The Principles of Aesthetics | Page 3

to realize a purpose. Just as a saw is a good saw only when it fulfills the
purpose of cutting wood, so works of art are beautiful only because
they embody a certain purpose. The beautiful things which we study by
the objective method are selected by us from among countless other
objects and called beautiful because they have a value for us, without a
feeling for which we should not know them to be beautiful at all. They
are not, like sun and moon, independent of mind and will and capable
of being understood in complete isolation from man. No world of
beauty exists apart from a purpose that finds realization there. We are,
to be sure, not always aware of the existence of this purpose when we
enjoy a picture or a poem or a bit of landscape; yet it is present none
the less. The child is equally unaware of the purpose of the food which
pleases him, yet the purpose is the ground of his pleasure; and we can
understand his hunger only through a knowledge of it.

The dependence of beauty upon a relation to purpose is clear from the
fact that in our feelings and judgments about art we not only change
and disagree, but correct ourselves and each other. The history of taste,
both in the individual and the race, is not a mere process, but a progress,
an evolution. "We were wrong in calling that poem beautiful," we say;
"you are mistaken in thinking that picture a good one"; "the eighteenth
century held a false view of the nature of poetry"; "the English
Pre-Raphaelites confused the functions of poetry and painting"; "to-day
we understand what the truly pictorial is better than Giotto did"; and so
on. Now nothing can be of worth to us, one thing cannot be better than
another, nor can we be mistaken as to its value except with reference to
some purpose which it fulfills or does not fulfill. There is no growth or
evolution apart from a purpose in terms of which we can read the
direction of change as forward rather than backward.
This purpose cannot be understood by the observation and analysis, no
matter how careful, of beautiful _things_; for it exists in the mind
primarily and only through mind becomes embodied in things; and it
cannot be understood by a mere inductive study of aesthetic
experiences--the mind plus the object--just as they come; because, as
we have just stated, they are changeful and subject to correction,
therefore uncertain and often misleading. The aesthetic impulse may
falter and go astray like any other impulse; a description of it in this
condition would lead to a very false conception. No, we must employ a
different method of investigation--the Socratic method of self-scrutiny,
the conscious attempt to become clear and consistent about our own
purposes, the probing and straightening of our aesthetic consciences.
Instead of accepting our immediate feelings and judgments, we should
become critical towards them and ask ourselves, What do we really
seek in art and in life which, when found, we call beautiful? Of course,
in order to answer this question we cannot rely on an examination of
our own preferences in isolation from those of our fellow-men. Here, as
everywhere, our purposes are an outgrowth of the inherited past and are
developed in imitation of, or in rivalry with, those of other men. The
problem is one of interpreting the meaning of art in the system of
culture of which our own minds are a part. Nevertheless, the personal
problem remains. Aesthetic value is emphatically personal; it must be

felt as one's own. If I accept the standards of my race and age, I do so
because I find them to be an expression of my own aesthetic will. In the
end, my own will to beauty must be cleared up; its darkly functioning
goals must be brought to light.
Now, unless we have thought much about the matter or are gifted with
unusual native taste, we shall find that our aesthetic intentions are
confused, contradictory, and entangled with other purposes. To become
aware of this is the first step towards enlightenment. We must try to
distinguish what we want of art from what we want of other things,
such as science or morality; for something unique we must desire from
anything of permanent value in our life. In the next place we should
come to see that we cannot want incompatible things; that, for example,
we cannot want art to hold the mirror up to life and, at the same time, to
represent life as conforming to our private prejudices; or want a picture
to have expressive and harmonious colors and look exactly like a real
landscape; or long for a poetry that would