general is connected with the name of Pere Buffier (see First
Truths), form, and illustrates his theory by the human face. A
A beautiful face is at once the most common and most rare among
members of the species. This seems to be a clumsy way of saying
that it is a clear expression of the typical form of the species.
Taine.
This idea of typical beauty (which was adopted by Reynolds)
has been worked out more recently by H. Taine. In his
work, The Ideal in Art (trans. by i. Durand), he
proceeds in the manner of a botanist to determine a scale
of characters in the physical and moral man. The degree of
the universality or importance of a character, and of its
beneficence or adaptation to the ends of life, determine the
measure of its aesthetic value, and render the work of art,
which seeks to represent it in its purity, an ideal work.
French systems of aesthetics: The spiritualistes.
The only elaborated systems of aesthetics in French literature
are those constructed by the spiritualistes, the philosoohic
writers who under the influence of German thinkers effected a
reaction against the crude sensationalism of the 18th century
they aim at elucidating the higher and spiritual element in
aesthetic impressions, appearing to ignore any capability
in the sensuous material of affording a true aesthetic
delight. J. Cousin and Jean Charles Leveque are the principal
writers of this school. The latter developed an elaborate
system of the subject (La Science du beau.) All beauty is
regarded as spiritual in its nature. The several beautiful
characters of an organic body--of which the principal are
magnitude, unity and variety of parts, intensity of colour,
grace or flexibility, and correspondence to environment--may
be brought under the conception of the ideal grandeur and
order of the species. These are perceived by reason to be
the manifestations of an invisible vinal force. Similarly
the beauties of inorganic nature are to be viewed as
the grand and orderly displays of an immaterial ohvsical
force. Thus all beauty is in its objective essence either
spirit or unconscious force acting with fulness and in order.
4. English Writers.--There is nothing answering to the German
conception of a system of aesthetics in English literature.
The inquiries of English thinkers have been directed for
the most part to such modest problems as the psychological
process by which we perceive the beautiful--discussions which
are apt to be regarded by German historians as devoid of
real philosophical value. The writers may be conveniently
arranged in two divisions, answering to the two opposed
directions of English thought: (i) the Intuitionalists, those
who recognize the existence of an objective beauty which is
a simple unanalysable attribute or principle of things: and
(2) the Analytical theorists, those who follow the analytical
and psychological method, concerning themselves with the
sentiment of beauty as a complex growth out of simpler elements.
The Intuitionists. Shaftesbury.
Shaftesbury is the first of the intuitional writers on
beauty. In his Characteristics the beautiful and the good
are combined in one ideal conception, much as with Plato.
Matter in itself is ugly. The order of the world, wherein all
beauty really resides, is a spiritual principle, all motion
and life being the product of spirit. The principle of beauty
is perceived not with the outer sense, but with an internal or
moral sense which apprehends the good as well. This perception
yields the only true delight, namely, spiritual enjoyment.
Hutcheson.
Francis Hutchinson, in his System of Moral Philosophy, though
he adopts many of Shaftesbury's ideas, distinctly disclaims any
independent self-existing beauty in objects. ``All beauty,''
he says, ``is relative to the sense of some mind perceiving
it.'' One cause of beauty is to be found not in a simple
sensation such as colour or tone, but in a certain order among
the parts, or ``uniformity amidst variety.'' The faculty by
which this principle indiscerned is an internal sense which is
defined as ``a passive power of receiving ideas of beauty from
all objects in which there is uniformity in variety.'' This
inner sense resembles the external senses in the immediateness
of the pleasure which its activity brings: and further in
the necessity of its impressions: a beautiful thing being
always, whether we will or no, beautiful. He distinguishes
two kinds of beauty, absolute or original, and relative or
comparative. The latter is discerned in an object which is
regarded as an imitation or semblance of another. He distinctly
states that ``an exact imitation may still be beautiful though
the original were entirely devoid of it.'' He seeks to prove
the universality of this sense of beauty, by showing that all
men, in proportion to the enlargement of their intellectual
capacity, are more delighted with uniformity than the opposite.
Reid.
In his Essays on the Intellectual Powers (viii. ``Of
Taste'') Thomas Reid applies his principle of common sense
to the problem of beauty saying that objects of beauty agree
not only in producing a certain agreeable emotion, but in
the excitation along with this emotion of a belief that they
possess some perfection or excellence, that beauty exists
in the objects independently our minds. His theory of
beauty is severely spiritual. All beauty resides primarily
in the faculties of the mind, intellectual and moral. The
beauty which is spread over the face of visible nature is an
emanation from this spiritual beauty, and is beauty because
it symbolizes and expresses the latter. Thus the beauty
of a plant resides in its perfect adapration to its end, a
perfection which is an expression of the wisdom of its Creator.
Hamilton.
In his Lectures on Metaphysics Sir W. Hamilton gives a
short account of the sentiments of taste, which (with a
superficial resemblance to Kant) he regards as subserving
both the subsidiary and the elaborative faculties in
cognition, that is, the imagination and the understanding.
The activity of the former corresponds to the element of
variety in a beautiful object, that of the latter with its
unity. He explicitly excludes all other kinds of pleasure,
such as the sensuous, from the proper gratification of beauty.
He denies that the attribute of beauty belongs to fitness.
Ruskin.
John Ruskin's well-known speculations on the nature of
beauty in Modern Painters (``Of ideas of beauty''), though
sadly wanting in scientific precision, have a certain value
in the history of divine attributes. Its true nature is
appreciated by the theoretic faculty which is concerned in
the moral conception and appreciation of ideas of beauty,
and must be distinguished from the imaginative or artistic
faculty, which is employed in regarding in a certain way
and combining the ideas received from external nature. He
distinguishes between typical and vital beauty. The former
is the external quality of bodies which typifies some divine
attribute. The latter consists in ``the appearance of
felicitous fulfilment of function in living things.'' The
forms of typical beauty are:--(1) infinity, the type of
the divine incomprehensibility; (2) unity, the type of the
divine comprehensiveness; (3) repose, the type of the divine
permanence; (4) symmetry, the type of the divine justice; (5)
purity, the type of the divine energy; and (6) moderation, the
type of government by law. Vital beauty, again, is regarded
as relative when the degree of exaltation of the function
is estimated, or generic if only the degree of conformity
of an individual to the appointed functions of the species
is taken into account. Ruskin's writings illustrate the
extreme tendency to identify aesthetic with moral perception.
The analytical theorists. Addison.
Addison's ``Essays on the Imagination''' contributed to
the Spectator, though they belong to popular literature,
contain the germ of scientific analysis in the statement
that the pleasures of imagination (which arise originally
from sight) fall into two classes--(1) primary pleasures,
which entirely proceed from objects before our eyes; and
(2) secondary pleasures, flowing frm the ideas of visible
objects. The latter are greatly extended by the addition of
the proper enjoyment of resemblance, which is at the basis of
all mimicry and wit. Addison recognizes, too, to some extent,
the influence of association upon our aesthetic preferences.
Home.
In the Elements of Criticism of Home (Lord Kames) another
attempt is made to resolve the pleasure of beauty into its
elements. Beauty and ugliness are simply the pleasant and
unappears to admit no general characreristic of beautiful
objects beyond this power of yielding pleasure. Like
Hutcheson, he divides beauty into intrinsic and relative,
but understands by the latter the appearance of fitness and
utility, which is excluded from the beautiful by Hutcheson.
Hogarth.
Passing by the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose theory of
beauty closely resembles that of Pere Buffier, we come to the
articulations of another artist and painter, William Hogarth.
He discusses, in his Analysis of Beauty, all the elements of
visual beauty. He finds in this the following elements:---(1)
fitness of the parts to some design; (2) variety in as many
ways as possible; (3) uniformity, regularity or symmetry, which
is only beautiful when it helps to preserve the character of
fitness; (4) simplicity or distinctness, which gives pleasure
not in itself, but through its enabling the eye to enjoy
variety with ease; (5) intricacy, which provides employment
for our active energies, leading the eye ``a wanton kind of
chase''; (6) quantity or magnitude, which draws our attention
and produces admiration and awe. The beauty of proportion
he resolves into the needs of fitness. Hogarth applies these
principles to the determination of the degrees of beauty in
lines, figures and groups of forms. Among lines he singles
out for special honour the serpentine (formed by drawing a line
once round from the base to the apex of a long slender cone).
Burke.
Burke's speculations, in his Inquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, illustrate the tendency
of English writers to treat the problem as a psychological
one and to introduce physiological considerations. He finds
the elements of beauty to be:-- (1) smallness; (2) smoothness;
(3) gradual variation of direction in gentle curves; (4)
delicacy, or the appearance of fragility; (5) brightness,
purity and softness of colour. The sublime is rather crudely
resolved into astonishment, which he thinks always retains
an element of terror. Thus ``infinity has a tendency to
fill the mind with a delightful horror.'' Burke seeks what
he calls ``efficient causes'' for these aesthetic impressions
in certain affections of the the nerves of sight analogous
to those of other senses, namely, the soothing effect of a
relaxation of the nerve fibres. The arbitrariness and narrowness
of this theory cannot well escape the reader's attention.
Alison.
Alison, in his well-knwon Essays on the Nature and Principles
of Taste, proceeds by a method exactly the opposite to that
of Hogarth and Burke. He seeks to analyse the mental process
when finds that this consists in a peculiar operation of the
imagination, namely, the flow of a train of ideas through the
mind, which ideas always correspond to some simple affection
or emotion (e.g. cheerfulness, sadness, awe) awakened by the
object. He thus makes association the sole source of aesthetic
