Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/98

 V. CEITICAL NOTICES. Baumaesthetik und. geometrisch-optische Tduschungen. Von THEODOR LIPPS, Professor a. d. Universitat Miinchen. Mit 183 Figuren und einer Tafel. (Schriften der Gesellschaft f. psychologische Forschung, Heft 9-11, II. Sammlung). Leipzig: Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Earth, 1897. Pp. viii., 424. THE leading idea of this treatise (a masterly one from any point of view) is that the aesthetic effect of geometrical forms and the optical illusions connected with them depend on one and the same cause, are different aspects of one and the same thing, which Prof. Lipps in his introduction describes as the relation of these forms to nature and to living reality. He offers then an identical solu- tion of two questions. But much the largest part of the five sections into which the book is divided is occupied with the de- tailed explanation of geometrical illusions, while their aesthetic bearing is pointed in short supplements to the various chapters, which, without being fully worked out, are full of the most suggestive hints towards the aesthetics of these figures. The general principle on which, with extraordinary consecutiveness and unity of thought, every detail is strung is described in the first section ' on the aesthetics of beautiful spatial forms '. It is a principle of mechanical or rather dynamical interpretation. Dr. Lipps follows an instinct both of art and of mercy in preparing the way for the abstract statement by treating a concrete example, the Doric column. The tall height of the column suggests a life which aspires upwards against its own weight. The circular form suggests a compression which prevents the column from flattening or expanding horizontally. And these tendencies are not merely juxtaposed but the one depends on the other. The column gathers itself together in order to rise. Such inner activity is the source of pleasure because we sympathise with it. Our aesthetic pleasure in spatial forms, and, the author adds, all aesthetic pleasure (p. 7) is " a feeling of sympathy which makes us happy ". The spatial form (and even in a marble statue it is the spatial form as such, and not the material which pleases) pleases because it is regarded as animated with a principle of freedom like that of natural organisms, only more self-contained. We read into the figure past experiences of similar movements, and par- ticularly of movements performed by ourselves. In doing so we