mind. A closer analogy might be drawn between play and artistic
production. Yet even when the parallel is thus narrowed, pretty
obvious differences disclose themselves. It is only in their
more primitive phases that the two attitudes exhibit a close
similarity. As they develop, striking divergences begin to
appear. The play mood, instead of approaching the calm
contemplative mood of the lover of beauty, involves feelings
and impulses which lie at the roots of our practical interests,
viz. ambition, rivalry and struggle. It has, moreover, in
all its stages a palpable utility---even though this is not
realized by the player---serving for the exercise and development
of body, intelligence and character. Beauty and art rise
high above play in purity of the disinterested attitude, in
placid detachment from the serviceable and the necessary,
and, still more, in range and variety of refined interest,
comprehended in ``the love of beauty.'' Finally, aesthetic
activities are directed by ideal conceptions and standards
to which hardly anything corresponds in play save where games
of skill take on something of the dignity of a fine art.11
Methods of research in aesthetics.
So far as to the preliminary delimiting work in aesthetic
science. Only a bare indication can be made as to the methods
of research by which its advance can be furthered, and as
to the several directions of inquiry which it will have to
follow. With regard to the former the method of investigation
will consist in a careful inquiry into two orders of fact: (1)
Objects which common testimony or the history of art show to be
widely recognized objects of aesthetic value; (2) records of the
aesthetic experience of individuals, whether artists or amateurs.
Examination of aesthetic objects.
Since aesthetic experience is brought about and its modes
determined by objects possessing certain qualities, it seems
evident that scientific aesthetics must make an examination and
comparison of these a fundamental part of its problem. These
objects will, as already hinted, include both natural ones in the
inorganic and organic worlds, and works of art which can be shown
to be objects of general or widely recognized aesthetic value.
Nature as supplying aesthetic objects.
Without attempting here to discuss adequately the relation
of natural beauty to that of art we may note one or two
points. Some contemplation and appreciation of the beautiful
aspects of nature is not only prior in time to art, but is
a condition of its genesis. The enjoyment of the pleasing
aspects of land and sea, of mountain and dale, of the
innumerable organic forms, has steadily grown with the
development of culture; and this growth, though undoubtedly
aided by that of the feeling for art---especially painting
and poetry---is to a large extent independent of it.12
Some of the finest insight into the secrets of beauty has
been gained by those who had only a limited acquaintance with
art. What is still more important in the present connexion
is that the aesthetic experience gained by the direct
contemplation of nature includes varieties which art cannot
reproduce. It is enough to recall what Helmholtz and others
have told us about the limitations of the powers of pictorial
art to represent the more brilliant degrees of light; the
admissions of painters themselves as to the limits of their
art when it seeks to render the finer gradations of light and
colour in such common objects as a tree-trunk or a bit of old
wall. Nature, moreover, in spreading out her spaces of
earth, sea and sky, and in exhibiting the action of her
forces, does so on a scale which seems to make sublimity her
prerogative in which art vainly endeavours to participate.
Use of works of art by the theorist.
On the other hand, it is coming to be seen that the construction
of a theory of aesthetic values must be assisted by a much more
precise examination than aestheticists are commonly content to
make, of works of art. The importance of including these is
that they are well-defined objective expressions of what the
aesthetic consciousness approves and prefers. In inquiring,
for example, into the pleasing relations of colour we might
have to wait long for a theory if we were dependent on what
even so gifted a writer as Ruskin can tell us about nature's
juxtapositions: whereas if it can be shown that throughout the
history of chromatic art or during its better period there has
been a tendency to prefer certain combinations, this fact becomes
a piece of convincing evidence as to their aesthetic value.
Difficulties in using works of art as material.
Even here, however, there are sources of uncertainty. It
is not true to say that a work of art is a pure outcome of
the aesthetic feeling of the artist. even if we take this
in a comprehensive sense. It is subject to the influence
of all the temporary feelings and tendencies of the time
which produced it. The aesthetic motive which is supposed
to originate it is apt to be complicated and disguised
by other motives, e.g. utility in architecture,13 an
impulse to instruct if not to reform in modern fiction.
Effects of custom on artistic preference.
Again, if it is said that a certain degree of permanence
assures us of the aesthetic value of a feature of art, we
are met by the difficulty that custom plays an important
part in art, the result of convention fixed by tradition
often simulating the aspect of a deep-seated aesthetic
preference. In this connexion it is to be remarked that even
so permanent an element as symmetry may owe its quasiaesthetic
value to custom, by which is understood its wide and impressive
display in the organic and even the inorganic world.14
Yet the influence of custom taken in this larger sense need
not greatly disturb us. In aesthetics, as in ethics, the
question of validity has to be kept distinct from that of
origin. If symmetry (in general) is appreciated as
aesthetically pleasing, the question of its genesis becomes
immaterial. Another difficulty, not peculiar to aesthetic
investigation, is that of reconstructing the modes of
aesthetic consciousness represented by forms of art which
differ widely from those of our own age and type of culture.
Value of primitive art for aesthetics.
In utilizing art material for aesthetic theory the theorist
will need to note the work recently done by English and German
writers on primitive art. And this not merely because of the
value of the early forms of art for a theory of the evolution
of the aesthetic consciousness; but because the embryonic stages
of art are likely to have a peculiar interest as illustrating
in a comparatively isolated form some of the simpler modes of
aesthetic appreciation, e.g. in the grouping of colours, in
the mode of covering a surface with linear ornament. Yet it
is not necessary to give primitive art a considerable place
in a general aesthetics. As a normative science, it is to be
remembered, this is much more immediately concerned with the
higher stages of aesthetic culture. In seeking to establish
norms or regulative principles, we must, it is evident, make
a special study of objects of art which belong to our own
level of culture. For these reasons it would appear necessary
to include in a general aesthetic theory some reference to
the evolution of art and of the aesthetic consciousness.
Evolution as criterion of aesthetic height.
A further reason for including it is that the evolution
of art supplies a most valuable auxiliary criterion of
degree or height of aesthetic value. Provided that we
distinguish what is a real process of evolution from one
of mere change of fashion in taste, and that we confine
ourselves to the larger features of the process, we may make
the principle of evolution a serviceable one by regarding
those forms and features of art as higher in respect of
aesthetic value which grow distinct and relatively fixed
in the later and better stages of the evolution of art.15
Exact measurement of characteristics of art-work.
This part of aesthetic investigation should be made as exact as
possible.Thus in dealing with the triads of colour said to be
most frequently employed in the best period of Italian painting
the observer should note and record as far as this is possible
not only the precise tints, but also the precise degrees of
their several luminosities. With regard to elements of form in
art, the judicious use of photography and careful measurement
would probably help us to understand the practices of art in
its better periods. This examination of art material by the
aesthetic theorist should be supplemented by a study of what
artists have written about their methods, of the rules laid
down for students of art, and lastly of the generalizations
reached by the more scientific kind of writer upon art.16
Aesthetic inductions.
A proper methodical inquiry into aesthetic objects aided by
a knowledge of the practices of art would lead to inductions
of such characteristics are aesthetically valuable.''17
Germs of aesthetic preference in children, etc.
This preliminary work of aesthetic science in collecting
and analysing facts may be extended in two directions: by
an examination (a) of the earlier and simpler forms of
aesthetic experience, and (b) of the fuller and more complex
experiences of those specially trained in the perception and
enjoyment of beauty. (a) The former would be illustrated by
a more methodical investigation into the rudimentary aesthetic
likings of children and of the lower races. Such inquiries
may be expected to add to our knowledge of the simpler and
more universal forms of aesthetic enjoyment. Some attention
has been paid by Darwin and others to germs of taste in birds
and other animals. Yet this line of inquiry, though of some
value for a theory of the evolution of taste, seems to throw
but little light on aesthetic preferences as found in man.18
Aesthetic experiment.
An important feature in this new investigation into simpler
modes of aesthetic preference is that it proceeds by way of
experiment, that is to say, a methodical testing of the aesthetic
preferences of a number of individuals. Fechner introduced the
method of experiment into aesthetics in his researches on the
preferability (according to Zeising) of the proportion known as
the ``golden section.''19 Since his time other experimental
inquiries have been made, both as to what forms (e.g. what
variety of rectangle) and what combinations of colours are most
pleasing. The results of these experiments are distinctly
promising, though they have not yet been carried far enough to
be made the basis of perfectly trustworthy generalizations.20
Experience and judgments of experts.
A valuable portion of the data for a science of aesthetics
lies in the recorded experiences of artists, art critics,
and others who have specially developed their tastes; This
source of information has certainly never been made use of
in a complete and methodical manner by theorists, a quotation
now and again from writers like Goethe and Ruskin having been
deemed sufficient. Yet it is safe to say that an adequate
understanding of the finer effects of beauty, both in nature and
in art, presupposes the assimilation of what is best in these
records. And this not only because they commonly supply us with
new and valuable varieties of experience of the more refined
kind, but because the aesthetic judgments on nature and art of
men in whom the feeling of beauty has been specially cultivated
have a greater value than those of others.21 It may be added
