AESCHINES, a celebrated Grecian orator, was born in Attica 389 years before the Christian era. According to his own account, he was of distinguished birth; according to that of Demosthenes, he was the son of a courtesan, and a humble performer in a company of comedians. But whatever was the true history of his birth and early life, his services as a soldier and his talents, which were considerable, procured him great applause; and, as a public speaker, he became a formidable rival to Demosthenes himself. The two orators, inspired probably with mutual jealousy and animosity, became at last the strenuous leaders of opposing parties. Aeschines had almost from the first advocated peace with Philip of Macedon, and having been sent on several embassies to negotiate with the king, had been treated with much respect. He was, in consequence, accused by Demosthenes of having received money as a bribe when he was employed on one of these embassies. He indirectly retaliated by bringing an accusation against Ctesiphon, the friend of Demosthenes, for having moved a decree, contrary to the laws, to confer on Demosthenes a golden crown as a mark of public approbation. A numerous assembly of judges and citizens met to hear and decide the question. Each orator employed all his powers of eloquence; but Demosthenes, with superior talents, and with more justice on his side, was victorious; whereupon Aeschines went into exile. According to Plutarch, the resentment of Demosthenes was now softened into generous kindness: for when Aeschines was going into banishment, he requested him to accept of a sum of money; which made him exclaim, “How do I regret leaving a country where I have found an enemy so generous, that I must despair of ever meeting with a friend who shall be like him!” But this story seems more than doubtful. Aeschines, after staying some years in Asia Minor, opened a school of eloquence at Rhodes. He is said to have commenced his lectures by reading to his audience the two orations which had been the cause of his banishment. His own oration received great praise, but that of Demosthenes was heard with boundless applause. In so trying a moment, when vanity must be supposed to have been deeply wounded, he is reported to have said, with a noble generosity of sentiment, “What would you have thought if you had heard him thunder out the words himself !” Aeschines afterwards removed to Samos, where he died in the 75 th year of his age. Three only of his orations are extant. His eloquence is of a very high order, and as an orator he is second only to Demosthenes.

And thus he lives among posterity, celebrated more as a patriot than as a poet; as if to witness to all times that the great world of books, with all its power, is but a small thing unless it be the reflection of a greater world of action. Of the seventy plays which an old biographer reports him to have composed, only seven remain, with a few fragments of little significance save to the keen eye of the professed philologist. These fragments, however, are sufficient to justify the high esteem in which he was held by the Athenian public, and by that greatest of all the great wits of a witty age and a witty people, Aristophanes. In the grand trilogy which exhibits, in three consecutive tragedies, the story of the murder of Agamemnon, and its moral sequences, we have a perfect specimen of what the Greek tragedy was to the Greeks, as at once a complex artistic machinery for the exhibition of national legend, and a grave pulpit for the preaching of important moral truths; nor could a more worthy founder than Aeschylus of such a “sacred opera” be imagined. His imagination dwells habitually in the loftiest region of the stem old religious mythology of primeval Greece; his moral tone is pure, his character earnest and manly, and his strictly dramatic power (notwithstanding the very imperfect form of the drama in his day), as exhibited more especially in the Agamemnon, in the Eumenides, and in some parts of the Prometheus, is such as none of his famous successors, least of all Euripides, could surpass. Of his other plays, the Seven against Thebes is a drama, as Aristophanes expressed it, “full of war,” and breathes in every line the spirit of the age and of the people that saved Europe from the grasp of oriental despotism; the Persians, though weak in some parts, contains sortie fine choral poetry, and a description of the battle of Salamis, that will belong to the poetry of the world so long as the world lasts; while the Suppliants presents much in a tasteful translation that makes us lament the loss of the missing piece of the trilogy to which it belonged, no less than the blundering of the thoughtless copyists of the middle ages, by whose pen it has been so egregiously defaced. For in ancient times the flowing rhetorical Euripides was found a more useful model for the schools of eloquence than the lofty, stern, and sometimes harsh, and occasionally it may be obscure, Aeschylus: therefore the text of the latter has been comparatively neglected, and much work was left for the tasteful philologist before many parts of his noblest choruses could be rendered legible. Of the editions of Aeschylus, the most notable in the earlier times of modern scholarship is that of Stanley; in more recent times, that of Schütz, who undertook the work of restoration with much learning and great boldness. The impulse given by this scholar was moderated by Wellauer, who, in his edition, along with some happy emendations, principally endeavoured to vindicate the authority of the manuscript readings from tho large license of conjectural critics; and now from the remains of the great Hermann has been published a text that should present the just medium between the timidity of Wellauer and the rashness of mere conjectural criticism, though it is much to be feared that the learned German has been not seldom led astray by the itch of emendation, which is the old besetting sin of critical scholarship. Of English poetical translations there are the old one by Potter, and recent ones by Blackie, Plumptre, and Swan wick. There is also a translation in literal prose by Buckley.

In Thor, who seems to have been a god of that earlier Phoenician form of nature-worship which was superseded in Scandinavia and Northern Germany by the faith of Odin, we have the impersonation of the disturbing and destructive agencies in the universe. He is the son of heaven and earth—of Odin, the All-father, and of Frigg or Fiörgvin, the vivifying—and is the strongest of the Aesir. From his hammer flashed the lightning, and his chariot wheels sent thunder rolling through the clouds as he went on his way, cleaving mountains, loosening the pent-up streams and fires, and slaying all giants and misshapen monsters. Ever busily engaged in these labours, he seldom tarried in Asgard with the other Aesir, but dwelt in his mansion, Bilskirnir, in the densest gloom of the clouds. With his mallet he consecrated the newly-wedded, and hence the sign of the mallet or hammer was made by the Northmen when they took an oath and bound themselves by vows, whether of marriage or any other obligation. The early Christian missionaries of Norway, finding the faith in Thor too strong to be suddenly uprooted, tried to transfer many of his characteristics to their zealous royal convert, St Olaf, who was said to have resembled the old northern god in his comeliness of person, his bright red beard, hot, angry temper, and personal strength; while some of the monks of a later period endeavoured to persuade the Northmen that in Thor their forefathers had worshipped the Christ, the strong and mighty Saviour of the oppressed, and that his mallet was the rude image of the cross. Slaves and all thralls killed in battle were believed to be under the protection of Thor, who, as god of the Finns before the spread of the As religion, was honoured as their special guardian against the tyranny of their new masters.

In Baldur the Northmen honoured all that was beautiful, eloquent, wise, and good, and he was the spirit of activity, joy, and fight; but his name signifies the strong in mind, and the earliest conception of Baldur is that of mental rather than physical or material perfection. His wife, Nanna, reflected these attributes in a less degree. On his life depended the activity and happiness of all the Aesir, excepting only Loki, the earthly fire or incarnation of evil, and hence this As, from envy of the beauty and innocence of Baldur, brought about his death, and hindered his release from the power of Hel, the goddess of death.

According to the myth, the Aesir, distressed at Baldur’s presenti∙ ment of his own approaching end, joined his mother, Frigg, in exacting an oath from animals, plants, and minerals, not to injure him. The mistletoe alone among plants had been forgotten, and when this was discovered by Loki he pulled a wand of it, and hastening to the assembly of the Aesir, where all were engaged in the sport of shooting at Baldur, as he was supposed to be invulnerable, he gave it to Höd, the blind god of brute strength, and directed him how to aim it. The mistletoe pierced Baldur through, and he fell dead to the ground in the presence of the Aesir, who, foreseeing the evil that would befall them, since light and purity had been taken from them, gave way to sorrow and fear. When all their efforts to release Baldur from Hel had been thwarted by the machinations cf Loki, they resolved to avenge themselves. Having captured their foe, they confined him within a mountaincave, and hung above his head a venomous snake, to drop its poison on his face; but his wife, Sigyn, stood by him, and caught the drops in a cup, and ft was only while she emptied the goblet that the venom touched him, when he shrank aside, and caused the earth to bc shaken as with an earthquake. There Loki will remain till Ragnaröck, the twilight of the world, when the Aesir, the earth. and all dwellers therein, will be destroyed by the powers of evil, the rescuers and companions of Loki. Only Odin, the All-father, will survive, and gather around him on Ida’s plain, where Asgard had once stood, the Aesir, regenerate and purified by Surt’s black fire, and then a new and better world will arise, in which Baldur will again come with his unconscious slayer, Hod, and all evil will cease, and light and darkness will dwell together in unity.

Under one form of the myth of Baldur’s death he is the bright god of day or summer, and Höd, the blind and the strong, is dark night or fiercely-raging winter, his preordained foe and destroyer. After that final purification by suffering or fire, and the regeneration to which the Northmen looked as the means of the ultimate adjustment of the disturbed balance between evil and good, and from which they did not exempt their gods, the influence of good was to prevail. Baldur would reappear, and Loki, the consuming power of evil, be no more heard of.

Loki, in the beginning of time, under the name of Lodthur, flame, and as the foster-brother of the All-father, had united with him in imparting blessings to the universe, and had given blood and a fair colour to Ask and Embla, from which the first men were created. Afterwards he left the council of the Aesir, and like a fallen angel wandered away into regions of space, desolating and consuming all things that came in contact with his fierce flame. Descending into the bowels of the earth, where his presence is made manifest by volcanic fires, he consorted with evil giantesses, by whom he became the father of Hel, pallid death; of Augurboda, the announcer of sorrow; and of the wolf Fenrir, and the serpent of Midgard, which are ever threatening the destruction of the world and the peace of the Aesir.

Loki can assume all fonns. As sensuality he courses through the veins of men, and as heat and fire he pervades nature, causing death and destruction. After the introduction of Christianity, the attributes and mystic deeds of Loki were transferred to Satan by the people of Scandinavia, amongst whose descendants his name still retains its evil reputation. In Iceland an ignis fatuus is known as Loki’s burning; and in Jutland, when there is a dazzling light or a waving motion in the air which impedes the sight of distant objects, the peasants say, “Loki is sowing his oats.” Niörd, supposed to be the Nerthus known to the Romans, and his children Frey or Fricco and Freyia, appear to have been honoured in the north before the time of Odin, and to have been worshipped by peoples powerful enough to have been admitted into friendly alliance with his followers. Niörd is said to have lived in Vanaheim, and to have ruled over the Vanir, or light elves, long before he became one of the Aesir. He is god of the ocean, the ruler of winds and stiller of waves, and to him the seafarer and fisherman raise altars and make prayers. His attributes and powers seem to point to the existence of a superior knowledge of navigation among those ancient races of Scandinavia who have been idealised in the imagination of the Northmen as good, bright, and agile elves and water-sprites—the Lios Alfar— or Vanir of their mythology. Niörd’s son Frey is the god of rain, plenty, and fruitfulness; and his worship, according to the early northern chronicler, Adam of Bremen, was accompanied with phallic rites. His sister and wife, Freyia, who holds a high place among the Aesir, is the goddess of love; but her influence, unlike her husband’s, is not always beneficent, and varies with the form which she assumes in operating on the minds of men. Her chariot is drawn by cats, as emblematic of fondness and passion, and a hog attends upon her and upon Frey, whose name, like her own, implies fructification or enjoyment.

The Swedes paid especial honour to Frey, while the Norwegians worshipped Thor (who was in all respects his opposite) as their chief As. The latter must also have received divine honours amongst the Germans, as his name is included in the form of objurgation used by the early Saxon missionaries; but this fact and the German name of the fifth day of the week—Donners-tag, the Thunderer’s day—are the only evidences still extant of the early worship of Thor in Germany.

By their alliance with Niörd and his children the Aesir secured fertility to the earth and mankind, and the intervention of mild gentle agencies in nature to counteract the destructive influence of Thor’s power.

In Tŷ or Tŷr we have the Mars of the Northmen. It is he who gives victory, and although he is as wise as he is brave, it is he who stirs men to strife, and not to peace. His name, which signifies honour, is found in the names of the days of the week in O. Nor., Dan., A.-S., and in our own “Tuesday;” and shows that, like Thor and Frey or Freyia, whose memory is perpetuated in our Thursday and Friday, the worship of this bravest of the Aesir was widely spread among peoples of Northern origin.

In Bragi the Northmen honoured the originator of their Skaldic poetry, the god of eloquence and wise utterances. At guilds and at grave-feasts the Bragi-cup was drunk; and at the funeral of kings or jarls the heir was not permitted to take his father’s seat till the “Bragarfull” was brought in, when, rising to receive it, he drank the contents of the cup, and was led to the high seat of honour. At guild feasts the Bragi-cup was signed with Thor’s mallet, and was drunk after the company had drained Odin’s cup for victory, and Niörd’s and Frey’s cup for a bountiful year.

The peculiarity of Bragi’s cup was that, on drinking it, a vow —held to be inviolable—was made to perform some deed worthy of a skald’s song. Bragi’s wife, Idun, as the guardian of the casket which contained apples that gave to those who ate them perpetual youth, was specially cherished by the other Aesir. In her abduction by the giant Thiassi, and her removal to the nether world through Loki’s craft, her mute grief, and her release in the spring, we have an analogy with the myth of Proserpine; and like her she presides over fresh verdure.

Heimdal, whose attribute is the rainbow, is the god of watchfulness, the doorkeeper of the Aesir; while Vidar, the strongest of the gods after Thor, is the impersonation of silence and caution; Ull decides the issue of single combats, and Farsetti settles all quarrels.

In the goddesses Lofn and Vör lovers find protectors; the former unites the faithful, the latter punishes the faithless. Gefion, to whom the Danes owe the formation of the island Seeland, watches over maidens, and knows the decrees of fate. Hlin guards those whom Frigg, the queen and mother of heaven, is desirous of freeing from peril; Frigg herself, as Odin’s wife and the mother of the Aesir, knows the destinies of men, but is silent in regard to them. As goddess of the earth, she is known as Frygga, the fertile summer earth, and Rinda the frost-hardened surface, and is attended by Fulla, the full, Fir, the young goddess of healing, and many other goddesses.

Saga, whose name is derived from Segja, to narrate, is the goddess of history and narration. Odin and she pledge each other daily in golden cups filled from the copious ever-flowing streams of her abode, Sockquαbek (from Sökk, abyss, in allusion to the abundant streams of narrative). Snοtra is the goddess of sagacity and elegance, from whom men and women seek good sense and refinement of manners. The Norns and the Valkyriur, if not actually goddesses, are closely connected with the Aesir. The three principal Norns or Nornir are Urd, past time; Verdandi, present time; and Skulld, future time. They and the Valkyriur, who are known under many names, twist and spin the threads of destiny, and make known what has been decreed from the beginning of time.

From this brief outline it may be seen that in their Aesir the Northmen recognised the creators, sustainers, and regulators of the world as it now is, from whom emanated the thought and life that pervade and animate all nature, and the efforts to subject it to the spiritual will. With Odin and the Aesir the intellectual life of the northern people began; and although they ascribed to them human forms and acts, these were seldom without something higher and nobler than what pertains to mortals; and while they recognised the existence of a state of chaos and darkness before this world began with the creation of the Aesir, they anticipated the advent of another state, in which gods, like men, would receive their award at the hands of a supreme All-father. (e. c. o.)

῞A π αv θ ' ὅ μοια, καὶ ' P οδωπιs η κaλή

The obscurity in which the history of Aesop is involved has induced some to deny his existence altogether; and Giambattista Vico, in his Scienza Nuova, chooses rather to consider him as an abstraction, an excess of scepticism which is quite unreasonable. Whether Aesop left any written fables has been more justly disputed, and Bentley inclines to the negative. Thus Aristophanes (Vespoe, V. 1259) represents Philocleon as learning his fables in conversation, and not from a book; and Socrates essayed to versify such as he remembered (Plat. Phoed. p. 61). Others, again, are of opinion that a collection had been made of them before the time of Socrates lfMus. Crit. i. 408). It is, however, certain that fables bearing Aesop’s name were popular at Athens during the most brilliant period of its literary history; though the discrepancies of authors in quoting the same fables seem in favour of Bentley’s hypothesis. (Compare Aristot. De Part. Anim.

iii. 2; and Lucian, Nigr. 32). The original fables were in prose, and were turned into verse by several writers; the first, after the example of Socrates, being Demetrius Phalereus. Next appeared an edition in elegiac verse, often cited by Suidas, but the author’s name is unknown; then Babrius, an excellent Greek poet, turned them into choliambics (i.e. limping iambics); but of ten books, a few fables only are preserved entire. Of the Latin writers of Aesopean fables, Phaedrus is the most celebrated. “Aesopus auctor quam materiam reperit, Hanc ego polivi versibus senariis." Phaed.

The fables now extant in prose under Aesop’s name are entirely spurious, as is proved by Bentley in his Dissertation on the Fables of Aesop, and have been assigned an oriental origin. The identification of Aesop with the Arabian philosopher and fabulist Lokman (who is made by some traditions the contemporary of the psalmist David) has frequently been attempted; and the Persian accounts of Lokman, which among other things describe him as an ugly black slave, appear to have been blended by the author of the Life, published by Planudes, with the classical stories respecting Aesop. The similarity of the fables ascribed to each renders it probable that they were derived from the same Indo-Persian source, or from the Chinese, who appear to have possessed such fables in very remote antiquity. A complete collection of the Aesopean fables, 231 in number, was published at Breslau by J. G. Schneider in 1810.

AESTHETICS is the term now employed to designate the theory of the Fine Arts—the science of the Beautiful, with its allied conceptions and emotions. The province of the science is not, however, very definitely fixed, and there is still some ambiguity about the meaning of the term, arising from its etymology and various use. The word aesthetic, in its original Greek form (αὶσθητικόs ), means anything that has to do with perception by the senses, and this wider connotation was retained by Kant, who, under the title Transcendental Aesthetic, treats of the a priori principles of all sensuous knowledge-The limitation of the term to the comparatively narrow class of sensations and perceptions occupied with the Beautiful and its allied properties is due to the Germans, and primarily to Baumgarten, who started from the supposition that, just as truth is the end and perfection of pure knowledge or the understanding, and good that of the will, so beauty must be the supreme aim of all sensuous knowledge. Yet, spite of these sources of vagueness in the subject and its name, some considerable part of the theory can be looked upon as pretty clearly defined, and it may be possible, by means of careful reflection on this ascertainable quantity, to indicate, roughly at least, the extent and boundaries of a complete system of aesthetic doctrine.

A very brief survey of what has been written under the name aesthetics is sufficient to show that it includes, as its first and foremost problem, the determination of the nature and laws of Beauty, including along with the Beautiful, in its narrower signification, its kindred subjects, the Sublime and the Ludicrous. To discover what it is in things which makes them beautiful or ugly, sublime or ludicrous, is one constant factor in the aesthetic problem. Intimately connected with this objective question is the subjective and psychological inquiry into the nature of the feelings and ideas that have beauty for their object. Further, it will be found that all attempts to construct a complete aesthetic theory aim at determining the highest ends of the Fine Arts (which obviously concern themselves largely, if not exclusively, with the Beautiful), and at marking out the distinctions and tracing the dependencies of natural and artistic beauty. All this part of the field of aesthetic inquiry seems fairly agreed on, and it is only when we approach other sides of the Fine Arts that the precise scope of the science appears obscure. But while there is this measure of agreement as to the proper subject matter of aesthetics, we find two diametrically opposed methods of approaching it, which distinctly colour all parts of the doctrine arrived at, and impose different limitations to the boundaries of the subject. The first is the metaphysical or a priori method; the second the scientific or empirical method. The one reasons deductively from ultra-scientific conceptions respecting the ultimate nature of the universe and human intelligence, and seeks to explain the phenomena of beauty and art by help of these. The other proceeds inductively from the consideration of these phenomena, as facts capable of being compared, classified, and brought under certain uniformities. At the same time, it must not be supposed that either method is customarily pursued in complete independence of the other. The most subtle exponent of transcendentalism in art appeals to generalisations drawn from the facts of art; nor have the professedly scientific critics often abstained from introducing conceptions and hypotheses of a metaphysical character.

(A.) Metaphysical Problems.

Metaphysical speculation in aesthetics centres about the objective nature of beauty, and arises somewhat in the following manner :—The appreciation of the Beautiful is a mode of perception. In estimating a beautiful landscape or a beautiful statue, the mind perceives the beauty as a property of the object. It is, moreover, a single property; the name beautiful always denoting the same essential thing, whatever this may be. Now we find that it is not a simple property of matter known through one particular class of sensations, as colour; and the question arises, what it really is in itself, whether inherent in and inseparable from matter, or something superior to it, and if so, how revealed through it. The directions of this inquiry have been almost as numerous as the systems of metaphysical thought. On the supposition of a real substance matter, independent of all intelligence, human or divine, writers have attempted to discover the essential principle which beautifies it. It has been universally considered by metaphysicians that matter in itself is devoid of beauty, if not positively ugly, and the only question arises as to the extraneous principle which imparts beauty to it. This has been conceived either as a simple force distinct from matter, yet setting it in motion, vivifying it, and reducing it to forms, as by Lévêque; or as a divine being, whose volition directly invests material objects with all their beautiful aspects, as by Reid; or, lastly, as self-existent forms or ideas superinduced upon matter, which are in truth the beauty of objects, as by Plato and his modern followers.

In the prevailing German systems of aesthetics, which are based on an ontological idealism, the independent existence of matter has been denied. These writers conceive an absolute Thought or Idea as the ultimate reality, of which matter and consciousness are but the two sides. Matter is conceived as the negative or limiting principle in the action or self-movement of the Absolute. The problem of objective beauty becomes on this hypothesis the determination of the particular mode in which the Beautiful is a manifestation of the supreme thought; for the Good and the True are equally revelations of the Unconditioned, and it is necessary to mark off beauty from these. Various definitions of the Beautiful, based on this mode of conception, may be found in the systems of Hegel, Weisse, and the Hegelians. The second great problem in the metaphysics of aesthetics is to co-ordinate the species of the aesthetic genus, namely, the Beautiful (in its narrow sense), the Ugly, the Sublime, and the Ridiculous. This has been undertaken by the Hegelians, and their attempts to construct what they call the dialectics of aesthetics are among the most curious products of metaphysical thought. It being assumed that there is some one ontological process running through every manifestation of the aesthetic Idea, these writers have sought to determine how each of the subaltern notions is related to this process. The last problem in the scheme of metaphysical aesthetics relates to the nature and functions of Art, looked at on one side as a reproduction in altered form of the beauty of Nature, and, on the other, as the conscious product of aesthetic intuition in the human mind. First of all, the arts are appreciated and classified according to the several modes in which they body forth the Idea to our minds. Secondly, since the Absolute may be spoken of as revealing itself to human intelligence, so human intelligence may be looked on as groping through long ages after the Absolute, and thus the historical evolution of art finds its place in a complete metaphysic of aesthetics. In concluding this preliminary sketch of the metaphysical systems, it should be added that they can be adequately estimated and criticised only in connection with the whole systems of thought of which they are organic parts. Within the scope of a purely scientific criticism it is only possible to point out any inconsistencies in the application of these ideas to beauty and art, and to show how much or how little they effect, as hypothetical instruments, in helping us more clearly to understand the phenomena.

(B.) Scientific Problems.

In the scientific discussion of aesthetic subjects, the antithesis of subject and object in human cognition is accepted as a phenomenal distinction, without any inquiry into its ontological meaning. Inquirers no longer discuss the essence of beauty, looked on as a transcendental conception above all experience, but seek to determine in what the Beautiful, as a series of phenomena, clearly and visibly consists. Aesthetic speculation becomes, accordingly, more purely psychological. First of all, the unity of beauty is questioned. It is asked whether all objects which appear beautiful are so because of some one ultimate property, or combination of properties, running through all examples of beauty, or whether they are so called simply because they produce some common pleasurable feeling in the mind. This is a question of induction from facts and consequent definition, lying at the very threshold of aesthetic science. It has been most vigorously disputed by British writers on the subject, and many of them have decided in favour of the plurality and diversity of elements in beauty. Again, it has been asked in which category of our experience, objective or subjective, beauty originates. By some it has been referred to an objective source, whether to sensation, as a direct result of physiological action, as by Burke, or to something distinctly perceived by means of sensation, as a certain relation of unity, symmetry, &c., among the parts of an object, its colours, forms, and so on, as probably by Aristotle, Diderot, Hogarth, and most writers. By others the source of beauty has been sought in the inner life of the mind itself, in certain ideas and emotions which have become reflected on external objects by association. This is the doctrine of Alison. A third class recognise both of these sources, attributing the effects of beauty partly to the pleasurable effects of external stimulation, partly to the activities of perception, and partly to multitudinous associations of ideas and feelings from past experience. This class includes Dugald Stewart, Professor Bain, and Mr Herbert Spencer. A third question in the general scientific theory of beauty which is closely related to the last and largely determined by it, is the precise nature of the mental faculty or activity concerned in the perception and appreciation of the Beautiful. This, too, has been widely discussed by English writers,—answers to the other two questions frequently appearing as the necessary implications of the solution of this one. By those who affirm that beauty is a simple property or conjunction of properties in external objects, the subjective perception of this property has been regarded either as a unique faculty (the internal sense), or as the rational principle acting in a certain way. By the school of Alison, who find the source of beauty in a certain flow of ideas suggested by an object, the perception of the same, as a property of the object, would be explained as the result of inseparable association, producing a kind of momentary delusion. And this same effect of association, in producing an apparent intuition of one simple property, would be made use of by those later writers who resolve the nature of beauty into both objective and subjective elements. It is noticeable, too, that while some writers have treated the appreciation of beauty as purely intellectual, others have confined themselves to the emotional element of pleasure. With respect to the Ludicrous and the Sublime, as distinguished from the Beautiful, there seems to have been a tacit agreement that both of these are unique and single properties, whether originally in the object of sense, or reflected on it from the mind; and various theories have been suggested in explanation of the characteristic effects of these properties on human sensibility and thought.

What strikes one most, perhaps, in these discussions is the vagueness due to the great diversity of conception as to the real extent of the Beautiful—the number of objects it may be supposed to denote. While one class of writers appears to limit the term to the highest and most refined examples of beauty in nature and art, others have looked on it as properly including the lower and more vulgarly recognised instances. There is certainly a great want of definiteness as to the legitimate scope of aesthetic theory. It will be seen, too, how closely this point bears on the question of the relativity of aesthetic impressions, whether there is any form of beauty which pleases universally and necessarily, as Kant affirms. The true method of resolving this difficulty would appear to be to look on aesthetic impressions more as a growth, rising, with the advance of intellectual culture, from the crude enjoyments of sensation to the more refined and subtle delights of the cultivated mind. The problem of the universal and necessary would then resolve itself into an inquiry into a general tendency. It would be asked what kinds of objects, and what elements of sensation, idea, and emotion, tend to become conspicuous in aesthetic pleasures, in proportion as the mind advances in general emotional and intellectual culture. Another defect in nearly all the theories of the Beautiful that have been proposed, refers to the precise relation of the intellectual element in the aesthetic impression. In opposing the narrow view, that the appreciation of beauty is a purely intellectual act, a cold intuition of reason, writers have fallen sometimes into another narrowness, in resolving the whole of the effect into emotional elements, or certain species of pleasure. Unless beauty is, as Hutcheson affirmed, a simple property of objects like colour, the perception of it as objective, which all must allow to be a mental fact, can only be explained by means of certain intellectual activities, by force of which the pleasurable effects come to be referred to such a seemingly simple property. The solution of this point would doubtless be found in a more complete discussion of the perceptive or discriminative and assimilative activities of the intellect which are invariably called into play by complex objects, and which correspond to the attributes of proportion, unity in variety, &c., on which so much stress has been laid by the intui-tivists. Not only so, but any theory of aesthetic operations must be incomplete which does not give prominence to those more subtle and exalted intellectual activities that are involved in the imaginative side of aesthetic appreciation, as in detecting the curious half-hidden implications which make up the essence of a refined humour, in constructing those vague yet impressive ideas which enter into our intuition of sublimity and infinity, and even in appreciating such seemingly simple qualities as purity of colour and tone, or the perfectly graduated blending of two adjacent colours. Such activities of the mind constitute, among other things, the symbolic aspect of the Beautiful, and give, as Mr Mill suggests, a basis of truth to such seemingly fanciful notions respecting the meaning of beautiful qualities as one finds in the works of Mr Ruskin.

But comparatively little has been done in a purely scientific manner to determine the nature and functions of Art so as to fix the relations of the different arts to simple or natural beauty. Aristotle supplied a few valuable doctrines, which have been rendered still more precise by Lessing and others. Yet there seems even now no consensus of opinion as to the precise aims of art, how far it has simply to reproduce and constructively vary the beauties of nature, or how far to seek modes of pleasurable effect wider than those supplied by natural objects. A theory of art at all comparable in scientific precision to existing theories of morals has yet to be constructed. The few attempts to establish a basis for art of a non-metaphysical kind are characterised by great one-sidedness. Thus, for example, the theory that the function of art is to imitate nature, has been broached again and again with scarcely any reference to music, merely, as it seems, out of an impatience for some one defining property. Without attempting to sketch a complete doctrine of art, a suggestion may be offered as to the right direction of inquiry. First of all, then, the widest possible generalisations on the various emotional susceptibilities to which art can appeal must be collected, from a study both of mental phenomena as a whole, and of all varieties of pleasurable feeling actually ministered by the several forms of art. This would fix the end of the fine arts in the widest sense, marking it off from the ends of utility and morality. Secondly, the highest aims of art, or the ideal of art, would have to be determined by a consideration of the laws of compatibility and incompatibility among these various orders of gratification, the requirements of quantity, variety, and harmony, in any lofty aesthetic impression, and the relative value of the sensational, intellectual, and emotional elements in aesthetic effect. This part of the subject would include the discussion of the value and universal necessity of the real and the ideal in art, truth to nature and imaginative transformation. These conclusions would require verification by means of the widest and most accurate study of the development of the arts, in which could be traced the gradual tentative progress of the artistic mind towards the highest achievements of art, as well as the permanent superiority of all those forms of art which most clearly embody this tendency. This part of the theory of art would clearly connect itself with the problem of the general law or tendency in aesthetic development already referred to. The proper determination of these two ideas, the whole range of possible aesthetic delight, and the direction of the highest, purest, and most permanent delight of cultivated minds, would at once dispose of many narrow conceptions of art, by recognising the need of the widest possible diversity and grades of artistic value, if only as experiments requisite to the discovery of its highest function. At the same time the meaning and limits of the universal and necessary in art would be defined, and the unsuggestive and dreary conflicts between an unbending absolutism and a lawless individualism shown to be irrelevant. The validity of canons of art, and their limitations, would in this manner be fixed, and the impatient exaltation of certain schools and directions of taste reduced to a modest assertion of a purely relative truth. The aims of art as a whole being thus determined, the next thing would be to define and classify the individual arts of painting, music, poetry, &c., according to their respective powers of embodying these aims. This would require a careful consideration of the material or medium of expression employed by each art, and the limitations imposed by it as to the mode of representation. The determination of this part of aesthetic theory, which Lessing commenced, would require not only technical but considerable psychological knowledge. Similarly, any conclusion arrived at on this subject would need to be verified by a reference to the history of the arts, as exemplifying both the successes of a right conception of the scope and possibilities of the particular art, and the failures resulting from a mistaken conception. Many other points, such as the nature of genius, the function and bounds of criticism, the relation of aesthetic culture to intellectual, moral, and social progress, would be included in a complete scheme of art doctrine.

(C.) History of Systems.

In the following brief account of the most important contributions to aesthetic doctrine, only such writings will be recognised as aim at some general conception of Art and the Beautiful. Much that passes in current literature for aesthetic speculation, namely, a certain thoughtful way of criticising special works of art, is simply the application of recognised principles to new cases. Sometimes, however, in the hands of a philosophic critic the mere appreciation of a single poem or the works of a particular artist may become a luminous discussion of some general principle, and this method of constructing aesthetic theory from the criticism of a single work or series of works was rendered very productive by Lessing.

I. Greek Speculations.— Ancient Greece supplies us with the first speculations on the Beautiful and the aims of the fine arts. Nor is it surprising that among a people so productive of noble artistic creations, and at the same time so speculative, numerous attempts to theorise on these subjects should have been made. We have in classic writings many allusions to works of an aesthetic character now lost, such as a series on poetry, harmony, and even painting, by Democritus. It is to be gathered, too, from Plato’s Dialogues that the Sophists made the principles of beauty a special department in their teaching. The first Greek thinker, however, whose views on these subjects are at all known is Socrates. Accepting Xenophon’s account of his views in the Memorabilia and the Symposion, we find that he regarded the Beautiful as coincident with the Good, and both of them as resolvable into the Useful. Every beautiful object is so called because it serves some rational end, whether the security or gratification of man. It looks as though Socrates rather disparaged the immediate gratification which a beautiful object affords to perception and contemplation, and emphasised rather its power of furthering the more necessary ends of life. Thus he said that pictures and other purposeless works of art, when used to adorn a house, hindered rather than furthered enjoyment, because of the space they took from useful objects. This mode of estimating the value of beauty is, however, no necessary consequence of the theory that the whole nature of beauty is to minister pleasure. It arises from undue attention to mere material comfort as a condition of happiness. The really valuable point which Socrates distinctly brought to light is the relativity of beauty. Unlike his illustrious disciple, he recognised no self-beauty (αύτό τό καλόν) existing absolutely and out of all relation to a percipient mind.

Of the precise views of Plato on this subject, even if they were really formed, it is very difficult to gain a just conception from the Dialogues. In some of these, called by Mr Grote the Dialogues of Research, as the Hippias Major, he ventures on no dogmatic theory of Beauty, and several definitions of the Beautiful proposed are rejected as inadequate by the Platonic Socrates. At the same time we may conclude that Plato’s mind leaned decidedly to a theory of an absolute Beauty, this, indeed, being but one side of his remarkable scheme of Ideas or self-existing Forms. In the Symposion he describes how love (Eros) produces aspiration towards the pure idea of beauty. It is only this absolute beauty, he tells us, which deserves the name of beauty; and this is beautiful in every manner, and the ground of beauty in all things. It is nothing discoverable as an attribute in another thing, whether living being, earth, or heaven; for these are only beautiful things, not the Beautiful itself. It is the eternal and perfect existence contrasted with the oscillations between existence and nonexistence in the phenomenal world. In the Phaedrus, again, he treats the soul’s intuition of the self-beautiful as a reminiscence of its prae-natal existence, undefiled by union with the body. With respect to the precise forms in which the idea of beauty reveals itself, Plato is very undecided. Of course his theory of an absolute Beauty is incompatible with the notion of its ministering simply a variety of sensuous pleasure, to which he appears to lean in the Gorgias and even the Hippias Major. Further, his peculiar system of ideas naturally led him to confuse the self-beautiful with other general conceptions of the true and the good, and so arose the Platonic formula καλοκάγαθὶα, expressive of the intimate union of the two principles. So far as his writings embody the notion of any distinguishing element in beautiful objects, it is proportion, harmony, or unity among the parts of an object. The superior beauty of proportion is taught in the Philebus, and in the Phaedon it is applied to virtue. As a closely-related view, we see him emphasising unity in its simplest aspect of evenness and purity, the need of variety being overlooked. Thus in the Philebus he states his preference for regular and mathematical forms, as the straight line and the circle. So he selected among colours pure white, among tones the pure and equal, and among impressions of touch the smooth. At the same time the Dialogues evince many other tentative distinctions in the Beautiful, as, for example, the recognition in the Politics of two opposed classes of beautiful things, those characterised by force and velocity, and those by a certain slowness and softness; which points to a contrast between the stimulative and the restful in sensation, since enlarged upon by English psychologists. Elsewhere he descants on the beauty of the mind, and seems to think, in the Republic, that the highest beauty of proportion is seen in the union of a beautiful mind with a beautiful body. In spite of his lofty theory of the origin and nature of beauty, Plato seems to have imperfectly appreciated the worth of art as an independent end in human life and culture. He found the end of art in imitation (μὶμησις), but estimated the creative activity of art as a clever knack, little higher in intellectual value than the tricks of a juggler. He tended to regard the effects of art as devoid of all serious value, and as promoting indolence and the supremacy of the sensual elements of human nature. (See the Sophistes, Gorgias, and Republic.) Accordingly, in his scheme for an ideal republic, he provided for the most inexorable censorship on poets, &c., so as to make art as far as possible a mere instrument of moral and political training. As to particular arts, Plato appears to have allowed a certain ethical value to music, in combination with dance and song, if of a certain character, as expressing either the worthy and manly, or the quiet and orderly. With respect to poetry, his views, as expressed in the Republic and elsewhere, were very uncertain. Thus at times he condemns tragedy and comedy in toto; at other times he admits the claims of a lofty dramatic poetry. He seems not to have fully considered the aims and influences of painting and sculpture, which he constantly disparages.

A loftier conception of the aims of poetry was afforded by the strictures of Aristophanes in the Frogs and elsewhere. But the one Greek who, as far as we know, fully appreciated and clearly set forth the ends of the fine arts, considered, independently of ethical and political aims, as the vehicles to the mind of the ideas and delights of beauty, was Aristotle. Unlike Plato, he proceeded less metaphysically and more scientifically to investigate the phenomena of beauty by a careful analysis of the principles of art. In his treatises on poetry and rhetoric, he gives us, along with a theory of these arts, certain principles of beauty in general; and scattered among his other writings we find many valuable suggestions on the same subject. First of all, Aristotle ignores all conceptions of an absolute Beauty, and at the same time seeks to distinguish the Beautiful from the Good. Thus, although in the more popular exposition, the Rhetoric, he somewhat incorrectly makes praiseworthiness a distinguishing mark of the Beautiful, regarded as a species of the Agreeable or Desirable, he seeks in the Metaphysics to distinguish the Good and the Beautiful thus: the Good is always in action (έv πράξει)∙, the Beautiful, however, may exist in motionless things as well (έv ακίνητοις). Elsewhere he distinctly teaches that the Good and the Beautiful are different (έτερ ov ), although the Good, under certain conditions, can be called beautiful. He thus looked on the two spheres as co-ordinate species, having a certain area in common. It should be noticed that the habit of the Greek mind, in estimating the value of moral nobleness and elevation of character by their power of gratifying and impressing a spectator, gave rise to a certain ambiguity in the meaning of to καλόν, which accounts for the prominence the Greek thinkers gave to the connection between the Beautiful and the Good or morally Worthy, Aristotle further distinguished the Beautiful from the Fit, and in a passage of the Politics set Beauty above the Useful and Necessary. Another characteristic of the Beautiful fixed by this thinker in the Rhetoric is the absence of all lust or desire in the pleasure it bestows. This is an important point, as suggesting the disinterested and unmonopolising side of aesthetic pleasure. The universal elements of beauty, again, Aristotle finds in the Metaphysics to be order (ταξός), symmetry, and definiteness or determinateness (τό ωρισμέ vov). In the Poetics he adds another essential, namely, a certain magnitude, it being desirable, for a synoptic and single view of the parts, that the object, whether a natural body or a work of art, should not be too large, while clearness of perception requires that it should not be too small. At the same time he seems to think that, provided the whole be visible as such, the greater magnitude of an object is itself an element of beauty. This is probably to be understood by help of a passage in the Politics, which lays down the need of a number of beautiful parts or aspects in a highly beautiful object, as the human body. With respect to art, Aristotle’s views are an immense advance on those of Plato. He distinctly recognised, in the Politics and elsewhere, that its aim is simply to give immediate pleasure, and so it does not need to seek the useful like the mechanical arts. The essence of art, considered as an activity, Aristotle found in imitation, which, unlike Plato, he

AESTHETICS is the term now employed to designate the theory of the Fine Arts—the science of the Beautiful, with its allied conceptions and emotions. The province of the science is not, however, very definitely fixed, and there is still some ambiguity about the meaning of the term, arising from its etymology and various use. The word aesthetic, in its original Greek form (αὶσθητικόs ), means anything that has to do with perception by the senses, and this wider connotation was retained by Kant, who, under the title Transcendental Aesthetic, treats of the a priori principles of all sensuous knowledge-The limitation of the term to the comparatively narrow class of sensations and perceptions occupied with the Beautiful and its allied properties is due to the Germans, and primarily to Baumgarten, who started from the supposition that, just as truth is the end and perfection of pure knowledge or the understanding, and good that of the will, so beauty must be the supreme aim of all sensuous knowledge. Yet, spite of these sources of vagueness in the subject and its name, some considerable part of the theory can be looked upon as pretty clearly defined, and it may be possible, by means of careful reflection on this ascertainable quantity, to indicate, roughly at least, the extent and boundaries of a complete system of aesthetic doctrine.

A very brief survey of what has been written under the name aesthetics is sufficient to show that it includes, as its first and foremost problem, the determination of the nature and laws of Beauty, including along with the Beautiful, in its narrower signification, its kindred subjects, the Sublime and the Ludicrous. To discover what it is in things which makes them beautiful or ugly, sublime or ludicrous, is one constant factor in the aesthetic problem. Intimately connected with this objective question is the subjective and psychological inquiry into the nature of the feelings and ideas that have beauty for their object. Further, it will be found that all attempts to construct a complete aesthetic theory aim at determining the highest ends of the Fine Arts (which obviously concern themselves largely, if not exclusively, with the Beautiful), and at marking out the distinctions and tracing the dependencies of natural and artistic beauty. All this part of the field of aesthetic inquiry seems fairly agreed on, and it is only when we approach other sides of the Fine Arts that the precise scope of the science appears obscure. But while there is this measure of agreement as to the proper subject matter of aesthetics, we find two diametrically opposed methods of approaching it, which distinctly colour all parts of the doctrine arrived at, and impose different limitations to the boundaries of the subject. The first is the metaphysical or a priori method; the second the scientific or empirical method. The one reasons deductively from ultra-scientific conceptions respecting the ultimate nature of the universe and human intelligence, and seeks to explain the phenomena of beauty and art by help of these. The other proceeds inductively from the consideration of these phenomena, as facts capable of being compared, classified, and brought under certain uniformities. At the same time, it must not be supposed that either method is customarily pursued in complete independence of the other. The most subtle exponent of transcendentalism in art appeals to generalisations drawn from the facts of art; nor have the professedly scientific critics often abstained from introducing conceptions and hypotheses of a metaphysical character.

(A.) Metaphysical Problems.

Metaphysical speculation in aesthetics centres about the objective nature of beauty, and arises somewhat in the following manner :—The appreciation of the Beautiful is a mode of perception. In estimating a beautiful landscape or a beautiful statue, the mind perceives the beauty as a property of the object. It is, moreover, a single property; the name beautiful always denoting the same essential thing, whatever this may be. Now we find that it is not a simple property of matter known through one particular class of sensations, as colour; and the question arises, what it really is in itself, whether inherent in and inseparable from matter, or something superior to it, and if so, how revealed through it. The directions of this inquiry have been almost as numerous as the systems of metaphysical thought. On the supposition of a real substance matter, independent of all intelligence, human or divine, writers have attempted to discover the essential principle which beautifies it. It has been universally considered by metaphysicians that matter in itself is devoid of beauty, if not positively ugly, and the only question arises as to the extraneous principle which imparts beauty to it. This has been conceived either as a simple force distinct from matter, yet setting it in motion, vivifying it, and reducing it to forms, as by Lévêque; or as a divine being, whose volition directly invests material objects with all their beautiful aspects, as by Reid; or, lastly, as self-existent forms or ideas superinduced upon matter, which are in truth the beauty of objects, as by Plato and his modern followers.

In the prevailing German systems of aesthetics, which are based on an ontological idealism, the independent existence of matter has been denied. These writers conceive an absolute Thought or Idea as the ultimate reality, of which matter and consciousness are but the two sides. Matter is conceived as the negative or limiting principle in the action or self-movement of the Absolute. The problem of objective beauty becomes on this hypothesis the determination of the particular mode in which the Beautiful is a manifestation of the supreme thought; for the Good and the True are equally revelations of the Unconditioned, and it is necessary to mark off beauty from these. Various definitions of the Beautiful, based on this mode of conception, may be found in the systems of Hegel, Weisse, and the Hegelians. The second great problem in the metaphysics of aesthetics is to co-ordinate the species of the aesthetic genus, namely, the Beautiful (in its narrow sense), the Ugly, the Sublime, and the Ridiculous. This has been undertaken by the Hegelians, and their attempts to construct what they call the dialectics of aesthetics are among the most curious products of metaphysical thought. It being assumed that there is some one ontological process running through every manifestation of the aesthetic Idea, these writers have sought to determine how each of the subaltern notions is related to this process. The last problem in the scheme of metaphysical aesthetics relates to the nature and functions of Art, looked at on one side as a reproduction in altered form of the beauty of Nature, and, on the other, as the conscious product of aesthetic intuition in the human mind. First of all, the arts are appreciated and classified according to the several modes in which they body forth the Idea to our minds. Secondly, since the Absolute may be spoken of as revealing itself to human intelligence, so human intelligence may be looked on as groping through long ages after the Absolute, and thus the historical evolution of art finds its place in a complete metaphysic of aesthetics. In concluding this preliminary sketch of the metaphysical systems, it should be added that they can be adequately estimated and criticised only in connection with the whole systems of thought of which they are organic parts. Within the scope of a purely scientific criticism it is only possible to point out any inconsistencies in the application of these ideas to beauty and art, and to show how much or how little they effect, as hypothetical instruments, in helping us more clearly to understand the phenomena.

(B.) Scientific Problems.

In the scientific discussion of aesthetic subjects, the antithesis of subject and object in human cognition is accepted as a phenomenal distinction, without any inquiry into its ontological meaning. Inquirers no longer discuss the essence of beauty, looked on as a transcendental conception above all experience, but seek to determine in what the Beautiful, as a series of phenomena, clearly and visibly consists. Aesthetic speculation becomes, accordingly, more purely psychological. First of all, the unity of beauty is questioned. It is asked whether all objects which appear beautiful are so because of some one ultimate property, or combination of properties, running through all examples of beauty, or whether they are so called simply because they produce some common pleasurable feeling in the mind. This is a question of induction from facts and consequent definition, lying at the very threshold of aesthetic science. It has been most vigorously disputed by British writers on the subject, and many of them have decided in favour of the plurality and diversity of elements in beauty. Again, it has been asked in which category of our experience, objective or subjective, beauty originates. By some it has been referred to an objective source, whether to sensation, as a direct result of physiological action, as by Burke, or to something distinctly perceived by means of sensation, as a certain relation of unity, symmetry, &c., among the parts of an object, its colours, forms, and so on, as probably by Aristotle, Diderot, Hogarth, and most writers. By others the source of beauty has been sought in the inner life of the mind itself, in certain ideas and emotions which have become reflected on external objects by association. This is the doctrine of Alison. A third class recognise both of these sources, attributing the effects of beauty partly to the pleasurable effects of external stimulation, partly to the activities of perception, and partly to multitudinous associations of ideas and feelings from past experience. This class includes Dugald Stewart, Professor Bain, and Mr Herbert Spencer. A third question in the general scientific theory of beauty which is closely related to the last and largely determined by it, is the precise nature of the mental faculty or activity concerned in the perception and appreciation of the Beautiful. This, too, has been widely discussed by English writers,—answers to the other two questions frequently appearing as the necessary implications of the solution of this one. By those who affirm that beauty is a simple property or conjunction of properties in external objects, the subjective perception of this property has been regarded either as a unique faculty (the internal sense), or as the rational principle acting in a certain way. By the school of Alison, who find the source of beauty in a certain flow of ideas suggested by an object, the perception of the same, as a property of the object, would be explained as the result of inseparable association, producing a kind of momentary delusion. And this same effect of association, in producing an apparent intuition of one simple property, would be made use of by those later writers who resolve the nature of beauty into both objective and subjective elements. It is noticeable, too, that while some writers have treated the appreciation of beauty as purely intellectual, others have confined themselves to the emotional element of pleasure. With respect to the Ludicrous and the Sublime, as distinguished from the Beautiful, there seems to have been a tacit agreement that both of these are unique and single properties, whether originally in the object of sense, or reflected on it from the mind; and various theories have been suggested in explanation of the characteristic effects of these properties on human sensibility and thought.

What strikes one most, perhaps, in these discussions is the vagueness due to the great diversity of conception as to the real extent of the Beautiful—the number of objects it may be supposed to denote. While one class of writers appears to limit the term to the highest and most refined examples of beauty in nature and art, others have looked on it as properly including the lower and more vulgarly recognised instances. There is certainly a great want of definiteness as to the legitimate scope of aesthetic theory. It will be seen, too, how closely this point bears on the question of the relativity of aesthetic impressions, whether there is any form of beauty which pleases universally and necessarily, as Kant affirms. The true method of resolving this difficulty would appear to be to look on aesthetic impressions more as a growth, rising, with the advance of intellectual culture, from the crude enjoyments of sensation to the more refined and subtle delights of the cultivated mind. The problem of the universal and necessary would then resolve itself into an inquiry into a general tendency. It would be asked what kinds of objects, and what elements of sensation, idea, and emotion, tend to become conspicuous in aesthetic pleasures, in proportion as the mind advances in general emotional and intellectual culture. Another defect in nearly all the theories of the Beautiful that have been proposed, refers to the precise relation of the intellectual element in the aesthetic impression. In opposing the narrow view, that the appreciation of beauty is a purely intellectual act, a cold intuition of reason, writers have fallen sometimes into another narrowness, in resolving the whole of the effect into emotional elements, or certain species of pleasure. Unless beauty is, as Hutcheson affirmed, a simple property of objects like colour, the perception of it as objective, which all must allow to be a mental fact, can only be explained by means of certain intellectual activities, by force of which the pleasurable effects come to be referred to such a seemingly simple property. The solution of this point would doubtless be found in a more complete discussion of the perceptive or discriminative and assimilative activities of the intellect which are invariably called into play by complex objects, and which correspond to the attributes of proportion, unity in variety, &c., on which so much stress has been laid by the intui-tivists. Not only so, but any theory of aesthetic operations must be incomplete which does not give prominence to those more subtle and exalted intellectual activities that are involved in the imaginative side of aesthetic appreciation, as in detecting the curious half-hidden implications which make up the essence of a refined humour, in constructing those vague yet impressive ideas which enter into our intuition of sublimity and infinity, and even in appreciating such seemingly simple qualities as purity of colour and tone, or the perfectly graduated blending of two adjacent colours. Such activities of the mind constitute, among other things, the symbolic aspect of the Beautiful, and give, as Mr Mill suggests, a basis of truth to such seemingly fanciful notions respecting the meaning of beautiful qualities as one finds in the works of Mr Ruskin.

But comparatively little has been done in a purely scientific manner to determine the nature and functions of Art so as to fix the relations of the different arts to simple or natural beauty. Aristotle supplied a few valuable doctrines, which have been rendered still more precise by Lessing and others. Yet there seems even now no consensus of opinion as to the precise aims of art, how far it has simply to reproduce and constructively vary the beauties of nature, or how far to seek modes of pleasurable effect wider than those supplied by natural objects. A theory of art at all comparable in scientific precision to existing theories of morals has yet to be constructed. The few attempts to establish a basis for art of a non-metaphysical kind are characterised by great one-sidedness. Thus, for example, the theory that the function of art is to imitate nature, has been broached again and again with scarcely any reference to music, merely, as it seems, out of an impatience for some one defining property. Without attempting to sketch a complete doctrine of art, a suggestion may be offered as to the right direction of inquiry. First of all, then, the widest possible generalisations on the various emotional susceptibilities to which art can appeal must be collected, from a study both of mental phenomena as a whole, and of all varieties of pleasurable feeling actually ministered by the several forms of art. This would fix the end of the fine arts in the widest sense, marking it off from the ends of utility and morality. Secondly, the highest aims of art, or the ideal of art, would have to be determined by a consideration of the laws of compatibility and incompatibility among these various orders of gratification, the requirements of quantity, variety, and harmony, in any lofty aesthetic impression, and the relative value of the sensational, intellectual, and emotional elements in aesthetic effect. This part of the subject would include the discussion of the value and universal necessity of the real and the ideal in art, truth to nature and imaginative transformation. These conclusions would require verification by means of the widest and most accurate study of the development of the arts, in which could be traced the gradual tentative progress of the artistic mind towards the highest achievements of art, as well as the permanent superiority of all those forms of art which most clearly embody this tendency. This part of the theory of art would clearly connect itself with the problem of the general law or tendency in aesthetic development already referred to. The proper determination of these two ideas, the whole range of possible aesthetic delight, and the direction of the highest, purest, and most permanent delight of cultivated minds, would at once dispose of many narrow conceptions of art, by recognising the need of the widest possible diversity and grades of artistic value, if only as experiments requisite to the discovery of its highest function. At the same time the meaning and limits of the universal and necessary in art would be defined, and the unsuggestive and dreary conflicts between an unbending absolutism and a lawless individualism shown to be irrelevant. The validity of canons of art, and their limitations, would in this manner be fixed, and the impatient exaltation of certain schools and directions of taste reduced to a modest assertion of a purely relative truth. The aims of art as a whole being thus determined, the next thing would be to define and classify the individual arts of painting, music, poetry, &c., according to their respective powers of embodying these aims. This would require a careful consideration of the material or medium of expression employed by each art, and the limitations imposed by it as to the mode of representation. The determination of this part of aesthetic theory, which Lessing commenced, would require not only technical but considerable psychological knowledge. Similarly, any conclusion arrived at on this subject would need to be verified by a reference to the history of the arts, as exemplifying both the successes of a right conception of the scope and possibilities of the particular art, and the failures resulting from a mistaken conception. Many other points, such as the nature of genius, the function and bounds of criticism, the relation of aesthetic culture to intellectual, moral, and social progress, would be included in a complete scheme of art doctrine.

(C.) History of Systems.

In the following brief account of the most important contributions to aesthetic doctrine, only such writings will be recognised as aim at some general conception of Art and the Beautiful. Much that passes in current literature for aesthetic speculation, namely, a certain thoughtful way of criticising special works of art, is simply the application of recognised principles to new cases. Sometimes, however, in the hands of a philosophic critic the mere appreciation of a single poem or the works of a particular artist may become a luminous discussion of some general principle, and this method of constructing aesthetic theory from the criticism of a single work or series of works was rendered very productive by Lessing.

I. Greek Speculations.— Ancient Greece supplies us with the first speculations on the Beautiful and the aims of the fine arts. Nor is it surprising that among a people so productive of noble artistic creations, and at the same time so speculative, numerous attempts to theorise on these subjects should have been made. We have in classic writings many allusions to works of an aesthetic character now lost, such as a series on poetry, harmony, and even painting, by Democritus. It is to be gathered, too, from Plato’s Dialogues that the Sophists made the principles of beauty a special department in their teaching. The first Greek thinker, however, whose views on these subjects are at all known is Socrates. Accepting Xenophon’s account of his views in the Memorabilia and the Symposion, we find that he regarded the Beautiful as coincident with the Good, and both of them as resolvable into the Useful. Every beautiful object is so called because it serves some rational end, whether the security or gratification of man. It looks as though Socrates rather disparaged the immediate gratification which a beautiful object affords to perception and contemplation, and emphasised rather its power of furthering the more necessary ends of life. Thus he said that pictures and other purposeless works of art, when used to adorn a house, hindered rather than furthered enjoyment, because of the space they took from useful objects. This mode of estimating the value of beauty is, however, no necessary consequence of the theory that the whole nature of beauty is to minister pleasure. It arises from undue attention to mere material comfort as a condition of happiness. The really valuable point which Socrates distinctly brought to light is the relativity of beauty. Unlike his illustrious disciple, he recognised no self-beauty (αύτό τό καλόν) existing absolutely and out of all relation to a percipient mind.

Of the precise views of Plato on this subject, even if they were really formed, it is very difficult to gain a just conception from the Dialogues. In some of these, called by Mr Grote the Dialogues of Research, as the Hippias Major, he ventures on no dogmatic theory of Beauty, and several definitions of the Beautiful proposed are rejected as inadequate by the Platonic Socrates. At the same time we may conclude that Plato’s mind leaned decidedly to a theory of an absolute Beauty, this, indeed, being but one side of his remarkable scheme of Ideas or self-existing Forms. In the Symposion he describes how love (Eros) produces aspiration towards the pure idea of beauty. It is only this absolute beauty, he tells us, which deserves the name of beauty; and this is beautiful in every manner, and the ground of beauty in all things. It is nothing discoverable as an attribute in another thing, whether living being, earth, or heaven; for these are only beautiful things, not the Beautiful itself. It is the eternal and perfect existence contrasted with the oscillations between existence and nonexistence in the phenomenal world. In the Phaedrus, again, he treats the soul’s intuition of the self-beautiful as a reminiscence of its prae-natal existence, undefiled by union with the body. With respect to the precise forms in which the idea of beauty reveals itself, Plato is very undecided. Of course his theory of an absolute Beauty is incompatible with the notion of its ministering simply a variety of sensuous pleasure, to which he appears to lean in the Gorgias and even the Hippias Major. Further, his peculiar system of ideas naturally led him to confuse the self-beautiful with other general conceptions of the true and the good, and so arose the Platonic formula καλοκάγαθὶα, expressive of the intimate union of the two principles. So far as his writings embody the notion of any distinguishing element in beautiful objects, it is proportion, harmony, or unity among the parts of an object. The superior beauty of proportion is taught in the Philebus, and in the Phaedon it is applied to virtue. As a closely-related view, we see him emphasising unity in its simplest aspect of evenness and purity, the need of variety being overlooked. Thus in the Philebus he states his preference for regular and mathematical forms, as the straight line and the circle. So he selected among colours pure white, among tones the pure and equal, and among impressions of touch the smooth. At the same time the Dialogues evince many other tentative distinctions in the Beautiful, as, for example, the recognition in the Politics of two opposed classes of beautiful things, those characterised by force and velocity, and those by a certain slowness and softness; which points to a contrast between the stimulative and the restful in sensation, since enlarged upon by English psychologists. Elsewhere he descants on the beauty of the mind, and seems to think, in the Republic, that the highest beauty of proportion is seen in the union of a beautiful mind with a beautiful body. In spite of his lofty theory of the origin and nature of beauty, Plato seems to have imperfectly appreciated the worth of art as an independent end in human life and culture. He found the end of art in imitation (μὶμησις), but estimated the creative activity of art as a clever knack, little higher in intellectual value than the tricks of a juggler. He tended to regard the effects of art as devoid of all serious value, and as promoting indolence and the supremacy of the sensual elements of human nature. (See the Sophistes, Gorgias, and Republic.) Accordingly, in his scheme for an ideal republic, he provided for the most inexorable censorship on poets, &c., so as to make art as far as possible a mere instrument of moral and political training. As to particular arts, Plato appears to have allowed a certain ethical value to music, in combination with dance and song, if of a certain character, as expressing either the worthy and manly, or the quiet and orderly. With respect to poetry, his views, as expressed in the Republic and elsewhere, were very uncertain. Thus at times he condemns tragedy and comedy in toto; at other times he admits the claims of a lofty dramatic poetry. He seems not to have fully considered the aims and influences of painting and sculpture, which he constantly disparages.

A loftier conception of the aims of poetry was afforded by the strictures of Aristophanes in the Frogs and elsewhere. But the one Greek who, as far as we know, fully appreciated and clearly set forth the ends of the fine arts, considered, independently of ethical and political aims, as the vehicles to the mind of the ideas and delights of beauty, was Aristotle. Unlike Plato, he proceeded less metaphysically and more scientifically to investigate the phenomena of beauty by a careful analysis of the principles of art. In his treatises on poetry and rhetoric, he gives us, along with a theory of these arts, certain principles of beauty in general; and scattered among his other writings we find many valuable suggestions on the same subject. First of all, Aristotle ignores all conceptions of an absolute Beauty, and at the same time seeks to distinguish the Beautiful from the Good. Thus, although in the more popular exposition, the Rhetoric, he somewhat incorrectly makes praiseworthiness a distinguishing mark of the Beautiful, regarded as a species of the Agreeable or Desirable, he seeks in the Metaphysics to distinguish the Good and the Beautiful thus: the Good is always in action (έv πράξει)∙, the Beautiful, however, may exist in motionless things as well (έv ακίνητοις). Elsewhere he distinctly teaches that the Good and the Beautiful are different (έτερ ov ), although the Good, under certain conditions, can be called beautiful. He thus looked on the two spheres as co-ordinate species, having a certain area in common. It should be noticed that the habit of the Greek mind, in estimating the value of moral nobleness and elevation of character by their power of gratifying and impressing a spectator, gave rise to a certain ambiguity in the meaning of to καλόν, which accounts for the prominence the Greek thinkers gave to the connection between the Beautiful and the Good or morally Worthy, Aristotle further distinguished the Beautiful from the Fit, and in a passage of the Politics set Beauty above the Useful and Necessary. Another characteristic of the Beautiful fixed by this thinker in the Rhetoric is the absence of all lust or desire in the pleasure it bestows. This is an important point, as suggesting the disinterested and unmonopolising side of aesthetic pleasure. The universal elements of beauty, again, Aristotle finds in the Metaphysics to be order (ταξός), symmetry, and definiteness or determinateness (τό ωρισμέ vov). In the Poetics he adds another essential, namely, a certain magnitude, it being desirable, for a synoptic and single view of the parts, that the object, whether a natural body or a work of art, should not be too large, while clearness of perception requires that it should not be too small. At the same time he seems to think that, provided the whole be visible as such, the greater magnitude of an object is itself an element of beauty. This is probably to be understood by help of a passage in the Politics, which lays down the need of a number of beautiful parts or aspects in a highly beautiful object, as the human body. With respect to art, Aristotle’s views are an immense advance on those of Plato. He distinctly recognised, in the Politics and elsewhere, that its aim is simply to give immediate pleasure, and so it does not need to seek the useful like the mechanical arts. The essence of art, considered as an activity, Aristotle found in imitation, which, unlike Plato, he

A very brief survey of what has been written under the name aesthetics is sufficient to show that it includes, as its first and foremost problem, the determination of the nature and laws of Beauty, including along with the Beautiful, in its narrower signification, its kindred subjects, the Sublime and the Ludicrous. To discover what it is in things which makes them beautiful or ugly, sublime or ludicrous, is one constant factor in the aesthetic problem. Intimately connected with this objective question is the subjective and psychological inquiry into the nature of the feelings and ideas that have beauty for their object. Further, it will be found that all attempts to construct a complete aesthetic theory aim at determining the highest ends of the Fine Arts (which obviously concern themselves largely, if not exclusively, with the Beautiful), and at marking out the distinctions and tracing the dependencies of natural and artistic beauty. All this part of the field of aesthetic inquiry seems fairly agreed on, and it is only when we approach other sides of the Fine Arts that the precise scope of the science appears obscure. But while there is this measure of agreement as to the proper subject matter of aesthetics, we find two diametrically opposed methods of approaching it, which distinctly colour all parts of the doctrine arrived at, and impose different limitations to the boundaries of the subject. The first is the metaphysical or a priori method; the second the scientific or empirical method. The one reasons deductively from ultra-scientific conceptions respecting the ultimate nature of the universe and human intelligence, and seeks to explain the phenomena of beauty and art by help of these. The other proceeds inductively from the consideration of these phenomena, as facts capable of being compared, classified, and brought under certain uniformities. At the same time, it must not be supposed that either method is customarily pursued in complete independence of the other. The most subtle exponent of transcendentalism in art appeals to generalisations drawn from the facts of art; nor have the professedly scientific critics often abstained from introducing conceptions and hypotheses of a metaphysical character.

(A.) Metaphysical Problems.

Metaphysical speculation in aesthetics centres about the objective nature of beauty, and arises somewhat in the following manner :—The appreciation of the Beautiful is a mode of perception. In estimating a beautiful landscape or a beautiful statue, the mind perceives the beauty as a property of the object. It is, moreover, a single property; the name beautiful always denoting the same essential thing, whatever this may be. Now we find that it is not a simple property of matter known through one particular class of sensations, as colour; and the question arises, what it really is in itself, whether inherent in and inseparable from matter, or something superior to it, and if so, how revealed through it. The directions of this inquiry have been almost as numerous as the systems of metaphysical thought. On the supposition of a real substance matter, independent of all intelligence, human or divine, writers have attempted to discover the essential principle which beautifies it. It has been universally considered by metaphysicians that matter in itself is devoid of beauty, if not positively ugly, and the only question arises as to the extraneous principle which imparts beauty to it. This has been conceived either as a simple force distinct from matter, yet setting it in motion, vivifying it, and reducing it to forms, as by Lévêque; or as a divine being, whose volition directly invests material objects with all their beautiful aspects, as by Reid; or, lastly, as self-existent forms or ideas superinduced upon matter, which are in truth the beauty of objects, as by Plato and his modern followers.

In the prevailing German systems of aesthetics, which are based on an ontological idealism, the independent existence of matter has been denied. These writers conceive an absolute Thought or Idea as the ultimate reality, of which matter and consciousness are but the two sides. Matter is conceived as the negative or limiting principle in the action or self-movement of the Absolute. The problem of objective beauty becomes on this hypothesis the determination of the particular mode in which the Beautiful is a manifestation of the supreme thought; for the Good and the True are equally revelations of the Unconditioned, and it is necessary to mark off beauty from these. Various definitions of the Beautiful, based on this mode of conception, may be found in the systems of Hegel, Weisse, and the Hegelians. The second great problem in the metaphysics of aesthetics is to co-ordinate the species of the aesthetic genus, namely, the Beautiful (in its narrow sense), the Ugly, the Sublime, and the Ridiculous. This has been undertaken by the Hegelians, and their attempts to construct what they call the dialectics of aesthetics are among the most curious products of metaphysical thought. It being assumed that there is some one ontological process running through every manifestation of the aesthetic Idea, these writers have sought to determine how each of the subaltern notions is related to this process. The last problem in the scheme of metaphysical aesthetics relates to the nature and functions of Art, looked at on one side as a reproduction in altered form of the beauty of Nature, and, on the other, as the conscious product of aesthetic intuition in the human mind. First of all, the arts are appreciated and classified according to the several modes in which they body forth the Idea to our minds. Secondly, since the Absolute may be spoken of as revealing itself to human intelligence, so human intelligence may be looked on as groping through long ages after the Absolute, and thus the historical evolution of art finds its place in a complete metaphysic of aesthetics. In concluding this preliminary sketch of the metaphysical systems, it should be added that they can be adequately estimated and criticised only in connection with the whole systems of thought of which they are organic parts. Within the scope of a purely scientific criticism it is only possible to point out any inconsistencies in the application of these ideas to beauty and art, and to show how much or how little they effect, as hypothetical instruments, in helping us more clearly to understand the phenomena.

(B.) Scientific Problems.

In the scientific discussion of aesthetic subjects, the antithesis of subject and object in human cognition is accepted as a phenomenal distinction, without any inquiry into its ontological meaning. Inquirers no longer discuss the essence of beauty, looked on as a transcendental conception above all experience, but seek to determine in what the Beautiful, as a series of phenomena, clearly and visibly consists. Aesthetic speculation becomes, accordingly, more purely psychological. First of all, the unity of beauty is questioned. It is asked whether all objects which appear beautiful are so because of some one ultimate property, or combination of properties, running through all examples of beauty, or whether they are so called simply because they produce some common pleasurable feeling in the mind. This is a question of induction from facts and consequent definition, lying at the very threshold of aesthetic science. It has been most vigorously disputed by British writers on the subject, and many of them have decided in favour of the plurality and diversity of elements in beauty. Again, it has been asked in which category of our experience, objective or subjective, beauty originates. By some it has been referred to an objective source, whether to sensation, as a direct result of physiological action, as by Burke, or to something distinctly perceived by means of sensation, as a certain relation of unity, symmetry, &c., among the parts of an object, its colours, forms, and so on, as probably by Aristotle, Diderot, Hogarth, and most writers. By others the source of beauty has been sought in the inner life of the mind itself, in certain ideas and emotions which have become reflected on external objects by association. This is the doctrine of Alison. A third class recognise both of these sources, attributing the effects of beauty partly to the pleasurable effects of external stimulation, partly to the activities of perception, and partly to multitudinous associations of ideas and feelings from past experience. This class includes Dugald Stewart, Professor Bain, and Mr Herbert Spencer. A third question in the general scientific theory of beauty which is closely related to the last and largely determined by it, is the precise nature of the mental faculty or activity concerned in the perception and appreciation of the Beautiful. This, too, has been widely discussed by English writers,—answers to the other two questions frequently appearing as the necessary implications of the solution of this one. By those who affirm that beauty is a simple property or conjunction of properties in external objects, the subjective perception of this property has been regarded either as a unique faculty (the internal sense), or as the rational principle acting in a certain way. By the school of Alison, who find the source of beauty in a certain flow of ideas suggested by an object, the perception of the same, as a property of the object, would be explained as the result of inseparable association, producing a kind of momentary delusion. And this same effect of association, in producing an apparent intuition of one simple property, would be made use of by those later writers who resolve the nature of beauty into both objective and subjective elements. It is noticeable, too, that while some writers have treated the appreciation of beauty as purely intellectual, others have confined themselves to the emotional element of pleasure. With respect to the Ludicrous and the Sublime, as distinguished from the Beautiful, there seems to have been a tacit agreement that both of these are unique and single properties, whether originally in the object of sense, or reflected on it from the mind; and various theories have been suggested in explanation of the characteristic effects of these properties on human sensibility and thought.

What strikes one most, perhaps, in these discussions is the vagueness due to the great diversity of conception as to the real extent of the Beautiful—the number of objects it may be supposed to denote. While one class of writers appears to limit the term to the highest and most refined examples of beauty in nature and art, others have looked on it as properly including the lower and more vulgarly recognised instances. There is certainly a great want of definiteness as to the legitimate scope of aesthetic theory. It will be seen, too, how closely this point bears on the question of the relativity of aesthetic impressions, whether there is any form of beauty which pleases universally and necessarily, as Kant affirms. The true method of resolving this difficulty would appear to be to look on aesthetic impressions more as a growth, rising, with the advance of intellectual culture, from the crude enjoyments of sensation to the more refined and subtle delights of the cultivated mind. The problem of the universal and necessary would then resolve itself into an inquiry into a general tendency. It would be asked what kinds of objects, and what elements of sensation, idea, and emotion, tend to become conspicuous in aesthetic pleasures, in proportion as the mind advances in general emotional and intellectual culture. Another defect in nearly all the theories of the Beautiful that have been proposed, refers to the precise relation of the intellectual element in the aesthetic impression. In opposing the narrow view, that the appreciation of beauty is a purely intellectual act, a cold intuition of reason, writers have fallen sometimes into another narrowness, in resolving the whole of the effect into emotional elements, or certain species of pleasure. Unless beauty is, as Hutcheson affirmed, a simple property of objects like colour, the perception of it as objective, which all must allow to be a mental fact, can only be explained by means of certain intellectual activities, by force of which the pleasurable effects come to be referred to such a seemingly simple property. The solution of this point would doubtless be found in a more complete discussion of the perceptive or discriminative and assimilative activities of the intellect which are invariably called into play by complex objects, and which correspond to the attributes of proportion, unity in variety, &c., on which so much stress has been laid by the intui-tivists. Not only so, but any theory of aesthetic operations must be incomplete which does not give prominence to those more subtle and exalted intellectual activities that are involved in the imaginative side of aesthetic appreciation, as in detecting the curious half-hidden implications which make up the essence of a refined humour, in constructing those vague yet impressive ideas which enter into our intuition of sublimity and infinity, and even in appreciating such seemingly simple qualities as purity of colour and tone, or the perfectly graduated blending of two adjacent colours. Such activities of the mind constitute, among other things, the symbolic aspect of the Beautiful, and give, as Mr Mill suggests, a basis of truth to such seemingly fanciful notions respecting the meaning of beautiful qualities as one finds in the works of Mr Ruskin.

But comparatively little has been done in a purely scientific manner to determine the nature and functions of Art so as to fix the relations of the different arts to simple or natural beauty. Aristotle supplied a few valuable doctrines, which have been rendered still more precise by Lessing and others. Yet there seems even now no consensus of opinion as to the precise aims of art, how far it has simply to reproduce and constructively vary the beauties of nature, or how far to seek modes of pleasurable effect wider than those supplied by natural objects. A theory of art at all comparable in scientific precision to existing theories of morals has yet to be constructed. The few attempts to establish a basis for art of a non-metaphysical kind are characterised by great one-sidedness. Thus, for example, the theory that the function of art is to imitate nature, has been broached again and again with scarcely any reference to music, merely, as it seems, out of an impatience for some one defining property. Without attempting to sketch a complete doctrine of art, a suggestion may be offered as to the right direction of inquiry. First of all, then, the widest possible generalisations on the various emotional susceptibilities to which art can appeal must be collected, from a study both of mental phenomena as a whole, and of all varieties of pleasurable feeling actually ministered by the several forms of art. This would fix the end of the fine arts in the widest sense, marking it off from the ends of utility and morality. Secondly, the highest aims of art, or the ideal of art, would have to be determined by a consideration of the laws of compatibility and incompatibility among these various orders of gratification, the requirements of quantity, variety, and harmony, in any lofty aesthetic impression, and the relative value of the sensational, intellectual, and emotional elements in aesthetic effect. This part of the subject would include the discussion of the value and universal necessity of the real and the ideal in art, truth to nature and imaginative transformation. These conclusions would require verification by means of the widest and most accurate study of the development of the arts, in which could be traced the gradual tentative progress of the artistic mind towards the highest achievements of art, as well as the permanent superiority of all those forms of art which most clearly embody this tendency. This part of the theory of art would clearly connect itself with the problem of the general law or tendency in aesthetic development already referred to. The proper determination of these two ideas, the whole range of possible aesthetic delight, and the direction of the highest, purest, and most permanent delight of cultivated minds, would at once dispose of many narrow conceptions of art, by recognising the need of the widest possible diversity and grades of artistic value, if only as experiments requisite to the discovery of its highest function. At the same time the meaning and limits of the universal and necessary in art would be defined, and the unsuggestive and dreary conflicts between an unbending absolutism and a lawless individualism shown to be irrelevant. The validity of canons of art, and their limitations, would in this manner be fixed, and the impatient exaltation of certain schools and directions of taste reduced to a modest assertion of a purely relative truth. The aims of art as a whole being thus determined, the next thing would be to define and classify the individual arts of painting, music, poetry, &c., according to their respective powers of embodying these aims. This would require a careful consideration of the material or medium of expression employed by each art, and the limitations imposed by it as to the mode of representation. The determination of this part of aesthetic theory, which Lessing commenced, would require not only technical but considerable psychological knowledge. Similarly, any conclusion arrived at on this subject would need to be verified by a reference to the history of the arts, as exemplifying both the successes of a right conception of the scope and possibilities of the particular art, and the failures resulting from a mistaken conception. Many other points, such as the nature of genius, the function and bounds of criticism, the relation of aesthetic culture to intellectual, moral, and social progress, would be included in a complete scheme of art doctrine.

(C.) History of Systems.

In the following brief account of the most important contributions to aesthetic doctrine, only such writings will be recognised as aim at some general conception of Art and the Beautiful. Much that passes in current literature for aesthetic speculation, namely, a certain thoughtful way of criticising special works of art, is simply the application of recognised principles to new cases. Sometimes, however, in the hands of a philosophic critic the mere appreciation of a single poem or the works of a particular artist may become a luminous discussion of some general principle, and this method of constructing aesthetic theory from the criticism of a single work or series of works was rendered very productive by Lessing.

I. Greek Speculations.— Ancient Greece supplies us with the first speculations on the Beautiful and the aims of the fine arts. Nor is it surprising that among a people so productive of noble artistic creations, and at the same time so speculative, numerous attempts to theorise on these subjects should have been made. We have in classic writings many allusions to works of an aesthetic character now lost, such as a series on poetry, harmony, and even painting, by Democritus. It is to be gathered, too, from Plato’s Dialogues that the Sophists made the principles of beauty a special department in their teaching. The first Greek thinker, however, whose views on these subjects are at all known is Socrates. Accepting Xenophon’s account of his views in the Memorabilia and the Symposion, we find that he regarded the Beautiful as coincident with the Good, and both of them as resolvable into the Useful. Every beautiful object is so called because it serves some rational end, whether the security or gratification of man. It looks as though Socrates rather disparaged the immediate gratification which a beautiful object affords to perception and contemplation, and emphasised rather its power of furthering the more necessary ends of life. Thus he said that...