The Principles of Aesthetics | Page 7

feeling, or thought into a sensuous medium, where they can
be experienced again by the one who expresses himself and
communicated to others. Thus, in this sense, a lyric poem is an
expression--a bit of a poet's intimate experience put into words; epic
and dramatic poetry are expressions--visions of a larger life made
manifest in the same medium. Pictures and statues are also expressions;
for they are embodiments in color and space-forms of the artists' ideas
of visible nature and man. Works of architecture and the other
industrial arts are embodiments of purpose and the well-being that
comes from purpose fulfilled.
This definition, good so far as it goes, is, however, too inclusive; for
plainly, although every work of art is an expression, not every
expression is a work of art. Automatic expressions, instinctive
overflowings of emotion into motor channels, like the cry of pain or the
shout of joy, are not aesthetic. Practical expressions also, all such as are
only means or instruments for the realization of ulterior purposes--the
command of the officer, the conversation of the market place, a
saw--are not aesthetic. Works of art--the _Ninth Symphony_, the _Ode

to the West Wind_--are not of this character.
No matter what further purposes artistic expressions may serve, they
are produced and valued for themselves; we linger in them; we neither
merely execute them mechanically, as we do automatic expressions,
nor hasten through them, our minds fixed upon some future end to be
gained by them, as is the case with practical expressions. Both for the
artist and the appreciator, they are ends in themselves. Compare, for
example, a love poem with a declaration of love.[Footnote: Contrast
Croce's use of the same illustration: Esthetic, p. 22, English translation.]
The poem is esteemed for the rhythmic emotional experience it gives
the writer or reader; the declaration, even when enjoyed by the suitor,
has its prime value in its consequences, and the quicker it is over and
done with and its end attained the better. The one, since it has its
purpose within itself, is returned to and repeated; the other, being
chiefly a means to an end, would be senseless if repeated, once the end
that called it forth is accomplished. The value of the love poem,
although written to persuade a lady, cannot be measured in terms of its
mere success; for if beautiful, it remains of worth after the lady has
yielded, nay, even if it fails to win her. Any sort of practical purpose
may be one motive in the creation of a work of art, but its significance
is broader than the success or failure of that motive. The Russian novel
is still significant, even now, alter the revolution. As beautiful, it is of
perennial worth and stands out by itself. But practical expressions are
only transient links in the endless chain of means, disappearing as the
wheel of effort revolves. Art is indeed expression, but free or
autonomous expression.
The freedom of aesthetic expression is, however, only an intensification
of a quality that may belong to any expression. For, in its native
character, expression is never merely practical; it brings its own reward
in the pleasure of the activity itself. Ordinarily, when a man makes
something embodying his need or fancy, or says something that
expresses his meaning, he enjoys himself in his doing. There is
naturally a generous superfluity in all human behavior. The
economizing of it to what is necessary for self-preservation and
dominion over the environment is secondary, not primary, imposed

under the duress of competition and nature. Only when activities are
difficult or their fruits hard to get are they disciplined for the sake of
their results alone; then only does their performance become an
imperative, and nature and society impose upon them the seriousness
and constraint of necessity and law. But whenever nature and the social
organization supply the needs of man ungrudgingly or grant him a
respite from the urgency of business, the spontaneity of his activities
returns. The doings of children, of the rich, and of all men on a holiday
illustrate this. Compare, for example, the speech of trade, where one
says the brief and needful thing only, with the talk of excursionists,
where verbal expression, having no end beyond itself, develops at
length and at leisure; where brevity is no virtue and abundant play takes
the place of a narrow seriousness.
But we have not yet so limited the field of expression that it becomes
equivalent to the aesthetic; for not even all of free expression is art. The
most important divergent type is science. Science also is
expression,--an embodiment in words, diagrams, mathematical symbols,
chemical formula, or other such media, of thoughts meant to portray
the objects of human experience. Scientific expressions have, of course,
a practical function;