Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/93

Rh which have determined the structure of our intellectual organ to be what it is. And, in the case of the æsthetic value of the several modes of this unity, the action of the environment becomes apparent. Thus, for example, the natural instinct of the cultivated eye to look for a well-marked contour, as well as for a central element of repose, in a design, may be regarded as the result of ingrained habits, determined by the conditions of a distinct visual grasp and recognition of objects in every-day life. So the desire of the eye for proportion seems to be an outgrowth of a habit of attending to relative magnitude, a habit that is clearly connected with the paramount importance of identifying objects at different distances from the eye; and, as I have already had occasion to observe, the popular preference for certain ratios of magnitude may be due to a habit of making the proportions of the human figure, that most impressive and carefully observed form, a special standard of measurement.

The æsthetic value of symmetry, and more especially bilateral symmetry, illustrates in a striking way this action of the environment and of habit in determining our most pleasurable modes of activity. Mr. Grant Allen has recently remarked on this fact ("Mind," Number XV.), but without any special reference to bilateral symmetry. Not only do most organic forms present such a bilateral symmetry, but the forms of inanimate nature, as mountain and valley, show this same relation. The very action of the physical forces determining the configuration of the earth's surface tends to produce a bilaterally symmetrical arrangement, as we may see by the simple experiment of throwing down a heap of pebbles or sand on the ground. Over and above this the ends of support, and the utilities of life in general, serve to give bilateral symmetry a high practical value. Most of the products of the useful arts, from architecture down to the art of constructing common utensils, possess this bilateral symmetry. This prevalence of the relation, in objects of daily perception, would serve to fix a habit of looking for symmetry as the normal form of things. In other words, bilateral symmetry would tend to become, to speak after Kant, a sort of a priori form of æsthetic intuition.

But this direct factor is, after all, only one feature of visual form, which, in concrete aesthetic perception, combines with other indirect or associated elements. Over and above the direct action of the environment, and of customary experience in producing an instinctive preference of the eye for some kinds of activity, there is an indirect action of experience in attaching to certain elements and arrangements