Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/429

 428 CRITICAL NOTICES : The datum with which .^Esthetics starts is worth or value as determined by praise and blame, and the problem of the science is to define the essential in these determinations of worth, and to fix a final standard of the good and beautiful. These notioiis of good and beautiful are not relative or utilitarian, but their validity is " for all people and all time unchangeably the same ". " The good is good in and through itself ; the beautiful is in and through itself beautiful." The aesthetic judgment is unique among mental phenomena. The predicate of the judgment of taste is not a notion but a mental condition a sort of " inner resonance" w r hich the subject- notion awakes in the mind. Further the aesthetic notion is not a relation of what is, but a practical decision as to value. It arises from the concurrence of thought and feeling. The under- standing must make clear the subject of the judgment ; feeling supplies the predicate. Again, the aesthetic judgment does not result from desire ; for it is permanent whilst desire fluctuates. The next question that arises is as to the subject of a funda- mental aesthetic judgment. It cannot be a simple element of presentation, for the single colour or tone is aesthetically indifferent : it must be a relation. These aesthetic judgments neither need nor admit of proof. But it is only to the funda- mental or root-judgments that certainty applies, while conflict among aesthetic judgments comes with complexity. In order then to get at a valid aesthetic judgment it is necessary to have a complete presentation of the object, to analyse it into its elements, and in thought to build it up again out of these elements ; and it is further necessary to avoid the subjective tendencies, which, in the form of artists' or critics' individuality, lead to conflicting judgments. What is said of ^Esthetics holds of Ethics, " the most sublime of the arts". Ethics is distinguished from the wider sphere of Esthetics in that it is concerned with the beautiful in willing (or in mind) only, and thus implies the notion of personality. This implies the further distinction that the value of the moral product belongs to the producer or agent, whereas the beautiful work of art becomes independent of the producer. Finally, aesthetic imperatives are hypothetical, those of morals categorical. Xahlowsky is undoubtedly right in pointing to personality as the fundamental notion through which morality becomes intelligible ; and we may say, if we like, that the moral is the beautiful in willing, or in those habits of willing which have become consoli- dated into character. But this conception can only yield fruitful results, when the notion of personality has been analysed and its content exhibited. Ethics, then, starts w r ith unconditioned judgments of value upon volitional relations. Its object is the image of a definite volitional relation in pure objectivity. This gives rise to an immediate judgment of approval or disapproval ; and to each