Late development of the science.
This slight preliminary inspection of the subject will prepare
one for the circumstance that the scientific treatment of
it has begun late, and is even now far from being complete.
This slowness of development is in part explained by the
detachment of aesthetic experience from the urgent needs of
life. In a comparatively early stage of human progress some
thought had to be bestowed on such pressing problems as to
how to cope with the forces of nature and to turn them to
useful account; how to secure in human communities obedience
to custom and law. But the problem of throwing light on our
aesthetic pleasures had no such urgency.2 To this it must
be added that aesthetic experience (in all but its simpler
and cruder forms) has been, and still is confined to a small
number of persons; so that the subject does not appeal to a
wide popular interest; while, on the other hand, the subjects
of this experience not infrequently have a strong sentimental
dislike to the idea of introducing into the region of refined
feeling the cold light of scientific investigation. Lastly,
there are special difficulties inherent in the subject. One
serious obstacle to a scientific theory of aesthetic experience
is the illusive character of many of its finer elements---for
example, the subtle differences of feeling-tone produced by
the several colours as well as by their several tones and
shades, by the several musical intervals, and so forth.
Finally, there is the circumstance just touched on that much
of this region of experience, instead of at once disclosing
uniformity, seems to be rather the abode of caprice and
uncertainty. The variations in taste at different levels of
culture, among different races and nations and among the
individual members of the same community are numerous and
striking, and might at first seem to bar the way to a scientific
treatment of the subject. These considerations suggest
that an adequate theory of aesthetic experience could only
be attempted after the requisite scientific skill had been
developed in other and more pressing departments of inquiry.
Inadequate theories of subject.
If we glance at the modes of treating the subject up to a
quite recent date we find that little of serious effort to
apply to it a strictly scientific method of investigation.
The whole extent of concrete experience has not been adequately
recognized, still less adequately examined. For the greater
part thinkers have been in haste to reach some simple
formula of beauty which might seem to cover the more obvious
facts. This has commonly been derived deductively from some
more comprehensive idea of experience or human life as a
whole. Thus in German treatises on aesthetics which have
been largely thought out under the influence of philosophic
idealism the beautiful is subsumed under the idea, of which
it is regarded as one special manifestation, and its place in
human experience has been determined by defining its logical
relations to the other great co-ordinate concepts, the good
and the true. These attempts to reach a general conception
of beauty have often led to one-sidedness of view. And this
one-sidedness has sometimes characterized the theories of those
who, like Alison, have made a wider survey of aesthetic facts.
Aesthetics as a normative science.
Aesthetics, like Ethics, is a Normative Science, that is to
say, concerned with determining the nature of a species of the
desirable or the good (in the large sense). It seeks one or
more regulative principles which may help us to distinguish a
real from an apparent aesthetic value, and to set the higher and
more perfect illustrations of beauty above the lower and less
perfect. As a science it will seek to realize its normative
function by the aid of a patient, methodical investigation
of facts, and by processes of observation, analysis and
induction similar to those carried out in the natural sciences.
Aestetics not a practical science.
In speaking of aesthetics as a normative science we do not
mean that it is a practical one in the sense that it supplies
practical rules which may serve as definite guidance for the
artist and the lover of beauty, in their particular problems
of selecting and arranging elements of aesthetic value. It
is no more a practical science than logic. The supposition
that it is so is probably favoured by the idea that aesthetic
theory has art for its special subject. But this is to confuse
a general aesthetic theory--what the Germans call ``General
Aesthetics''---with a theory of art (Kunstwissenschaft). The
former, with which we are here concerned, has to examine
aesthetic experience as a whole; which, as we shall presently
see, includes more than the enjoyment and appreciation of art.
Problems of the science.
We may now indicate with more fulness the main problems of our
science, seeking to give them as precise a form as possible.
Is beauty a single quality in objects?
At the outset we are confronted with an old and almost
baffling question: ``Is beauty a single quality inherent in
objects of perception like form or colour?'' Common language
certainly suggests that it is. Aesthetics, too, began its
inquiry at the same point of view, and its history shows how
much pains men have taken in trying to determine the nature
of this attribute, as well as that of the faculty of the soul
by which it is perceived. Yet a little examination of the
facts suffices to show that the theory is beset with serious
difficulties. Whatever beauty may be it is certainly not a
quality of an object in the same way in which the colour or
the form of it is a quality. These are physical qualities,
known to us by soecific modifications of our sensations.
Beauty not a physical quality.
The beauty of a rose or of a peach is clearly not a physical
quality. Nor do we in attributing beauty to some particular
quality in an object, say colour, conceive of it as a
phase of this quality, like depth or brilliance of colour,
which, again, is known by a special modification of the
sensations of colour. Hence we must say that beauty, though
undoubtedly referred to a physical object, is extraneous
to the group of qualities which makes it a physical object.
Beauty attributed to different qualities in objects.
Beauty is frequently attributed to a concrete object as
a whole---to a flower or shell, for example, as a visible
whole. Our everydav aesthetic judgments are wont to leave the
attributes thus vaguely referred to the concrete object. Yet
it is equally certain that we not infrequently speak of the
beauty of some definable aspect to, or quality of an object, as
when we pronounce the contour of a mountain or of a vase to be
beautiful. And it may be asked whether, in thus localizing
beauty, so to speak, in one of the constituent qualities of
an object, we always place it in the same quality. A mere
glance at the facts will suffice to convince us that we do
not. We call the facade of a Greek temple beautiful with
special reference to its admirable form; whereas in predicating
beauty of the ruin of a Norman castle we refer rather to what the
ruin means---to the effect of an imagination of its past proud
strength and slow vanquishment by the unrelenting strokes of time.
Formalists and expressionalists.
This fact that beauty appertains now more to one quality,
now more to another, helps us to understand why certain
theorists, known as formalists, regarded beauty as formal
or residing in form, whereas others, the idealists or
expressionalists, view it as residing in ideal content or
expression. These theories. however, like other attempts to
find an adequate single principle of beauty, are unsatisfactory.
Form and ideal content are each a great source of aesthetic
enjoyment, and either can be found in a degree of supremacy
which practically renders the co-operation of the other
unimportant. The two buildings cited above, two human faces,
two musical compositions, may exhibit in an impressive and
engrossing way the beauty of form and of expression respectively.
Three ultimate modes of beauty.
Nor is this all. Beauty refuses to be confined even to these
two. There are the various beauties of colour, for example,
as exhibited in such familiar phenomena of nature as sea
and sky, autumn moors and woods. A slight analysis of
the constituents of objects to which we attribute beauty
shows that there are at least three distinct modes of this
attribute, namely (1) sensuous beauty, (2) beauty of form
and (3) beauty of meaning or expression, nor do these
appear to be reducible to any higher or more comprehensive
principle. It requires a certain boldness to attempt to effect
a rapprochement between the formal and the expressional
factor.3 An apparent unification of the three seems at
present only possible by substituting for beauty another
concept at least equally vague, such as perfection,4 which
seems to imply the idea of purposiveness, and to apply clearly
only to certain domains of beauty, e.g. organic form.
Beauty and allied conceptions.
We may now take another step and say that beauty appears to be
a quality in objects which is not sharply differentiated from
other and allied qualities. If we look at the usages of speech
we shall find that beauty has its kindred conceptions, such as
gracefulness, prettiness and others. Writers on aesthetics have
spent much time on these ``Modifications of the Beautiful.'' The
point emphasized here is the difficulty of drawing the line between
them. Even an expert may hesitate long before saying whether
a human face, a flower or a cameo should be called beautiful or
pretty. Must we postulate as many allied qualities as there
are names for these pleasing aspects of objects? Or must we
do violence to usage and so stretch the word ``Beauty'' as
to make it cover all qualities or aspects of objects which
have aesthetic value, including those ``modifications of the
beautiful'' which we know as the sublime, the comic and the
rest? But the wider we try in this way to make the denotation
of the term the vaguer grows the connotation. We are thus
left equally incapable of saying what the quality is, and
in which aspect or attribute of the object it inheres.5
Assumption of objective qualityt of beauty dispensed with.
It seems to follow that in constructing a scientific theory we do
well to dispense with the assumption of an objective quality of
beauty. Aesthetics will return to Kant and confine itself to
the examination of objects called beautiful in their relation
to, and in their manner of affecting our minds.6 The aesthetic
value of such an object will be viewed as consisting in the
possession of certain assignable characteristics by means of
which it is fitted to affect us in a certain desirable way,
to draw us into the enjoyable mood of aesthetic contemplation.
Aesthetic qualities.
These characteristics may conveniently be called aesthetic
qualities.7 Objects which are found to possess one or more
of these qualities in the required degree of fulness claim a
certain aesthetic value, even though they fall short of being
``beautiful,'' in the more exacting use of this word. They
are in the direction---``im Sinne,'' as Fechner says----of
beauty, conceived as something fuller and richer, answering
to a higher standard of aesthetic enjoyment and a severer
demand on our part. The word ``beauty'' may still be used
occasionally, where no ambiguity arises, as a convenient
expression for aesthetic value in all its degrees. Yet
