Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/369

No. 3.] course, the reverse is true. Two points are clear: (1) pain is incompatible with pleasure; (2) there is a field of non-pleasure which is not painful. This, while theoretically narrow, is practically wide in extent. The first principle of aesthetics, then, is the exclusion of pain, – the elimination of the ugly. There are two great classes of pains: (1) the pains produced by the repression of activities, and (2) the pains produced by excess of active functioning. A. The Avoidance of Repressive Pains. Repressive pains are caused by the failure in consciousness of a content which would normally have appeared. This may happen as follows: (1) Where contents habitually arise in any rhythmical manner in answer to stimuli, repressive pains will be engendered, if the stimuli fail to appear at the usual time. (2) Repressive pains will appear, if contents arise which would normally act as stimulants to a content x, this content x failing to appear. (3) Where contents often appear in definite relations of succession, repressive pains will be engendered whenever the usual order of their rise is not fulfilled. (4) It may be noted that the existence of repressive pains is an indication that the content which fails would appear pleasurably if it appeared at all. B. The Avoidance of Pains of Excessive Functioning. This is so important that works of art in all cases are developed on lines in which excesses may be shunned with little difficulty. So soon as the work of the artist begins to tire us, we must be able to turn away from its consideration. – Positive Aesthetic Laws. The problem is to discover the means necessary to the production of a pleasure field which shall be relatively permanent. Now pleasure occurs whenever surplus stored force is utilized. Hence it arises: (a) When there appears in consciousness a content which has appeared before, but which has lately been absent, because no stimulus to its production has arisen. (b) When a content appears after inhibition of its normal appearance. (c) When a content appears with unusual vividness after normal absence from consciousness. But the pleasure field must be permanent. In general we may say that the conditions of pleasure permanence are the shifting of a focus in consciousness over a wide pleasure field. Moreover, by compelling a judicious recurrence of a special interest, the artist marks a unity of the manifold, which unity gives to his work its distinctive character.

E. A.