Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/58

Rh There is a tendency to bring in mere facts; to test the representation by your knowledge and to demand that it should by that test be adequate, and even to say that its aesthetic value lies in bringing these independent facts and beings completely and faithfully before you. In short, there is a vicious tendency to subordinate expression to knowledge, which means losing hold of the principle of aesthetic semblance. This is, as we saw, that for aesthetic value we need, and can use, nothing in the way of embodiment which is not an appearance moulded freely by the mind as a vehicle of aesthetic form, the soul of things, in which we live them.

The aesthetic problem at this point springs from an embarrassment of wealth. In place of a comparatively small range of simple and obvious expression, we have thrown upon our hands the whole abundance of the sensible and imaginable world as a claimant for aesthetic value. We seem forced in some way and degree to admit knowledge and fact as instruments