of an object is itself an element of beauty. This is probably to be understood by help of a passage in the Politics, which lays down the need of a number of beautiful parts or aspects in a highly beautiful object, as the human body. With respect to art, Aristotle s views are an immense advance on those of Plato. He distinctly recognised, in the Politics and elsewhere, that its aim is simply to give imme diate pleasure, and so it does not need to seek the useful like the mechanical arts. The essence of art, considered a 3 an activity, Aristotle found in imitation, which, unlike Plato, he considers not as an unworthy trick, but as in cluding knowledge and discovery. The celebrated passage in the Poetics where he declares poetry to be more philo sophic and serious a matter (o-TrouSaiorepov) than philo sophy, best shows the contrast between Plato and Aristotle in their estimates of the dignity of artistic labour. In the Poetics he % tells us that the objects to be imitated by the poet are of three kinds (1.) Those things or events which have been or still are; (2.) The things which are said to be and seem probable; (3.) The things which necessarily are (flvai Set). The last points, as Schasler supposes, to the ideal character of imitation as opposed to mere copying of individual objects or events, and accounts for the lofty value assigned to it by Aristotle. More particularly the objects of imitation in poetry and music, if not in all art, are dispositions (%0y)), passions, and actions. Aristotle gives us some interesting speculations on the nature of the artist s mind, and distinguishes two varieties of the poetic imagination the easy and versatile conceptive power of a man of natural genius (ev^ur/s), and the more emotional and lively temperament of an inspired man (/xavucos). He gives us no complete classification of the liue arts, and it is doubtful how far his principles are to be taken as applicable to other than the poetic art. He seems, however, to distinguish poetry, music, and dancing all of which are supposed to imitate some element of human nature, some feeling or action by the means they employ, namely, rhythm, harmony, melody, and vocal sound. Paint ing and sculpture are spoken of as imitative arts, but their special aims are not defined. Architecture seems ignored by Aristotle as non-imitative. His peculiar theory of poetry can only be just glanced at here. Its aim, he says, is to imitate dispositions and actions. Metrical form is hardly looked on as an essential. Poetic imitation, as in cluding the selection of the universal in human nature and history, is ably treated; and from this part of Aristotle s theory all modem ideas of poetic truth are more or less deriv able. He distinguishes, somewhat superficially, the epic poem, the drama, and a third variety not named, but appa rently lyric poetry, by the manner in which the poet speaks in each variety, whether in his own person, or in that of another, or in both alternately. The epic and the dramatic require unity of action, a certain magnitude, with beginning, middle, and end, and also those changes of for tune and recognitions that make up the thrilling character of plot. The end of tragedy Aristotle defines as the effecting, by means of pity and fear, of a purification of these passions ; and this is perhaps the point of greatest interest for aesthetics in the whole of his theory of poetry. Whether he is referring to any moral influence of tragedy on the emo tions, bringing both fear and pity in the spectator s mind to their proper ethical mean, as Lessing and others conceive; whether he simply means the elimination of all painful ingredients in these feelings, either by the recognition of the imaginary nature of the evil represented, or by the simul taneous satisfaction of other and deeper feelings as moral approval or wide human sympathy ; or, finally, whether by &quot; purification &quot; we are to understand the grateful relief by artificial means of a recurring emotion needing periodic vent, as Ueberweg argues, this subtle point may be left to the student to decide. It would be interesting to know how far Aristotle attributed something analogous to this Ka(9apo-is to the other arts. In the Politics he certainly speaks of a purifying effect in certain kinds of music in quieting the wilder forms of excitement. Finally, it might perhaps be conjectured from his definition of the Ludicrous, as something faulty and disgraceful, yet free from pain, and not destructive, that he would find in the laughter of comedy something analogous to this purification, namely, the gradual resolution of the more painful feelings of con tempt or disgust into the genial moods of pure hilarity. Omitting to notice the few valuable remarks on tes- Plotinus thetic subjects of the later Greeks and their Boman contemporaries, one may briefly refer to the views of the Alexandrian mystic and Neo-Platonist Plotinus, not only because of their intrinsic interest, but on account of their resemblance to certain modern systems. His theory is to be found in an essay on the Beautifid in the series of dis courses called Enneades. His philosophy differs from the Platonic in the recognition of an objective voDs, the direct emanation from the absolute Good, in which the ideas or notions (Aoyot), which are the prototypes of real things, are immanent. This Reason, as self-moving, becomes the for mative influence reducing matter, which in itself is dead, to form. Matter thus formed becomes a notion (Aoyos), and this form is beauty. Objects are ugly so far as they are unacted upon by Reason, and so remain formless. The creative voDs is absolute Beauty, and is called the more than beautiful (TO v-n-epxaXXov). There are three degrees or stages of the Beautiful in manifestation, namely, the beauty of subjective vovs, or human reason, which is the highest ; that of the human soul, which is less perfect through the connection of the soul with a material body ; and that of real objects, which is the lowest manifestation of all. As to the characteristic form of beauty, he sup posed, in opposition to Aristotle, that a single thing not divisible into parts might be beautiful through its unity and simplicity. He attached special worth to the beauty of colours in which material darkness is overpowered by light and warmth. In reference to artistic beauty, he said that when the artist has Aoyoi as models for his creations, these may become more beautiful than natural objects. This is a very curious divergence of opinion from the Platonic. After Plotinus there is little speculation on aesthetic St Augin subjects till we come to modern writers. St Augustine tine, wrote a treatise on the Beautiful, now lost, in which he rra appears to have reproduced Platonic ideas under a Christian sys t ems guise. He taught that unity is the form of all beauty (&quot;omnis porro pulchritudinis forma unitas est&quot;). Infinite goodness, truth, and beauty are the attributes of the Deity, and communicated by him to things. But passing from these fragmentary utterances, we may consider more fully