Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/21

6 the pleasantness of the general feeling of health, dependent on a general increased vitality. This probably contains aesthetic elements in it, or makes us sensitive to favourable aesthetic conditions; but in the main it is much more general and less relevant. The aesthetic attitude is that in which we have a feeling which is so embodied in an object that it will stand still to be looked at, and, in principle, to be looked at by everybody.

This again brings with it two new points about the aesthetic experience. The mind’s attitude in it is “contemplative,” and its feeling is “organised,” becomes “plastic,” “embodied,” or “incarnate.” We might express the same thing by saying “rationalised” or “idealised”; but these terms are easily misunderstood.

i. “Contemplative” is a word often applied to the aesthetic attitude, and we shall have to criticise it below. Prima facie, it indicates a similarity and a contrast with theory and practice. All three are attitudes which a man takes up