Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/235

Rh the modern theories, beginning with the German systems, as being the most metaphysical, and having most affinity with ancient speculation. In German literature the two divisions of metaphysical deduction and critical construc tion of aesthetic principles are very sharply contrasted, and nearly every writer on the subject is easily referred to one or other of the classes.. On the one hand, we have the laborious systematic philosophers, as Kant and Hegel ; and on the other, men who entered upon aesthetic specula tion either as connoisseurs of some special department, as Winckelmann and Lessing, or even as productive artists for example, Schiller and Goethe. tises: attempted to fit a theory of the Beautiful ard of Art mgar- 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, assthetic knowledge, which has to do with beauty. The former is conceptive knowledge (be- fjreifendes 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 (venvorrene 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 aesthetic (cesthetica) to denote a theory of the Beautiful. He held that perfection, as harmony of object with its con ception or notion (Begri/}, 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 aesthetics, and in connecting the latter with the impressions of the senses. The details of his aesthetics 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 aesthetics, as Sulzer and Moses Mendelssohn, nt. The next original philosophical scheme of aesthetics 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 know ledge 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 Agree able and the Good, the former stimulating desire, and the latter giving motive to the will. In quantity it is a uni versal pleasure. Under the aspect of relation, the Beautiful 217 is the form of adaptation (Zweckmassiglceit} without any end being conceived. Finally, in modality it is a necessary satisfaction, pleasing not by a universal rule, this being unassignable, but by a scnsus communis, or agreement of taste. Kant is not very consistent in carrying out these distinctions. Thus, for example, he recognises in fitness a particular species of beauty, namely, &quot; adhering &quot; as dis tinguished from &quot;free&quot; or intrinsic beauty, without re cognising that this implies the presence of a notion. So, in discussing the objective validity of our aesthetic im pressions, he decides that the highest meaning of beauty 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 (Hcmmung] 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 cither 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 Bidiculous, 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, itc., 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 &quot; the sudden transformation of a tense expecta tion into nothing.&quot; 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 (Ansckuuung}, 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.) &quot;the art of the play of feelings,&quot; namely, music and &quot; colour art,&quot; 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 aesthetic theory consist in the better separation of the Beautiful from the Good and Agreeable, in the prominence given to the emotional side of aesthetic impressions, and in the partial recognition of the relativity of aesthetic 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
 * ematic II. German Writers. The first of the Germans who