Page:Philosophical Review Volume 14.djvu/17

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F conventional divisions of time are to serve as means by which we may mark the movement of thought as it develops, we may well say that the nineteenth century saw a real awakening in relation to Æsthetics among those who concern themselves with accurate thinking, a coming to consciousness, as it were, of the importance to the philosophy of life of the existence of beauty in the world, and of the sense of beauty in man.

And with this awakening came a marked breadth of inquiry; an attempt to throw the light given by psychological analysis upon the broad field of Æsthetics, and an effort to grasp the relations of the realm in which beauty holds sway to Philosophy as a whole.

That the questions thus presented to us have been answered, I imagine few, if any, would claim; rather may we say that the nineteenth century set the problems which it concerns the æsthetician of the twentieth century to solve; and this without underestimating the value of the work of the masters in Æsthetics who lived and wrote in the century so lately closed, some of whom are fortunately with us still.

Of these present problems M. Dessoir will treat in his address to follow mine; in the regretted absence of Professor Lipps the privilege has been granted to me to consider with you briefly the relations of Æsthetics to Psychology and to Philosophy,