The Principles of Aesthetics | Page 5

illustration for the sake of explaining and proving general principles is,
however, fundamental; for, as we have seen, a valuable aesthetic theory
is impossible unless developed out of the primary aesthetic life of
enjoyment and estimation, a life of contact with individual beautiful
things. No amount of psychological skill in analysis or philosophical
aptitude for definition can compensate for want of a real love of
beauty,--of the possession of something of the artistic temperament.
People who do not love art, yet study it from the outside, may
contribute to our knowledge of it through isolated bits of analysis, but
their interpretations of its more fundamental nature are always
superficial. Hence, just as the wise critic will not neglect aesthetics, so
the philosopher of art should be something of a critic. Yet the division
of labor is clear enough. The critic devotes himself to the appreciation
of some special contemporary or historical field of art--Shakespearean
drama, Renaissance sculpture, Italian painting, for example; while the
philosopher of art looks for general principles, and gives attention to
individual works of art and historical movements only for the purpose
of discovering and illustrating them. And, since the philosopher of art
seeks a universal idea of art rather than an understanding of this or that
particular work of art, an intimate acquaintance with a few examples,
through which this idea can be revealed to the loving eye, is of more

importance than a wide but superficial aesthetic culture.
In our discussion thus far, we have been assuming the possibility of
aesthetic theory. But what shall we say in answer to the mystic who
tells us that beauty is indefinable? First of all, I think, we should
remind him that his own thesis can be proved or refuted only through
an attempt at a scientific investigation of beauty. Every attempt to
master our experience through thought is an adventure; but the futility
of adventures can be shown only by courageously entering into them.
And, although the failure of previous efforts may lessen the
probabilities of success in a new enterprise, it cannot prove that success
is absolutely impossible. Through greater persistence and better
methods the new may succeed where the old have failed. Moreover,
although we are ready to grant that the pathway to our goal is full of
pitfalls, marked by the wreckage of old theories, yet we claim that the
skeptic or the mystic can know of their existence only by traveling over
the pathway himself; for in the world of the inner life nothing can be
known by hearsay. If, then, he would really know that the road to
theoretical insight into beauty is impassable, let him travel with us and
see; or, if not with us, alone by himself or with some one wiser than we
as guide; let him compare fairly and sympathetically the results of
theoretical analysis and construction with the data of his firsthand
experience and observe whether the one is or is not adequate to the
other.
Again, the cleft between thought and feeling, even subtle and fleeting
aesthetic feeling, is not so great as the mystics suppose. For, after all,
there is a recognizable identity and permanence even in these feelings;
we should never call them by a common name or greet them as the
same despite their shiftings from moment to moment if this were not
true. Although whatever is unique in each individual experience of
beauty, its distinctive flavor or nuance, cannot be adequately rendered
in thought, but can only be felt; yet whatever each new experience has
in common with the old, whatever is universal in all aesthetic
experiences, can be formulated. The relations of beauty, too, its place in
the whole of life, can be discovered by thought alone; for only by
thought can we hold on to the various things whose relations we are

seeking to establish; without thought our experience falls asunder into
separate bits and never attains to unity. Finally, the mystics forget that
the life of thought and the life of feeling have a common root; they are
both parts of the one life of the mind and so cannot be foreign to each
other.
The motive impelling to any kind of undertaking is usually complex,
and that which leads to the development of aesthetic theory is no
exception to the general rule. A disinterested love of understanding has
certainly played a part. Every region of experience invites to the play of
intelligence upon it; the lover of knowledge, as Plato says, loves the
whole of his object. Yet even intelligence, insatiable and impartial as it
is, has its predilections. The desire to understand a particular type of
thing has its roots in an initial love of it. As the born botanist is the man
who finds joy in contact with