The Principles of Aesthetics | Page 8

concepts are "plans of action" or servants of plans,
the most perfect and delicate that man possesses. Yet scientific
knowledge is an end in itself as well as a utility; for the mere
construction and possession of concepts and laws is itself a source of
joy; the man of science delights in making appropriate formulations of
nature's habits quite unconcerned about their possible uses.
In science, therefore, there is much free expression; but beauty not yet.
No abstract expression such as Euclid's _Elements_, Newton's
_Principia_, or Peano's _Formulaire_, no matter how rigorous and
complete, is a work of art. We admire the mathematician's formula for
its simplicity and adequacy; we take delight in its clarity and scope, in
the ease with which it enables the mind to master a thousand more
special truths, but we do not find it beautiful. Equally removed from the
sphere of the beautiful are representations or descriptions of mere
things, whether inaccurate or haphazard, as we make them in daily life,
or accurate and careful as they are elaborated in the empirical sciences.

No matter how exact and complete, the botanist's or zoologist's
descriptions of plant and animal life are not works of art. They may be
satisfactory as knowledge, but they are not beautiful. There is an
important difference between a poet's description of a flower and a
botanist's, or between an artistic sketch and a photograph, conferring
beauty upon the former, and withholding it from the latter.
The central difference is this. The former are descriptions not of things
only, but of the artist's reactions to things, his mood or emotion in their
presence. They are expressions of total, concrete experiences, which
include the self of the observer as well as the things he observes.
Scientific descriptions, on the other hand, render objects only; the
feelings of the observer toward them are carefully excluded. Science is
intentionally objective,--from the point of view of the artistic
temperament, dry and cold. Even the realistic novel and play, while
seeking to present a faithful picture of human life and to eliminate all
private comment and emotion, cannot dispense with the elementary
dramatic feelings of sympathy, suspense, and wonder. sthetic
expression is always integral, embodying a total state of mind, the core
of which is some feeling; scientific expression is fragmentary or
abstract, limiting itself to thought. Art, no less than science, may
contain truthful images of things and abstract ideas, but never these
alone; it always includes their life, their feeling tones, or values.
Because philosophy admits this element of personality, it is nearer to
art than science is. Yet some men of science, like James and Huxley,
have made literature out of science because they could not help putting
into their writings something of their passionate interest in the things
they discovered and described.
The, necessity in art for the expression of value is, I think, the principal
difference between art and science, rather than, as Croce [Footnote:
_Estetica_, quarta edizione, p.27; English translation. p.36.] supposes,
the limitation of art to the expression of the individual and of Science
to the expression of the concept. For, on the one hand, science may
express the individual; and, on the other hand, art may express the
concept. The geographer, for example, describes and makes maps of
particular regions of the earth's surface; the astronomer studies the

individual sun and moon. Poets like Dante, Lucretius, Shakespeare, and
Goethe express the most universal concepts of ethics or metaphysics.
But what makes men poets rather than men of science is precisely that
they never limit themselves to the mere clear statement of the concept,
but always express its human significance as well. A theory of human
destiny is expressed in Prospero's lines--
We are such stuff As dreams are made of, and our little life Is rounded
with a sleep;
but with overtones of feeling at the core. Or consider the passion with
which Lucretius argues for a naturalistic conception of the universe.
And the reason why poets clothe their philosophical expressions in
concrete images is not because of any shame of the concept, but just in
order the more easily and vividly to attach and communicate their
emotion. Their general preference for the concrete has the same motive;
for there are only a few abstractions capable of arousing and fixing
emotion.
Even as an element of spontaneity is native to all expression, so
originally all expression is personal. This is easily observable in the
child. His first uses of words as well as of things are touched with
emotion. Every descriptive name conveys to him his emotional reaction
to the object; disinterested knowledge does not exist for him; every tool,
a knife or a fork, means to him not only something to be used, but the
whole background of feelings which