it is better to keep the term applicable to the objects
commonly denoted by it by making it represent the fuller
aesthetic satisfactions which flow from a rare and commanding
exhibition of one or more of these qualities, from what may be
described as an appreciable excellence of aesthetic quality.
By thus dispensing with the concept of beauty as some
occult undefinable quality, we get rid of much of the
contradiction which appears to inhere in our aesthetic
experience. For example, a bit of brilliant colour in a
bonnet which pleases the wearer but offends her superior in
aesthetic matters takes its place as something which per
se has a certain degree of aesthetic value even though the
particular relations into which it has now thrust itself,
palpable to the trained eye, may practically rob it of its
value. In thus substituting the relative idea of aesthetic
value for the absolute idea of beauty we may no doubt seem
to be destroying the reality of the object of aesthetic
perception. This point may more conveniently be taken up later
when we consider the whole question of aesthetic illusion.
Problem of aesthetic effect.
This new way of envisaging aesthetic objects requires us
to make the study of their effect a prominent part of our
investigation. In all the valuable recent work on the
subject, attention has been largely concentrated on this
effect. More particularly we have to investigate and illumine
scientifically the pleasurable side of the experience.
Aesthetics and laws of pleasure.
In doing this we shall make use of all the light we can
obtain from a study of known laws of Pleasure. Thus
we shall avail ourselves not only of the theory of the
pleasure-tones of sensation but of that of the conditions
of an agreeable exercise of the attention upon objects more
particularly of the characteristics of objects which adequately
stimulate the attention without confusing or burdening it.
Problem of aesthetic enjoyment a special one.
Yet this does not require that we should treat the aesthetic
problem as a part of the more general science of pleasure, as
has been attempted by some, e.g. Grant Allen (Physiological
Aesthetics) and Rutgers Marshall (Pain, Pleasure and
Aesthetics, and Aesthetic Principles.) To do so would be
to run the risk of considering only the more general aspects
and conditions of aesthetic enjoyment, whereas what we need is
a theory of it as a specific kind of pleasurable experience.
The attitude of aesthetic contemplation.
What is required at the present stage of development of the
science is a deeper investigation of the aesthetic attitude
of mind as a whole, of what we may call the aesthetic
psychosis. We need to probe the act of contemplation itself,
the mode of activity of attention involved in this calm,
half-dreamlike gazing on the mere look of things unconcerned
with their ordinary and weightier imports. We need further
to determine the effect of this contemplative attitude upon
the several mental processes involved, the act of perception
itself, with its grasp of manifold relations, the flow of
ideas, the partial resurgence and transformation of emotion.
In examining these effects we must keep in view the double side
of the contemplative attitude, the wide range of free movement
which perception and imagination claim and enjoy, and the willing
subjection of the contemplative mind to the spell of the object.
Intellectual and aesthetic activity further differentiated.
A deeper inspection of the contemplative mood may be expected
to render clearer the difference between the mental activity
employed in aesthetic perception and imagination and intellectual
activity proper; between. say, the differencing of allied
tints involved in the finer aesthetic enjoyment of colour
and the sharper, clearer discrimination of tints required in
scientific observation, and between such a grasp of relations
as is required for a just appreciation of beautiful form
and that severe analysis and measurement of formal elements
and their relations which is insisted upon by science. As
a result of a finer distinction here we may probably be in a
better position to determine the point---touched on more than
once in recent works on aesthetics---how far intellectual
pleasure proper, e.g. that of recognizing and classifying
objects, enters as a subordinate element into aesthetic
enjoyment. Is aesthetic enjoyment essentially social?
One point in the characterization of aesthetic experience
has been reserved, namely, the question whether it is
essentially a form of social enjoyment. No one doubts
that a man often enjoys beauty, e.g. that of a landscape,
when alone; yet at such a moment he not only recognizes that
his pleasure is a possible one for others, but is probably
aware of a sub-conscious wish that others were present to
share his enjoyment. Kant went so far as to say that on
a desert island a man would adorn neither his hut nor his
person. However this be, it seems certain that as a rule
we tend to indulge our aesthetic tastes in company with
others. This habit of making aesthetic enjoyment a social
experience would in itself tend to develop the sympathies and
the sympathetic intelligence and thus to promote exchanges
of aesthetic experience. The content, too, of our aesthetic
experiences would be favourable to such conjoint acts of
aesthetic contemplation, and to the mutual sharing of aesthetic
experiences; for, as disinterested and universal modes of
enjoyment detached from personal interests, they are clearly
free from the egoistic exclusiveness which characterizes our
private enjoyments which at best can only be participated
in by one or two closely attached friends. Our aesthetic
enjoyments are thus eminently fitted to be social ones; and as
such they become greatly amplified by sympathetic resonance.
The aesthetic senses.
We are now in a position to consider a point much discussed of
late, namely, the special connexion of aesthetic enjoyment
with the two senses, sight and hearing. Two questions
arise here: (1) Do the other and ``lower'' senses take any
part in aesthetic experience? (2) What are the ``higher''
ones? With regard to the first it is coming to be recognized
that aesthetic pleasure is not strictly confined to the
two senses in question. Common language suggests that we
find in certain odours and even in certain flavours a value
analogous to that implied in calling an object beautiful.
Aesthetic claims of touch.
Hegel excluded the other senses--even touch----on the ground
that aesthetics had to do only with art, in which there was
no place for perceptions of touch. A closer examination has
shown that this important sense plays a considerable part in
art-effects. And even if this were not so, Hegel's exclusion
of touch from the rank of aesthetic senses would be a striking
illustration of the narrowing effect on scientific theory of
the identification of aesthetic objects with productions of
art. To say that the experience of exploring with the fingers
a velvety petal or the smooth surface of a sea-rounded pebble
has no aesthetic element savours of a perverse arbitrariness.
Touch is no doubt wanting in a prerogative of hearing and
sight which we shall presently see to be important, namely,
that being acted on by objects at a distance they admit of
a simultaneous perception by a number of persons--as indeed
even the sense of smell does in a measure. This is probably
the chief reason why, according to certain testimony, the
blind receive but little aesthetic enjoyment from tactual
experience.8 Yet this drawback is compensated to some
extent by the fact that agreeable tactual experience may be
taken up as suggested meaning into our visual perceptions.
Prerogatives of sight and hearing.
The two privileged senses, sight and hearing, owe their
superiority to a number of considerations. They are the
farthest removed from the necessary life functions, with
the pressing needs and disturbing cravings which belong to
these. Even touch, though imoortant as a source of knowledge,
has for its primary function to examine the things which
approach our organisms in their relation to this as injurious or
harmless. The two higher senses present to us material objects
in their least aggressive and menacing manner: visible forms and
colours, tones and their combinations, appear when compared
with objects felt to be in contact with our body, to be rather
semblances or distant signs of material realities than these
realities themselves; and this circumstance fits these senses
to be in a special way the organs of aesthetic perception with
its calm, dreamlike detachment and its enjoyable freedom of
movement. They are, moreover, the two senses by the use of
which a number of persons may join most perfectly in a common
act of aesthetic contemplation. This distinction strengthens
their claims to be in a special manner the aesthetic senses,
and this for a double reason. (1) It makes them sense-avenues
by which each of us obtains the most immediate and most
impressive conviction that aesthetic experience is a common
possession of the many, and is largely similar in the case of
different individuals. (2) It marks them off as the senses by
the exercise of which perceptual enjoyment may most readily
and certainly be increased through the resonant effects of
sympathy. The experiences of the theatre and of the
concert-hall sufficiently illustrate these distinguishing
functions of the two senses. Other distinguishing prerogatives
of sight and hearing flow from the characteristics of their
sensations and perceptions, a point to be touched on later.9
Aesthetic activity and play. (a) Points of affinity between them.
Our determination of the characteristics of the aesthetic
attitude has now been carried far enough to enable us to
consider another point much discussed in recent aesthetic
literature, viz. the relation of this attitude to that of
play. The affinities of the two are striking and are disclosed
in everyday language, as when we speak of the ``play'' of
imagination or of ``playing'' on a musical instrument.
Both play and aesthetic contemplation are activities which
are controlled by no extraneous end, which run on freely
directed only by the intrinsic delight of the activity. Hence
they both contrast with the serious work imposed on us and
controlled by what we mark off as the necessities of life,
such as providing for bodily wants, or rearing a family. They
each add a sort of luxurious fringe to life. In aesthetic
enjoyment our senses, our intelligence and our emotions are
alike released from the constraint of these necessary ends,
and may be said to refresh themselves in a kind of play.
Finally, they are both characterized by a strong infusion of
make-believe, a disposition to substitute productions of the
imagination for everyday realities. In this respect, again,
they form a contrast to that serious concern with fact and
practical truth which the necessary aims of life impose on
us. Little wonder, then, that Plato recognized in the contrast
between the representative and the useful arts an analogy
between play and earnest,10 and that since the time of Schiller
so much use has been made of the analogy in aesthetic works.
(b) Points of difference.
Yet though similar. the two kinds of activity are distinguishable
in important respects. For one thing, aesthetic contemplation
pure and simple is a comparatively tranquil and passive
attitude, whereas play means doing something and commonly
involves some amount of strenuous exertion, either of body or of
