Page:Philosophical Review Volume 25.djvu/225

Rh of individual subjective experience. The self thus marks the limit within which every inquiry falls.

The author finds six points of similarity between the æsthetic theories of Kant and Lessing. ( 1 ) Kant recognizes the preeminence of dependent beauty, i.e., that which perfectly fulfills a rational ideal, over free or merely formal beauty, as of flowers or landscape. Lessing speaks occasionally as if he were following Winkelmann in setting up the preeminence of form, but for the most part agrees on this point with Kant. (2) For both Kant and Lessing the æsthetic ideal is an expression of the moral dignity of man. (3) Both theorists distinguish between the ugly, which can be subordinated to design, and so used in beautiful art, and the loathesome, which must be entirely eliminated, until Death itself is represented by a beautiful spirit. (4) Both Kant and Lessing give poetry the preeminence among the arts, since "the painting of ideas" which is poetry, expands the imagination beyond the limits of the merely sensible. (5) Lessing uses "Malerei" as a generic term for all the plastic arts. Kant points out the fundamental significance of painting as drawing, and its superior ability among the plastic arts to penetrate into the region of ideas. (6) Both Kant and Lessing look upon the expression of moral beauty as the high and ultimate function of the beautiful arts. Whoever believes in the moral dignity of man will naturally subordinate all other values to it. But the detailed agreement between Kant and Lessing is more than the result of this common fundamental conviction. Kant mentions Lessing and Batteau as the only completely universal art critics. Kant's use in the Critique of Judgment (1790) not only of the Laocoön but also of Lessing's other work, especially of those parts of it published (1728) in the second edition of the Laocoön, can be in several instances almost verbally demonstrated.

The vital imperative imposes upon us its laws, of which the moral laws are only its subjective aspects. That duty which makes the human pair toil for its progeny is the subjective aspect of what makes the pair of sparrows toil for its progeny. The vital imperative cannot be categorical in animals, for it is actualized in their automatic instincts. Its execution is satisfaction, its hindrance suffering. An instinct is infallible in the operations for which it exists but it may be blind when confronted by the unforeseen, for its phases are interrelated like the movements of a watch, and it is therefore difficult to vary them. Instinct is memory made concrete in the anatomical structure. It represents the acquisitions from the experience of the preceding generations made indispensable to the life of the species. Its acts are apprehended by the