_THE ÆSTHETIC PSYCHOSIS_
The problem of the origin and nature of æsthetic feeling is a definite
psychological problem to be solved only by introspection careful and
prolonged. We must take simple cases and closely scrutinize them to
discover the distinctive quality, we must seek the cognitive, feeling,
will elements, we must note its kinship to other psychoses, we must
endeavour to analyse and determine whether it be simple or complex.
Analysis, indeed, as chemical analysis, _e.g._, is a reducing the
manifold to a comparatively few elements, from which by composition an
indefinite number of substances are formed. But in psychological study
we must proceed without any bias from physical investigation. We cannot
reduce mind to the mechanical development of a few simples as we survey
the development of matter chemically. If mind be essentially
self-activity, will effort, then conjunction of psychoses is due to a
conjoining activity, and is not mere aggregation. So in case of fear we
found a great complexity of conditions, yet fear in itself seems an
unanalyzable emotion wave. In taking up æsthetic psychosis we attempt an
unbiassed introspective study.
The æsthetic psychosis has been by many evolutionists connected with
sexual appetite and emotion. The evidence for this is that among animals
the brilliant-hued, and, as we term them, beautiful mates are chosen in
pairing time. Also graceful movements and melodious tones are then
employed. In mankind the æsthetic feeling, as every one may recall in
his own case, arose, and became prominent when near or in the teens. The
rude boy and the hoyden girl then dress and adorn themselves, and a
glamour of beauty is thrown about one who was once an entirely
indifferent object. All the surroundings, artificial and natural, of the
beloved object are looked upon and thought about in a new way of
feeling, an air of attractiveness and beauty envelops all. The period of
life of strongest sexuality, from twenty to forty, is also the period of
strongest æsthetic emotion. Further, sexuality is notedly strong among
those who professionally cultivate the æsthetic psychosis, as artists,
musicians, and poets: indeed, many of the very greatest of these have
been so carried away by the tender passion as to transgress the
conventions and laws on sexual matters. In cases of precocious sexuality
a feeling for the beautiful makes itself apparent; while with those who
slowly mature, the æsthetic feeling is similarly delayed. But does not
the infant who holds out a rose to you and cries “pretty,” have a
feeling for beauty? And it is surely unaffected by sexuality. What may
be in the mind of a child speaking thus is hard to make out, but the
activity is probably largely mimetic merely, and the term “pretty” is
probably used substantively rather than qualitatively; it is the name of
thing rather than quality. We certainly cannot assert of a child that
because it uses certain words it attaches to those words the proper
meanings. This is evident from the fact that a child taught to say
“pretty” will bring you any and every object and use the word, or if it
learns to take merely a class of objects, as rose, it does this at
dictation. The child is, however, obviously attracted by some objects
rather than others, but it would be hasty to say that it perceives their
beauty, when it is quite sufficient to regard them as conspicuous only,
and striking. But we have to touch on sensing later; and we only add to
the evidence of connection of feeling for beauty with sexual feeling,
that with the old and with eunuchs the æsthetic sense is but slight or
tends to vanish. Thus positively and negatively there seems to be
evidence that feeling for beauty originates in connection with sexual
passion, either that the object of the passion is always regarded as
beautiful, or that a feeling for beauty excites the passion. A girl
adorns herself to attract lovers, knowing that to admire beauty is the
first step to love. This close connection is recognised in common
consciousness in that “lovely” is synonymous with beautiful, thus a
“lovely” landscape or picture is a beautiful one.
That there is a close association of sexual with æsthetic psychosis is
then obvious in the case of the human being, but yet it would be quite
hasty to conclude that a sweet note or a pure colour may not be
æsthetically appreciated by children before they have the first stirring
toward sexuality, but still it is very easy—as I have before noted in
the case of the child who cries “pretty!”—to mistake the quality of
their interest.
But when we come to interpret the psychoses of the lower animals in
connection with sexuality we may still more easily slip into a doubtful
automorphism. Thus to say with Darwin, “When we behold a male bird
elaborately displaying ... before the female, ... it is impossible to
doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner” (_Descent of
Man_, p. 92), or more strongly still with Grant Allen, “Every crow must
think its own mate _beautiful_” (_Mind_, v. 448), we too easily take for
granted that these birds would feel like ourselves in corresponding
circumstances. We can find a more simple explanation. That crows often
maltreat those who are off colour, _e.g._, white, plainly does not
require us to suppose that they regard white as ugly, black as
beautiful, any more than we should judge that students in some Society
who wear a black badge would be æsthetically moved when they look with
disfavour upon students who may wear a white badge. Animals are
clannish, and as a rule, suffer none but those who have the customary
marks to associate with them, and especially to propagate. Hence when
the peacock displays himself to his mate he simply shows to her that he
has most conspicuously the proper marks, and she sees that he is the
proper mate. These are signs of a tempting mate, just as here is
tempting food, a very red ripe berry, but the coloration no more in the
one case than the other awakens feeling for beauty. The hen bird
probably appreciates a red feather as a red berry merely as being signs
of the completely satisfying. Sexual selection, like nutriment
selection, is a discrimination according to certain characters as
prompted by appetite. The expanded and vari-coloured tail of a peacock
is then a mere sexual characteristic which does not imply feeling for
beauty in its appreciation as significant of sex. A small foot, long
hair, and other sexual characters in woman, which are attractive to men,
in like manner arouse emotion which is far from æsthetic. We may take a
perfectly unsexual æsthetic pleasure in long raven tresses just as we do
in an ebony table, but this is obviously rather late achievement.
In fact are not æsthetic and sexual feelings mutually exclusive? So far
as nude art is “suggestive,” so far is the feeling of its beauty lost,
hence sculpture is not tinted. And so in the presence of the nude model
the artist can have merely æsthetic emotion, whereas his visitor is apt
to have emotions of another sort. We do, indeed, say that the lover
dwells upon his mistress’ “beauties,” but beauties here mean
attractions, and to the devoted lover all parts are attractive, even
moles and freckles which to the æsthetic eye are ugly.
From the evidence in hand we judge then that it is certainly not
necessary to call in the feeling of the beautiful as the motive in the
origin and development of sexual characters in animals and plants. Just
as there is a cry of fear or a tone of anger there is a vocal expression
of sexual feeling and emotion which has its use and is recognised as
such, but whose æsthetic quality is no more a matter of immediate
apprehension than in other utilities. At least the safest interpretation
that we can now make for all the lower grades of sexuality is that sex
characters are not primarily determined by the feeling for beauty, but
are simply immediate signs of sex to awaken the sexual response and
secure the best mate. How is it that sexuality is so prominent in
expression among some species and so little among others?—compare
peacocks and blue jays—is a question on which we have no light. We are
also in ignorance how the particular sexual character was evolved and
not some other, for example, why is not the peacock’s tail red? Grant
Allen’s suggestion that food selection has influenced sex selection may
be true, but it would require a very wide and thorough investigation. Do
brilliant-hued birds prefer brilliant-hued foods? How is the coloration
of the scarlet tanager related to the coloration of its food? However,
if the colouring of foods and mates were the same, it would in some
cases lead to disadvantageous confusion, and on general principles we
should expect such distinct elements as nutrition and sex to develop on
very different lines. The cue for colour may be learned first with
reference to food, but it may be carried on as sexually significant on
very distinct lines. Still to distinguish a food or a mate by colour is
equally non-æsthetic in itself. At least we think it improbable that
æsthetic psychosis arises as incentive to or reflex of sexuality in any
of the lower psychic stages.
A theory of the origin of æsthetic psychosis which has been pressed by
some, as by Herbert Spencer, is that it arises as reflex from
spontaneous outflow of energy, or more particularly in connection with
play impulse. A horse turned loose in pasture may gambol, running,
sniffing, looking around, all which denoting a free outflow of energy
through lines of least resistance, the customary channels of activity.
But we cannot seriously think that in this sensing and muscular activity
there is implied any real æsthetic psychosis, and indeed it seems quite
emotionless. The emotion of fear or similar feelings aroused the
original activities, but this present galloping, etc., is automatic, and
such immediate pleasure as may result from this free activity is
scarcely of the æsthetic order. The whole is of a distinctly lower order
than the original activity and much below æsthetic quality. If we recall
our own state of mind in youthful “letting off steam” and in plays, we
do not find æsthetic pleasure. There is, however, a pleasure of relief
and also positively a pleasure from such spontaneous outflow; but the
outburst of pent-up energy automatically spent along lines of race
action is a mere echo, dies out at once, and as degenerate form is not a
starting point for origin of any new psychosis. Play as simulation of
feeling and action is also removed from æsthetic activity, as in a dog
playing at fear and running, or at anger and chasing. He gets a more or
less modified fear or anger, but there does not seem to be any tendency
to æsthetic psychosis. Mere imitation is more or less exact and skilful,
but emotion therein and thereat is plainly not the glow of æsthetic
emotion, but is reflex of sense of power and intelligence as qualities.
Mimicry as mere outlet of energy as with monkeys is plainly not
aesthetic; here is merely an automatic outflow of force into suggested
activity. When a savage as mimetic achievement carves the figure of man
as handle to a knife, he accomplishes art, but not fine art. He has no
more æsthetic feeling than a boy or man whittling out a ship, it being
merely an exact and skilful counterfeit of a real thing. Imitation for
the sake of imitation or to deceive is a teleologic pleasure distinct
from æsthetic. Successful imitation is often said, indeed, to be
“beautifully done,” but this means no more than well done. Even a
well-baked cake is popularly spoken of as beautifully done.
We observe that superfluous energy rushes out along customary or
habitual lines of activity, and so with perfect ease and economy.
Activity which is easy and free is in itself pleasant, and this
pleasantness in sensing and derived psychosis is æsthetic feeling. Where
sensing is mere escape valve of force, though facility is absolute,
there is, as just pointed out, no æsthetic quality, the whole tending to
the merely mechanical. Owing to the fact that in nature curved lines
predominate and so ocular adjustment is to them, my eye follows a curved
line easier than a straight one, hence when spontaneous energy outflows
in sensing activity of least resistance it will be toward curves. But
spontaneous activity of this kind is, as we have explained, not
æsthetic. The law of economy in a vent is, greatest force, least effect,
the contrary of the usual formula for economy which is, least force,
greatest effect. Where energy is expensive the latter rule is to be
applied. Thus in directed and effortful sensing activity economy means
the ratio of efficiency, the ratio of the amount of painful effort to
desired result. But this is merely a saving of pain and not a real
pleasure psychosis. When I, in using a microscope see clearly with less
and less effort the objects of my study, I may take pleasure in the
economical and facile accomplishment, but this pleasure is one of
satisfaction in power and skill, and so not at all æsthetic. Again, a
dyer has great skill and easy appreciation with respect to colour, but
the æsthetic side of colour is not thereby specially felt by him. Mere
habitual and easy colour sensitiveness is not then thereby æsthetic. We
must, indeed, sense a colour before we can feel its beauty, but the
feeling of beauty is not directly involved in any stage of the sensing
evolution from the earliest and most painful effort with bare
appreciation to the spontaneous and effortless sensing at the moment of
great surplus of sensing energy.
Another way of accounting for æsthetic psychosis is by association.
Pleasant sights, for instance, are those with which we associate
pleasure, and “pleasant” means to many, beautiful. But a traveller,
thirsty in a desert land, declares that he saw no more pleasant sight
than a mud hole, but this pleasure, as he himself would aver, was far
from æsthetic. Whatever we have associated pleasure with, we regard with
pleasure, but only as we have associated æsthetic pleasure with it do we
regard it with æsthetic pleasure. Thus mere association or revival no
more gives us the derivation of æsthetic than any other emotion. Any
pleasure or pain may be associated with any sensation or perception, and
thereby re-occur with these, but the mere revival obviously does not
alter the nature of the psychosis or give any new psychosis. It is not
what is recalled, but how we _feel about_ it that constitutes æsthetic
emotion. So also when the beautiful is defined by H. R. Marshall as “the
permanently pleasurable in revival,” we get no insight into the origin,
nature, and development of the æsthetic psychosis; this purely objective
description gives no psychological analysis. But we may question the
accuracy of the description. A thing of beauty is not a joy for ever
when we mean thereby the object which excites the æsthetic psychosis,
for much that has seemed beautiful to one people and age does not remain
so for all peoples and times, and even with the individual, taste
varies. We must also note that the permanently pleasurable in revival
may not be æsthetic, as the lover’s remembrance of a trysting place. On
the whole, I do not find that æsthetic pleasure is in any case to be
ascribed to association, though it comes under the general laws of
association like any other feeling. A lily excites various modes of
æsthetic impression by its form, colour, odour, poetical character,
etc., all which may re-awaken together upon any presentation or
suggestion of the lily. However, for the aboriginal lotus-eater the lily
was also a pleasant sight—but not æsthetic—from the associated pleasures
of its pleasant taste and as satisfying hunger.
We have implied throughout—and common introspection approves this—that
æsthetic pleasure and emotion is a distinct psychosis which somehow
arises with reference to objects. It is not some previous psychosis as
modified by association, habit, economy, play-impulse, or sexuality; but
it is a _sui generis_ mode which develops on the basis of a past
evolution. The simplest and earliest æsthetic mode is plainly the
sensuous. Very commonly when looking on the delicate solid-tinted glow
of early dawn I have æsthetic pleasure, my eye dwells on it with
pleasure and drinks in the pleasant light. It is obvious here that the
sensing activity is carried on, not to discriminate food or mate nor yet
as mere vent to energy; but the sensing here acts for the pleasure in
the activity itself. How and why mere cognitive act, which originates as
guide to life, acquires a direct pleasure value and so is carried on
apart from the ends of life, and initiates an æsthetic world of its own,
cannot on the face of it be explained by natural selection; it is
entirely apart from this order of things. But we know that sensing often
carries pleasure with it as significant of life value, thus the thing
tasting good was originally the good thing to eat, digest and
assimilate; so also for smell, etc. But under natural selection this
pleasure sanction and index was never cultivated for its own sake.
Now is there any real difference in the pleasure in, for instance,
smelling, for the pure pleasure of smelling, as a perfume of fresh
apples, and the pleasure from smelling the apples as detecting them when
you are hungry? “How pleasant those apples smell! I do not care to eat
them, but I just enjoy smelling them”; is the pleasure thus indicated
the same in quality with that of the man who says, “Those apples smell
so nice I would like to try one”? Again, if hungry, we say, “The bread
tastes so _good_,” but we notice this pleasantness rapidly decreases as
appetite is satisfied. However, if there be fresh grass butter, you may
continue to eat long after appetite is satisfied, for the pure pleasure
of the taste. Obviously, the latter pleasure is not a mere continuance
of the former. Relish and taste pleasure seem distinct. Again, a red
apple is a pleasant sight to a hungry man and to an artist in different
ways. If our pleasure in looking at a picture of an apple is such that
the mouth waters, we know at once that the pleasure is unæsthetic. He
who is very fond of apples, and to whom they are always a pleasant
sight, is so far barred from æsthetic pleasure in them; while he who has
no appreciation of their edibility is thereby prepared for æsthetically
sensing them. So also sour grapes are as pretty as sweet. The colour
sense began as discriminative of foods, and hence red became pleasurably
known, but æsthetic appreciation is certainly much later and quite
diverse. If it be asked how and when did red, already noticeable, become
dwelt upon æsthetically, all we can hazard in reply is that at some
leisure moment when unmoved by appetite a surplus of energy set up an
habitual sensing activity, as noticing reds, and at a certain stage when
some directing is exercised, there comes a unique pleasure from the mere
sensing, and the red is therefore _dwelt_ upon. Æsthetic colour-pleasure
in the simplest case arises then in every one’s experience.
Sense-pleasure is thus distinctly of two kinds, first, as arising in
direct connection with general organic demands and satisfactions—the
part as serving the whole; second, as arising immediately from the
sense-activity—the whole as serving the part. A monkey may find an apple
a pleasant sight, but loses all interest when the apple is seen to be an
imitation: the monkey has the first pleasure, but not the second. The
sensuous æsthetic problem is merely to introspect the quality of the
sensing-for-itself-pleasure as distinct from pleasantness coming from
the service of life. A sense which develops its own pleasurableness is
on a new line, which we term the æsthetic. Æsthetic activity is distinct
from mere vent activity of superfluous energy by reason of being carried
on self-directed by the felt pleasure of activity; it implies a measure
of self-direction and self-consciousness. Æsthetic activity may then be
generally described as primarily a sensing carried on, not as means, but
for its own sake in pleasure immediately resulting. And we find that in
this very general meaning all senses have their æsthetic activity. The
temperature sense is carried on, as in basking, for the pure pleasure of
warmth. A cat behind a stove is a connoisseur in æsthetic warmth
sensations, and enjoys warmth for its own sake, so far as often to
injure the organism as a whole. To lie in the sun and experience the
thrills of pleasurable warmth and to keep up this sensing merely for the
sensation pleasure is a frequent experience even with man. Again, the
muscular and pressure senses often have a sphere of æsthetic activity
with athletes and lovers of exercise. When in prime condition, a man
will toss weights about solely for the pleasure involved in the sense of
pressure and of muscular activity. Touch also is plainly æsthetic when
one handles silk for the pleasure involved in its smoothness. Smell is
obviously an æsthetic activity in smelling perfumes for the pleasure of
the smell. It is probable that the æsthetic activity of this sense is
far wider in some of the lower animals where the sense is much more
acute, as the dog. The dog is plainly having a very different psychosis
when he is smelling with pleasure a piece of meat which he is about to
eat, and when he sniffs carrion and perfumes himself therewith. He gets
thus a certain pleasant but gross stimulation quite akin to the pleasure
some men take in musk, an enjoyment of which is distinctly an animal
trait. Again, the epicure who sips his rare wine is tasting for the pure
pleasure of the taste, and exercises this sense æsthetically. The
æsthetic of all these senses may be called the lower æsthetic, in
contradistinction to the higher æsthetic of sight and hearing; but
æsthetic activity is throughout its whole range practically identical in
nature and in the quality of its pleasure. When I lie in the sun and get
warmth, not because I am cold, but for the mere pleasure of the warmth
thrills, and when I keep looking at a delicate tint in the evening sky
for the mere pleasure of the sensation, I have, as far as my
introspection assures me, activities whose method and pleasure tone is
identical.
Simple sensuous æsthetic is no doubt the beginning of æsthetic activity,
but there speedily enters much complication. It often happens that
single elements which separately do not excite us æsthetically will
produce a marked effect in conjunction, as complementary colours, for
instance. Indeed, relation plays so large a place in our æsthetic
experience that such principles as variety and contrast, or, on the
other hand, unity, order, proportion, and harmony, have been made
fundamental to the æsthetic feeling. Æsthetic effect certainly here
becomes a complex of two or more reinforcing sensations or perceptions.
Where the sensuous elements of a perception are in themselves pleasing
we may expect the unison in perception to be doubly pleasing. However,
we may also conceive that æsthetic pleasure arises as a reflex of
perceptive activity in and for itself as a co-ordinating of impressions.
Fechner has made some experiments on what combinations are pleasing; but
experiment in this direction is extremely difficult because so few
people are willing to speak frankly of their æsthetic feelings, being
very sensitive about compromising themselves on matters of taste. There
is also the great difficulty of isolation, of making sure that
association does not creep in and add unforeseen elements. If Fechner
expected to get any judgments of value on such a matter as the golden
section rectangle, he should have consulted only trained artists who are
used to taking up the æsthetic activity with reference to any material
and expressing themselves with freedom. If this rectangle has the
æsthetic quality Fechner’s experiments suggest, it seems strange it was
not adopted by the symmetry-loving Greeks in their temples, like the
Parthenon.
To the spheres of simple and relational sense beauty we have to add a
third—representative beauty. A colour, or two or more in combination
which give æsthetic satisfaction, will also please in hallucinatory
vision and in representation proper where the revival is recognised in
its unreality and representative nature, and also in recollection where
the memory is willed. The mere imaging these colours without any
definite time relation also gives æsthetic pleasure. It is, indeed, a
pleonasm to say that æsthetic revivals are æsthetic. However,
imagination is productive as well as reproductive, hence the ideal
achieves a fuller beauty than the real. Where the mind, prompted by
æsthetic desire, determines its own object, this object can more fully
satisfy it than reality, which is always imperfect. Thus art surpasses
nature, or more strictly is a higher nature. Idealism then is a mode of
realism, and realism is but the ideal of actuality. But the imaging
activity may, like the perceptive, be considered as in itself a source
of æsthetic pleasure. Imaging is primarily used in the service of life,
as when walking in a forest I hear a peculiar cry, imagine a wolf, and
flee. When imaging has been largely developed thus, it may often act as
a mere vent to energy; but this kind of activity has here, no more than
elsewhere, real æsthetic quality. At the animistic stage children
imagine in this way long before they æsthetically image. When we
consciously and with some self-direction enjoy imaging for its own sake,
we attain the æsthetic sphere. The æsthetic pleasures which are
suggested by such a phrase as—
“Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
Sails the placid ocean plains”—
are not merely the sum of the original sense pleasures, but perceptive
and imaginative pleasure _per se_ is added, the image is more beautiful
than the real vision, and this perception than some sense element, as
the light sensation implied in “placid.”
Æsthetic pleasure, even in sense, and much more in perceiving and
imagining, is a _delight_, that is, æsthetic quality is an emotion
quality, it is not a mere feeling from an object, but a feeling about
it. Now emotion may be enacted for emotion’s sake and so an æsthetic
pleasure wave be generated. This is the pleasure we take in the
pathetic—pity, the sublime, fear as awe, the tragic-horror. These
emotions are realized for themselves as a mode of pleasurable activity.
Æsthetic emotion is also very largely emotion at emotion, as a feeling
for the expressive, still here the emotion is for its own sake.
Æsthetic activity may then be described as an independent self-activity
of some sense, or of perception, or imagination, or emotion as impelled
by a pleasure, this pleasure being a distinct and new form we term
æsthetic. It is probable this pleasure first arose in connection with
the exercise of the sense as a vent for spontaneous energy, and pleasure
once somehow being taken in a mere activity _per se_, it is thenceforth
conducted therefor. This is the plainest path of conjecture thus far. If
the first æsthetic pleasure were taken in some quiet moment of venting
energy in sensing red, then red will continue to be sensed, impelled by
the pleasure involved in the act. Granted such an origin, the
development of æsthetic psychosis can be traced in the way we have
noted.
Æsthetic psychosis is commonly regarded as passive, and it is indeed
true that the first moment of the pleasure _comes_ as result of an
activity impelled by other motives. New psychoses are not consciously
formed but are rather hit upon in natural development; but once a new
pleasure is felt its conditions will be attained and kept to by
conscious effort, and the pleasure itself will receive its development
only through effortful activity. It is by supreme effort the great
artist attains the vision of beauty, it is by supreme effort he
expresses this vision, it is by supreme effort the critic appreciates
this expression. He who has no appreciation of sculpture may by
patiently and earnestly observing statuary reach at length some æsthetic
pleasure. Thus the æsthetic, like all mental modes, so far as
progressive, is effortful; and it seems certain that the æsthetic
pleasures that come to us so easily are race acquirements, a heritage of
culture. From its first germ onwards æsthetic, like intellectual, like
moral, like all mental activity, is the achievement of intense struggle.
With the rise of beauty we have a new utility. Here is a new pleasure
which once experienced is sought and sought again, is developed, and
with some natures becomes absorbing passion, the life. Objects fitted to
give this pleasure are desired, are bought and sold. The beautiful is
used to effect all kinds of ends. The lover adorns himself to make
himself attractive, the advertiser distributes his bills in artistic
shape, the real estate dealer ornaments his houses and grounds. Whatever
will afford æsthetic pleasure we are willing to pay for and pay high. In
fact, in the person of a Patti the æsthetic thrill becomes the most
expensive taste which humanity can indulge. Art then is a utility—a
something which satisfies desire—and as such it is not free or
shareable. But one at a time can observe a picture from the best point
of view. Rich men buy the most sightly spots in nature, the places of
magnificent vistas and open to beautiful sunsets. Beautiful things are
then desirables just like edible things or warm things, and as such they
are not shareable. The feeling for beauty, just because it is
self-contained, is far from being disinterested. It is essentially
selfish.