Produced by Ruth Hart
[Note: for this online edition I have moved the Table of Contents to
the beginning of the text and slightly modified it to conform with the
online format. I have also made two spelling corrections:
"chippendale" to "Chippendale" and "closely interpendent" to
"closely interdependent."]
THE BEAUTIFUL
AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGICAL AESTHETICS
BY
VERNON LEE
Author of
"Beauty and Ugliness"
"Laurus Nobilis"
etc.
Cambridge:
at the University Press
New York:
G.P. Putnam's Sons
1913
[Illustration: title page]
_With the exception of the coat of arms
at the foot, the design on the title page is a
reproduction of one used by the earliest known
Cambridge printer, John Siberch,_ 1521
CONTENTS
Preface and Apology v
I. The Adjective "Beautiful" 1
II. Contemplative Satisfaction 8
III. Aspects versus Things 14
IV. Sensations 22
V. Perception of Relations 29
VI. Elements of Shape 35
VII. Facility and Difficulty of Grasping 48
VIII. Subject and Object, or, Nominative and Accusative 55
IX. Empathy (Einfühlung) 61
X. The Movement of Lines 70
XI. The Character of Shapes 78
XII. From the Shape to the Thing 84
XIII. From the Thing to the Shape 90
XIV. The Aims of Art 98
XV. Attention to Shapes 106
XVI. Information about Things 111
XVII. Co-operation of Things and Shapes 117
XVIII. Aesthetic Responsiveness 128
XIX. The Storage and Transfer of Emotion 139
XX. Aesthetic Irradiation and Purification 147
XXI. Conclusion (Evolutional) 153
Bibliography 156
Index 157
PREFACE AND APOLOGY
I HAVE tried in this little volume to explain aesthetic preference,
particularly as regards visible shapes, by the facts of mental science.
But my explanation is addressed to readers in whom I have no right
to expect a previous knowledge of psychology, particularly in its
more modern developments. I have therefore based my explanation
of the problems of aesthetics as much as possible upon mental facts
familiar, or at all events easily intelligible, to the lay reader. Now
mental facts thus available are by no means the elementary
processes with which analytical and, especially experimental,
psychology has dealings. They are, on the contrary, the everyday,
superficial and often extremely confused views which practical life
and its wholly unscientific vocabulary present of those ascertained
or hypothetical scientific facts. I have indeed endeavoured (for
instance in the analysis of perception as distinguished from
sensation) to impart some rudiments of psychology in the course of
my aesthetical explanation, and I have avoided, as much as possible,
misleading the reader about such fearful complexes and cruxes as
_memory, association_ and _imagination._ But I have been obliged
to speak in terms intelligible to the lay reader, and I am fully aware
that these terms correspond only very approximately to what is, or at
present passes as, psychological fact. I would therefore beg the
psychologist (to whom I offer this little volume as a possible slight
addition even to his stock of facts and hypotheses) to understand that
in speaking, for instance, of Empathy as involving a _thought_ of
certain activities, I mean merely that whatever happens has the same
result _as if we thought_; and that the processes, whatever they may
be (also in the case of measuring, comparing and co-ordinating),
translate themselves, _when they are detected,_ into _thoughts;_ but
that I do not in the least pre-judge the question whether the
processes, the "thoughts," the measuring, comparing etc. exist on
subordinate planes of consciousness or whether they are mainly
physiological and only occasionally abutting in conscious resultants.
Similarly, lack of space and the need for clearness have obliged me
to write as if shape-preference invariably necessitated the detailed
process of ocular perception, instead of being due, as is doubtless
most often the case, to every kind of associative abbreviation and
equivalence of processes.
VERNON LEE
Maiano _near_ Florence,_
Easter_ 1913.
CHAPTER I
THE ADJECTIVE "BEAUTIFUL"
THIS little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it
is an introduction, makes no attempt to "form the taste" of the public
and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with
_ought_ but with _is,_ leaving to Criticism the inference from the
latter to the former. It does not pretend to tell how things can be
made beautiful or even how we can recognise that things _are_
beautiful. It takes Beauty as already existing and enjoyed, and seeks
to analyse and account for Beauty's existence and enjoyment. More
strictly speaking, it analyses and accounts for Beauty not inasmuch
as existing in certain objects and processes, but rather as calling
forth (and being called forth by) a particular group of mental
activities and habits. It does not ask: What are the peculiarities of the
things (and the proceedings) which we call _Beautiful?_ but: What
are the peculiarities of our thinking and feeling when in the presence
of a thing to which we apply this adjective? The study of single
beautiful things, and even more, the comparison of various
categories thereof, is indeed one-half of all scientific aesthetics, but
only inasmuch as it adds to our knowledge of the particular mental
activities which such "Beautiful" (and vice versa "Ugly") things
elicit in us. For it is on the nature of this active response on our own
part that depends the application of those terms _Beautiful_ and
_Ugly_ in every single instance; and indeed their application in any
instances whatsoever, their very existence in the human vocabulary.
In accordance with this programme I shall not start with a formal
definition of the word _Beautiful,_ but ask: on what sort of
occasions we make use of it. Evidently, on _occasions when we feel
satisfaction rather than dissatisfaction,_ satisfaction meaning
willingness either to prolong or to repeat the particular experience
which has called forth that word; and meaning also that if it comes
to a choice between two or several experiences, we _prefer_ the
experience thus marked by the word _Beautiful. Beautiful,_ we may
therefore formulate, _implies on our part an attitude of satisfaction
and preference._ But there are other words which imply that much;
first and foremost the words, in reality synonyms, USEFUL and
GOOD. I call these synonyms because _good_ always implies
_good for,_ or _good in,_ that is to say fitness for a purpose, even
though that purpose may be masked under _conforming to a
standard_ or _obeying a commandment,_ since the standard or
commandment represents not the caprice of a community, a race or a
divinity, but some (real or imaginary) utility of a less immediate
kind. So much for the meaning of _good_ when implying standards
and commandments; ninety-nine times out of a hundred there is,
however, no such implication, and _good_ means nothing more than
_satisfactory in the way of use and advantage._ Thus a _good_ road
is a road we prefer because it takes us to our destination quickly and
easily. A _good_ speech is one we prefer because it succeeds in
explaining or persuading. And a _good_ character (good friend,
father, husband, citizen) is one that gives satisfaction by the
fulfilment of moral obligations.
But note the difference when we come to _Beautiful._ A _beautiful_
road is one we prefer because it affords views we like to look at; its
being devious and inconvenient will not prevent its being
_beautiful._ A _beautiful_ speech is one we like to hear or
remember, although it may convince or persuade neither us nor
anybody. A _beautiful_ character is one we like to think about but
which may never practically help anyone, if for instance, it exists
not in real life but in a novel. Thus the adjective _Beautiful_ implies
_an attitude of preference, but not an attitude of present or future
turning to our purposes._ There is even a significant lack of
symmetry in the words employed (at all events in English, French
and German) to distinguish what we like from what we dislike in the
way of weather. For weather which makes us uncomfortable and
hampers our comings and goings by rain, wind or mud, is described
as _bad;_ while the opposite kind of weather is called _beautiful,
fine,_ or _fair,_ as if the greater comfort, convenience, usefulness of
such days were forgotten in the lively satisfaction afforded to our
mere contemplation.
_Our mere contemplation!_ Here we have struck upon the main
difference between our attitude when we use the word _good_ or
_useful,_ and when we use the word _beautiful._ And we can add to
our partial formula "beautiful implies satisfaction and preference"--the
distinguishing predicate--"_of a contemplative kind._" This
general statement will be confirmed by an everyday anomaly in our
use of the word beautiful; and the examination of this seeming
exception will not only exemplify what I have said about our
attitude when employing that word, but add to this information the
name of the emotion corresponding with that attitude: the emotion
of _admiration._ For the selfsame object or proceeding may
sometimes be called _good_ and sometimes _beautiful,_ according
as the mental attitude is practical or contemplative. While we
admonish the traveller to take a certain road because he will find it
_good,_ we may hear that same road described by an enthusiastic
coachman as _beautiful, anglicè fine_ or _splendid,_ because there
is no question of immediate use, and the road's qualities are merely
being contemplated with admiration. Similarly, we have all of us
heard an engineer apply to a piece of machinery, and even a surgeon
to an operation, the apparently far-fetched adjective Beautiful, or
one of the various equivalents, fine, splendid, glorious (even
occasionally _jolly!)_ by which Englishmen express their
admiration. The change of word represents a change of attitude. The
engineer is no longer bent upon using the machine, nor the surgeon
estimating the advantages of the operation. Each of these highly
practical persons has switched off his practicality, if but for an
imperceptible fraction of time and in the very middle of a practical
estimation or even of practice itself. The machine or operation, the
skill, the inventiveness, the fitness for its purposes, are being
considered _apart from action,_ and advantage, means and time,
to-day or yesterday; _platonically_ we may call it from the first great
teacher of aesthetics. They are being, in one word, contemplated
with admiration. And _admiration_ is the rough and ready name for
the mood, however transient, for the emotion, however faint,
wherewith we greet whatever makes us contemplate, because
contemplation happens to give satisfaction. The satisfaction may be
a mere skeleton of the "I'd rather than not" description; or it may be
a massive alteration in our being, radiating far beyond the present,
evoking from the past similar conditions to corroborate it; storing
itself up for the future; penetrating, like the joy of a fine day, into
our animal spirits, altering pulse, breath, gait, glance and demeanour;
and transfiguring our whole momentary outlook on life. But,
superficial or overwhelming, _this hind of satisfaction connected
with, the word Beautiful is always of the Contemplative order._
And upon the fact we have thus formulated depend, as we shall see,
most of the other facts and formulae of our subject.
This essentially unpractical attitude accompanying the use of the
word _Beautiful_ has led metaphysical aestheticians to two famous,
and I think, quite misleading theories. The first of these defines
aesthetic appreciation as _disinterested interest,_ gratuitously
identifying self-interest with the practical pursuit of advantages we
have not yet got; and overlooking the fact that such appreciation
implies enjoyment and is so far the very reverse of disinterested.
The second philosophical theory (originally Schiller's, and revived
by Herbert Spencer) takes advantage of the non-practical attitude
connected with the word _Beautiful_ to define art and its enjoyment
as a kind of _play._ Now although leisure and freedom from cares
are necessary both for play and for aesthetic appreciation, the latter
differs essentially from the former by its contemplative nature. For
although it may be possible to watch _other people_ playing football
or chess or bridge in a purely contemplative spirit and with the
deepest admiration, even as the engineer or surgeon may
contemplate the perfections of a machine or an operation, yet the
concentration on the aim and the next moves constitutes on the part
of the players _themselves_ an eminently practical state of mind,
one diametrically opposed to contemplation, as I hope to make
evident in the next section.