Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/438

422 go among our associative class of phenomena to be discussed hereafter.

Of æsthetic sensations proper (pains of abnormal conditions always hereafter excepted) I find no direct trace among the other visual phenomena than color, — none among the lines, the angles, or the perspectives of art or nature. I thrilled with delight when I saw the Venus de Milo, and when I first stood before Cologne Cathedral in full moonlight; but if I note closely I observe it was not the lines nor the angles of these, however grand or perfect, that of themselves directly charmed me. The most perfect line in Venus would not please me if described by the torn entrails of a bull-fighter's hack. It is the ideas associated with visual forms, and called up by them, that determine them aesthetically. I will give another illustration to make this plainer.

In Mind, No. 2 (new series), Professor Bain notes "the unaccountable ratio of increase of aesthetic delight as the points of excellence in art are refined upon." We must ask how our doctrine would account for this, — say, with the Venus. First note that a Congo pigmy would hardly display this ratio — for instance as between Powers's Greek Slave and the Milo. It is a biological fact that symmetry of body culminated with acuteness of intellect and of aesthetic feelings among the Greeks. I strongly suspect that the same secrets of embryological and morphological growth which determined the one likewise determined the other; that the same laws which lead up to symmetrical limbs and features also lead up to symmetry and perfection of other bodily organs; and that with perfection of organs in general goes perfection of neural organs and therefore better mental development. Perhaps in some universe ova and embryos need not grow with bilateral regularity in order to prosper; in this world they must. Show me why the egg cleaves symmetrically and I will tell you better why the strong minds and acute feelings of the Greeks went with their symmetrical bodies. Perfection of curve, perfection of intellect, and perfection of feelings were all expressions of the same biological factor and excellence. Very well then! How could the