Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/56

Rh than the recognition of the simple aesthetic value of sound and rhythm. But that does not concern us to-day. We are concerned with aesthetic value, and with that alone.

The point, for aesthetic theory, is that so far, in such a priori expression, we have no element of representation or almost none. “Almost none,” because some one might urge that a cube drawn on paper can only have its peculiar character by being taken to represent an actual solid cube of wood or stone. And that would be so with the rising mountain, if we think of it as a mountain. But that is really not necessary at this primary level. The square drawn on paper is enough, and so are the systems of lines and shapes (such as the pattern from the ceiling at Orchomenus) and the simple living in the pulsations of the dance.

We get to a point beyond this in difficulty and complexity — whatever the historical relations may be — when we get two factors to deal with instead of one. You may have a drawing on paper which