Page:Philosophical Review Volume 19.djvu/520

506 structure—the clear evidence of the function of each large division; on the other the demand for "beauty of form," where form is taken as space-shape, and beauty is taken as its accommodation to "the demands of the eye." The principle of intelligible structure in architecture has been referred to as the equivalent of the principle of realism in representative art; by which the degree of excellence in art, that is, the degree of beauty, is measured by the degree of candor in the portrayal of the facts of nature. Of course no one really believes that beauty consists in giving information about facts; but the difficulty seems to be the same at once with musical criticism and æsthetics, in the facile acceptance of the dictum: you must make your structure intelligible only so as not to spoil the decorative effect and you must have beauty of form without lying too much about structure. This reminds me of an old professor of ethics, who used to tell us we must certainly hold to predestination—but only so as not to conflict with free will. To say nothing of the way in which this dualistic view begs the whole question of "beauty," is it not clear that just as a real æsthetics for music began with the recognition of the musical idea—the sequence of tones as such, those subterranean relations between tones in rhythm which are felt as compelling, but which only the most minute psychological and physiological analyses can explain,—so in architecture, the only way of advance is to seek for the architectural idea—some principle of unity which shall do justice to our feeling for structure and use and our feeling for space—shape—which shall fuse the two in one immediate flash of response to a (so-to-speak) compelling sequence of masses?

The character of the musical idea is understood and acknowl- edged, but no such acknowledgment obtains in the field of architecture. Yet we may not say that no one has advanced to occupy this position. In the theory of Einfühlung as applied to architecture, such a required fusion of the elements of function and form is certainly approached; and as is doubtless well known to you, has received extensive application in the later publications of Lipps. No doubt all would agree that this presentation of the way in which objects are felt as informed with life through