itself as divided into two poles, positive and negative, pleasure
and pain, which we can now translate into useful and disuseful (or
hurtful). This bipartition has already been noted above, as a mark of
the activistic character of feeling, and one which is to be found in
all forms of activity. If each of these is _value,_ each has opposed
to it _antivalue_ or _disvalue._ Absence of value is not sufficient to
cause dis value, but activity and passivity must be struggling between
themselves, without the one getting the better of the other; hence
the contradiction and disvalue of the activity that is embarrassed,
impeded, or interrupted. Value is activity that unfolds itself freely:
disvalue is its contrary.
We will content ourselves with this definition of the two terms,
without entering into the problem of the relation between value and
disvalue, that is, the problem of contraries (that is to say, whether
they are to be thought of dualistically, as two beings or two orders
of beings, like Ormuzd and Ahriman, angels and devils, enemies to one
another; or as a unity, which is also contrariety). This definition
of the two terms will be sufficient for our purpose, which is to make
clear the nature of æsthetic activity, and at this particular point one
of the most obscure and disputed concepts of Æsthetic: the concept of
the _Beautiful._
[Sidenote: _The Beautiful as the value of expression, or expression
without qualification._]
Æsthetic, intellectual, economic and ethical values and disvalues
are variously denominated in current speech: _beautiful, true, good,
useful, expedient, just, right_ and so on--thus designating the free
development of spiritual activity, action, scientific research,
artistic production, when they are successful; _ugly, false, bad,
useless, inexpedient, unjust,_ wrong designating embarrassed activity,
the product that is a failure. In linguistic usage, these denominations
are being continually shifted from one order of facts to another.
_Beautiful,_ for instance, is said not only of a successful expression,
but also of a scientific truth, of an action successfully achieved,
and of a moral action: thus we talk of an _intellectual beauty,_ of a
_beautiful action,_ of a _moral beauty._ The attempt to keep up with
these infinitely varying usages leads into a trackless labyrinth of
verbalism in which many philosophers and students of art have lost
their way. For this reason we have thought it best studiously to avoid
the use of the word "beautiful" to indicate successful expression in
its positive value. But after all the explanations that we have given,
all danger of misunderstanding being now dissipated, and since on the
other hand we cannot fail to recognize that the prevailing tendency,
both in current speech and in philosophy, is to limit the meaning of
the word "beautiful" precisely to the æsthetic value, it seems now both
permissible and advisable to define beauty as _successful expression,_
or rather, as _expression_ and nothing more, because expression when it
is not successful is not expression.
[Sidenote: _The ugly, and the elements of beauty which compose it._]
Consequently, the ugly is unsuccessful expression. The paradox is true,
for works of art that are failures, that the beautiful presents itself
as _unity,_ the ugly as _multiplicity._ Hence we hear of _merits_ in
relation to works of art that are more or less failures, that is to
say, of _those parts of them that are beautiful,_ which is not the case
with perfect works. It is in fact impossible to enumerate the merits or
to point out what parts of the latter are beautiful, because being a
complete fusion they have but one value. Life circulates in the whole
organism: it is not withdrawn into the several parts.
[Sidenote: _Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful nor
ugly._]
Unsuccessful works may have merit in various degrees, even the
greatest. The beautiful does not possess degrees, for there is no
conceiving a more beautiful, that is, an expressive that is more
expressive, an adequate that is more than adequate. Ugliness, on the
other hand, does possess degrees, from the rather ugly (or almost
beautiful) to the extremely ugly. But if the ugly were _complete,_
that is to say, without any element of beauty, it would for that very
reason cease to be ugly, because it would be without the contradiction
in which is the reason of its existence. The disvalue would become
non-value; activity would give place to passivity, with which it is not
at war, save when activity is really present to oppose it.
And because the distinctive consciousness of the beautiful and of the
ugly is based on the conflicts and contradictions in which æsthetic
activity is developed, it is evident that this consciousness becomes
attenuated to the point of disappearing altogether, as we descend from
the more complicated to the more simple and to the simplest instances
of expression. Hence the illusion that there are expressions neither
beautiful nor ugly, those which are obtained without sensible effort
and appear easy and natural being considered such.
[Sidenote: _True æsthetic feelings and concomitant or accidental
feelings._]
The whole mystery of the _beautiful_ and the _ugly_ is reduced to
these henceforth most easy definitions. Should any one object that
there exist perfect æsthetic expressions before which no pleasure is
felt, and others, perhaps even failures, which give him the greatest
pleasure, we must recommend him to concentrate his attention in the
æsthetic fact, upon that which is truly æsthetic pleasure. Æsthetic
pleasure is sometimes reinforced or rather complicated by pleasures
arising from extraneous facts, which are only accidentally found united
with it. The poet or any other artist affords an instance of purely
æsthetic pleasure at the moment when he sees (or intuites) his work
for the first time; that is to say, when his impressions take form and
his countenance is irradiated with the divine joy of the creator. On
the other hand, a mixed pleasure is experienced by one who goes to the
theatre, after a day's work, to witness a comedy: when the pleasure of
rest and amusement, or that of laughingly snatching a nail from his
coffin, accompanies the moment of true æsthetic pleasure in the art
of the dramatist and actors. The same may be said of the artist who
looks upon his labour with pleasure when it is finished, experiencing,
in addition to the æsthetic pleasure, that very different one which
arises from the thought of self-complacency satisfied, or even of the
economic gain which will come to him from his work. Instances could be
multiplied.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of apparent feelings._]
A category of _apparent_ æsthetic feelings has been formed in modern
Æsthetic, not arising from the form, that is to say, from the works of
art as such, but from their content. It has been remarked that artistic
representations arouse pleasure and pain in their infinite shades
of variety. We tremble with anxiety, we rejoice, we fear, we laugh,
we weep, we desire, with the personages of a drama or of a romance,
with the figures in a picture and with the melody of music. But these
feelings are not such as would be aroused by the real fact outside
art; or rather, they are the same in quality, but are quantitatively
an attenuation of real things. Æsthetic and _apparent_ pleasure and
pain show themselves to be light, shallow, mobile. We have no need to
treat here of these _apparent feelings,_ for the good reason that we
have already amply discussed them; indeed, we have hitherto treated
of nothing but them. What are these apparent or manifested feelings,
but feelings objectified, intuited, expressed? And it is natural that
they do not trouble and afflict us as passionately as those of real
life, because those were matter, these are form and activity; those
true and proper feelings, these intuitions and expressions. The formula
of _apparent feelings_ is therefore for us nothing but a tautology,
through which we can run the pen without scruple.
XI
CRITICISM OF ÆSTHETIC HEDONISM
As we are opposed to hedonism in general, that is to say, to the theory
based upon the pleasure and pain intrinsic to the economic activity and
accompanying every other form of activity, which, confounding container
and content, fails to recognize any process but the hedonistic; so we
are opposed to æsthetic hedonism in particular, which looks at any rate
upon the æsthetic, if not also upon all other activities, as a simple
fact of feeling, and confounds the pleasurable expression, which is the
beautiful, with the simply pleasurable and all its other species.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of the beautiful as that which pleases the higher
senses._]
The æsthetic-hedonistic point of view has been presented in several
forms. One of the most ancient conceives the beautiful as that which
pleases sight and hearing, that is to say, the so-called _higher
senses._ When analysis of æsthetic facts first began, it was, indeed,
difficult to avoid the false belief that a picture and a piece of
music are impressions of sight or hearing and correctly to interpret
the obvious remark that the blind man does not enjoy the picture, nor
the deaf man the music. To show, as we have shown, that the æsthetic
fact does not depend upon the nature of the impressions, but that all
sensible impressions can be raised to æsthetic expression and that
none need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself
only when all other doctrinal constructions of this problem have been
tried. Any one who holds that the æsthetic fact is something pleasing
to the eyes or to the hearing, has no line of defence against him who
consistently proceeds to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in
general, and includes in Æsthetic cooking, or (as some positivists have
called it) the viscerally beautiful.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of the theory of play._]
The theory of _play_ is another form of æsthetic hedonism. The concept
of play has sometimes helped towards the realization of the activistic
character of the expressive fact: man (it has been said) is not really
man, save when he begins to play (that is to say, when he frees himself
from natural and mechanical causality and works spiritually); and his
first game is art. But since the word "play" also means that pleasure
which arises from the expenditure of the exuberant energy of the
organism (which is a practical fact), the consequence of this theory
has been that every game has been called an æsthetic fact, or that the
æsthetic function has been called a game, because like science and
everything else, it may form part of a game. Morality alone cannot
ever be caused by the will to play (for it will never consent to such
an origin), but on the contrary itself dominates and regulates the act
itself of playing.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of the theories of sexuality and of triumph._]
Finally, some have tried to deduce the pleasure of art from the echo
of that of the sexual organs. And some of the most recent æstheticians
confidently find the genesis of the æsthetic fact in the pleasure of
_conquering_ and in that of _triumphing,_ or, as others add, in the
wish of the male to conquer the female. This theory is seasoned with
much anecdotal erudition, heaven knows of what degree of credibility,
as to the customs of savage peoples. But there was really no need for
such assistance, since in ordinary life one often meets poets who adorn
themselves with their poetry, like cocks raising their crests, or
turkeys spreading out their tails. But any one who does this, in so far
as he does it, is not a poet but a poor fool, in fact, a poor fool of
a cock or turkey, and the desire for the victorious conquest of women
has nothing to do with the fact of art. It would be just as correct to
look upon poetry as _economic,_ because there once were court poets
and salaried poets, and there are poets now who find in the sale of
their verses an aid to life if not a complete living. This deduction
and definition has not failed to attract some zealous neophytes in
historical materialism.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of the Æsthetic of the sympathetic. Meaning in it
of content and form._]
Another less vulgar current of thought considers Æsthetic as the
science of the _sympathetic,_ as that with which we sympathize,
which attracts, rejoices, arouses pleasure and admiration. But the
sympathetic is nothing but the image or representation of what pleases.
And as such it is a complex fact, resulting from a constant element,
the æsthetic element of representation, and a variable element, the
pleasing in its infinite forms, arising from all the various classes of
values.
In ordinary language, there is sometimes a feeling of repugnance at
calling an expression "beautiful," unless it is an expression of the
sympathetic. Hence the continual conflicts between the point of view
of the æsthetician or art critic and that of the ordinary person,
who cannot succeed in persuading himself that the image of pain and
baseness can be beautiful or at least that it has as much right to be
beautiful as the pleasing and the good.
The conflict could be put an end to by distinguishing two different
sciences, one of expression and the other of the sympathetic, if the
latter could be the object of a special science; that is to say, if
it were not, as has been shown, a complex and equivocal concept. If
predominance be given to the expressive fact, it enters Æsthetic as
science of expression; if to the pleasurable content, we fall back
to the study of facts essentially hedonistic (utilitarian), however
complicated they may appear. The particular origin of the doctrine
which conceives the relation between form and content as the sum of two
values is also to be sought in the doctrine of the sympathetic.
[Sidenote: _Æsthetic hedonism and moralism._]
In all the doctrines just now discussed, art is considered as a merely
hedonistic thing. But æsthetic hedonism cannot be maintained, save by
uniting it with a general philosophical hedonism, which does not admit
any other form of value. Hardly has this hedonistic conception of art
been received by philosophers who admit one or more spiritual values,
truth or morality, when the following question must necessarily be
asked: What must be done with art? To what use should it be put? Should
a free course be allowed to the pleasures it procures? And if so, to
what extent? The question of the _end of art,_ which in the Æsthetic of
expression is inconceivable, has a clear significance in the Æsthetic
of the Sympathetic and demands a solution.
[Sidenote: _The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic justification of
art._]
Now it is evident that such solution can have but two forms, one
altogether negative, the other of a restrictive nature. The first,
which we shall call _rigoristic_ or _ascetic,_ appears several times,
although not frequently, in the history of ideas. It looks upon art
as an inebriation of the senses and therefore as not only useless but
harmful. According to this theory, then, we must exert all our strength
to liberate the human soul from its disturbing influence. The other
solution, which we shall call _pedagogic_ or _moralistic-utilitarian,_
admits art, but only in so far as it co-operates with the end of
morality; in so far as it assists with innocent pleasure the work
of him who points the way to the true and the good; in so far as it
anoints the edge of the cup of wisdom and morality with sweet honey.
It is well to observe that it would be an error to divide this second
view into intellectualistic and moralistic-utilitarian, according as to
whether be assigned to art the end of leading to the true or to what
is practically good. The educational task which is imposed upon it,
precisely because it is an end which is sought after and advised, is no
longer merely a theoretical fact, but a theoretical fact already become
the ground for practical action; it is not, therefore, intellectualism,
but pedagogism and practicism. Nor would it be more exact to subdivide
the pedagogic view into pure utilitarian and moralistic-utilitarian;
because those who admit only the satisfaction of the individual
(the desire of the individual), precisely because they are absolute
hedonists, have no motive for seeking an ulterior justification for
art.
But to enunciate these theories at the point to which we have attained
is to confute them. We prefer to restrict ourselves to observing that
in the pedagogic theory of art is to be found another of the reasons
why the claim has erroneously been made that the content of art should
be _chosen_ with a view to certain practical effects.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of pure beauty._]
The thesis that art consists of _pure beauty_ has often been brought
forward against hedonistic and pedagogic Æsthetic, and eagerly taken
up by artists: "Heaven places all our joy in _pure beauty,_ and the
Verse is everything." If by this be understood that art is not to be
confounded with sensual pleasure (utilitarian practicism), nor with
the exercise of morality, then our Æsthetic also must be permitted to
adorn itself with the title of _Æsthetic of pure beauty._ But if (as is
often the case) something mystical and transcendent be meant by this,
something unknown to our poor human world, or something spiritual and
beatific, but not expressive, we must reply that while applauding the
conception of a beauty _free from all that is not the spiritual form of
expression,_ we are unable to conceive a beauty superior to this and
still less that it should be _purified of expression,_ or severed from
itself.
XII
THE ÆSTHETIC OF THE SYMPATHETIC AND PSEUDO-ÆSTHETIC CONCEPTS
[Sidenote: _Pseudo-æsthetic concepts, and the æsthetic of the
sympathetic._]
The doctrine of the sympathetic (very often animated and seconded in
this by the capricious metaphysical and mystical Æsthetic, and by that
blind traditionalism which assumes an intimate connection between
things fortuitously treated together by the same authors in the same
books), has introduced and rendered familiar in systems of Æsthetic a
series of concepts a rapid mention of which suffices to justify our
resolute expulsion of them from our own treatise.
Their catalogue is long, not to say interminable: _tragic, comic,
sublime, pathetic, moving, sad, ridiculous, melancholy, tragi-comic,
humorous, majestic, dignified, serious, grave, imposing, noble,
decorous, graceful, attractive, piquant, coquettish, idyllic, elegiac,
cheerful, violent, ingenuous, cruel, base, horrible, disgusting,
dreadful, nauseating;_ the fist can be increased at will.
Since that doctrine took the sympathetic as its special object, it was
naturally unable to neglect any of the varieties of the sympathetic,
any of the mixtures or gradations by means of which, starting from
the sympathetic in its loftiest and most intense manifestation, its
contrary, the antipathetic and repugnant, is finally reached. And
since the sympathetic content was held to be the _beautiful_ and
the antipathetic the _ugly,_ the varieties (tragic, comic, sublime,
pathetic, etc.) constituted for that conception of Æsthetic the shades
and gradations intervening between the beautiful and the ugly.
[Sidenote: _Criticism of the theory of the ugly in art and of the
overcoming of it._]
Having enumerated and defined as well as it could, the chief of these
varieties, the Æsthetic of the sympathetic set itself the problem
of the place to be assigned to the _ugly in art._ This problem is
without meaning for us, who do not recognize any ugliness save the
anti-æsthetic or inexpressive, which can never form _part_ of the
æsthetic fact, being, on the contrary, its _antithesis._ But in the
doctrine which we are here criticizing the positing and discussion
of that problem meant neither more nor less than the necessity of
reconciling in some way the false and defective idea of art from which
it started--art reduced to the representation of the pleasurable--with
real art, which occupies a far wider field. Hence the artificial
attempt to settle what examples of the _ugly_ (antipathetic) could be
admitted in artistic representation, and for what reasons, and in what
ways.
The answer was: that the ugly is admissible, only when it can be
_overcome_; an unconquerable ugliness, such as the _disgusting_ or the
_nauseating,_ being altogether excluded. Further, that the duty of
the ugly, when admitted in art, is to contribute towards heightening
the effect of the beautiful (sympathetic), by producing a series of
contrasts, from which the pleasurable may issue more efficacious and
joy-giving. It is, indeed, a common observation that pleasure is more
vividly felt when preceded by abstinence and suffering. Thus the ugly
in art was looked upon as adapted for the service of the beautiful, a
stimulant and condiment of æsthetic pleasure.
That special refinement of hedonistic theory which used to be pompously
called the doctrine of the _overcoming of the ugly_ falls with the
Æsthetic of the sympathetic, and with it the enumeration and definition
of the concepts mentioned above, which show themselves to be completely
foreign to Æsthetic. For Æsthetic does not recognize the sympathetic or
the antipathetic or their varieties, but only the spiritual activity of
representation.
[Sidenote: _Pseudo-æsthetic concepts belong to Psychology._]
Nevertheless, the important place which, as we have said, those
concepts have hitherto occupied in æsthetic treatises makes it
advisable to supply a rather more complete explanation as to their
nature. What shall be their lot? Excluded from Æsthetic, in what other
part of Philosophy will they be received?
In truth, nowhere; for all those concepts are without philosophical
value. They are nothing but a series of classes, which can be fashioned
in the most various ways and multiplied at pleasure, to which it is
sought to reduce the infinite complications and shadings of the values
and disvalues of life. Of these classes, some have an especially
positive significance, like the beautiful, the sublime, the majestic,
the solemn, the serious, the weighty, the noble, the elevated; others
a significance chiefly negative, like the ugly, the painful, the
horrible, the dreadful, the tremendous, the monstrous, the insipid, the
extravagant; finally in others a mixed significance prevails, such as
the comic, the tender, the melancholy, the humorous, the tragi-comic.
The complications are infinite, because the individuations are
infinite; hence it is not possible to construct the concepts, save in
the arbitrary and approximate manner proper to the natural sciences,
satisfied with making the best classification they can of that reality
which they can neither exhaust by enumeration, nor understand and
conquer speculatively. And since _Psychology_ is the naturalistic
science which undertakes to construct types and schemes of the
spiritual life of man (a science whose merely empirical and descriptive
character becomes more evident day by day), these concepts do not
belong to Æsthetic, nor to Philosophy in general, but must simply be
handed over to Psychology.
[Sidenote: _Impossibility of rigorous definitions of them._]