abstractions, it may be asserted that the history of æsthetic
productions shows progressive cycles, but each cycle with its own
problem and each progressive only in respect to that problem. When many
are at work in a general way upon the same subject, without succeeding
in giving to it the suitable form, yet drawing always more near to
it, there is said to be progress, and when appears the man who gives
it definite form, the cycle is said to be complete, and progress is
ended. A typical example of this would here be the progress in the
elaboration of the mode of using the subject-matter of chivalry, during
the Italian Renaissance, from Pulci to Ariosto (using this as an
example and excusing excessive simplification). Nothing but repetition
and imitation, diminution or exaggeration, a spoiling of what had
already been done, in short decadence could be the result of employing
that same material after Ariosto. The epigoni of Ariosto prove this.
Progress begins with the beginning of a new cycle. Cervantes, with
his more open and conscious irony, is an instance of this. In what
did the general decadence of Italian literature at the end of the
sixteenth century consist? Simply in having nothing more to say and in
repeating and exaggerating motives already discovered. If the Italians
of this period had even been able to express their own decadence, they
would not have been altogether failures, but would have anticipated
the literary movement of the Risorgimento. Where the matter is not
the same, a progressive cycle does not exist. Shakespeare does not
represent an advance on Dante, nor Goethe upon Shakespeare. Dante,
however, represents an advance on the visionaries of the Middle Ages,
Shakespeare on the Elizabethan dramatists, Goethe, with _Werther_ and
the first part of _Faust,_ on the writers of the _Sturm und Drang_
period. This mode of presenting the history of poetry and art contains,
however, as we have remarked, something of the abstract, of the merely
practical, and is without strict philosophical value. Not only is the
art of savages not inferior, as art, to that of civilized peoples,
if it be correlative to the impressions of the savage; but every
individual, indeed every moment of the spiritual life of an individual,
has its artistic world; none of these worlds can be compared with any
other in respect of artistic value.
[Sidenote: _Errors committed against this law._]
Many have sinned and continue to sin against this special form of the
criterion of progress in artistic and literary history. Some, for
instance, talk of the infancy of Italian art in Giotto, and of its
maturity in Raphæl or in Titian; as though Giotto were not complete
and absolutely perfect, granted the material of feeling with which his
mind was furnished. He was certainly incapable of drawing a figure
like Raphæl, or of colouring it like Titian; but was Raphæl or Titian
capable of creating the _Marriage of Saint Francis with Poverty_ or
the _Death of Saint Francis_? The spirit of Giotto had not felt the
attraction of the body beautiful, which the Renaissance studied and
raised to a place of honour; the spirits of Raphæl and of Titian were
no longer interested in certain movements of ardour and of tenderness
with which the man of the fourteenth century was in love. How, then,
can a comparison be made, where there is no comparative term?
The celebrated divisions of the history of art into an oriental period,
representing a lack of equilibrium between idea and form, the latter
dominating, a classical representing an equilibrium between idea and
form, a romantic representing a new lack of equilibrium between idea
and form, the former dominating, suffer from the same defect. The same
is true of the division into oriental art, representing imperfection
of form; classical, perfection of form; romantic or modern, perfection
of content and of form. Thus classic and romantic have also received,
among their many other meanings, that of progressive or regressive
periods, in respect to the realization of some alleged artistic ideal
of all humanity.
[Sidenote: _Other meanings of the word "progress" in respect to
Æsthetic._]
There is no such thing, then, as an _æsthetic_ progress of humanity.
However, by æsthetic progress is sometimes meant, not what the two
words coupled together really signify, but the ever-increasing
accumulation of our historical knowledge, which makes us able to
sympathize with all the artistic products of all peoples and of all
times, or, as they say, makes our taste more catholic. The difference
appears very great if the eighteenth century, so incapable of escaping
from itself, be compared with our own time, which enjoys alike Greek
and Roman art, now better understood, Byzantine, mediæval, Arabic and
Renaissance art, the art of the Cinquecento, baroque art, and the art
of the eighteenth century. Egyptian, Babylonian, Etruscan, and even
prehistoric art are more profoundly studied every day. Certainly,
the difference between the savage and civilized man does not lie in
the human faculties. The savage has speech, intellect, religion and
morality in common with civilized man, and is a complete man. The only
difference lies in this, that civilized man penetrates and dominates
a larger portion of the universe with his theoretic and practical
activity. We cannot claim to be more spiritually alert than, for
example, the contemporaries of Pericles; but no one can deny that we
are richer than they--rich with their riches and with those of how many
other peoples and generations besides our own?
By æsthetic progress is also meant, in another sense, which is also
improper, the greater abundance of artistic intuitions and the smaller
number of imperfect or inferior works which one epoch produces in
respect to another. Thus it may be said that there was æsthetic
progress, an artistic awakening in Italy, at the end of the thirteenth
or of the fifteenth century.
Finally, æsthetic progress is talked of in a third sense, with an eye
to the refinement and complications of soul-states exhibited in the
works of art of the most civilized peoples, as compared with those of
less civilized peoples, barbarians and savages. But in this case the
progress is of the comprehensive psycho-social conditions, not of the
artistic activity, to which the material is indifferent.
These are the most important points to note concerning the method of
artistic and literary history.
XVIII
CONCLUSION:
IDENTITY OF LINGUISTIC AND ÆSTHETIC
[Sidenote: _Summary of the study._]
A glance over the path traversed will show that we have completed
the entire programme of our treatise. We have studied the nature of
intuitive or expressive knowledge, which is the æsthetic or artistic
fact (I. and II.), and described the other form of knowledge, the
intellectual, and the successive complications of these forms (III.);
it thus became possible for us to criticize all erroneous æsthetic
theories arising from the confusion between the various forms and from
the illicit transference of the characteristics of one form to another
(IV.), noting at the same time the opposite errors to be found in the
theory of intellectual knowledge and of historiography (V.). Passing
on to examine the relations between the æsthetic activity and the
other activities of the spirit, no longer theoretic but practical, we
indicated the true character of the practical activity and the place
which it occupies in respect to the theoretic activity: hence the
criticism of the intrusion into æsthetic theory of practical concepts
(VI.); we have distinguished the two forms of the practical activity,
as economic and ethical (VII.), reaching the conclusion that there are
no other forms of the spirit beyond the four which we have analyzed;
hence (VIII.) the criticism of every mystical or imaginative Æsthetic.
And since there are no other spiritual forms co-ordinate with these,
so there are no original subdivisions of the four established, and
in particular of Æsthetic. From this arises the impossibility of
classes of expressions and the criticism of Rhetoric, that is, of
ornate expression distinct from simple expression, and of other similar
distinctions and subdistinctions (IX.) But by the law of the unity of
the spirit, the æsthetic fact is also a practical fact, and as such,
occasions pleasure and pain. This led us to study f the feelings of
value in general, and those of æsthetic value or of the beautiful in
particular (X.), to criticize æsthetic hedonism in all its various
manifestations and complications (XI.), and to expel from the system
of Æsthetic the long series of psychological concepts which had been
introduced into it (XII.). Proceeding from æsthetic production to the
facts of reproduction, we began by investigating the external fixing
of the æsthetic expression, for the purpose of reproduction. This
is called the physically beautiful, whether natural or artificial
(XIII.). We derived from this distinction the criticism of the errors
which arise from confounding the physical with the æsthetic side of
facts (XIV.). We determined the meaning of artistic technique, or that
technique which is at the service of reproduction, thus criticizing
the divisions, limits and classifications of the individual arts,
and establishing the relations of art, economy and morality (XV.).
Since the existence of physical objects does not suffice to stimulate
æsthetic reproduction to the full, and since, in order to obtain it,
we must recall the conditions in which the stimulus first operated,
we have also studied the function of historical erudition, directed
toward re-establishing the communication between the imagination and
the works of the past, and to serve as the basis of the æsthetic
judgement (XVI.). We have concluded our treatise by showing how the
reproduction thus obtained is afterwards elaborated by the categories
of thought, that is to say, by an examination of the method of literary
and artistic history (XVII.).
The æsthetic fact has in short been considered both in itself and in
its relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings
of pleasure and pain, with what are called physical facts, with
memory and with historical treatment. It has passed before us as
_subject_ until it became _object,_ that is to say, from the moment
of _its birth_ until it becomes gradually changed for the spirit into
_subject-matter of history._
Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre when externally compared
with the great volumes usually dedicated to Æsthetic. But it will not
seem so when we perceive that those volumes are nine-tenths full of
matter that is not pertinent, such as definitions, psychological or
metaphysical, of pseudo-æsthetic concepts (the sublime, the comic,
the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or of the exposition of the supposed
Zoology, Botany and Mineralogy of Æsthetic, and of universal history
æsthetically judged; that the whole history of concrete art and
literature has also been dragged into those Æsthetics and generally
mangled, and that they contain judgements upon Homer and Dante, Ariosto
and Shakespeare, Beethoven and Rossini, Michæl Angelo and Raphæl. When
all this has been deducted from them, we flatter ourselves that our
treatise will no longer be held to be too meagre, but, on the contrary,
far richer than ordinary treatises, which either omit altogether, or
hardly touch at all, the greater part of the difficult problems proper
to Æsthetic which we have felt it to be our duty to study.
[Sidenote: _Identity of linguistic and Æsthetic._]
But although Æsthetic as science of expression has been studied by us
in its every aspect, it remains to justify the sub-title which we have
added to the title of our book, _General Linguistic,_ to state and make
clear the thesis that the science of art and that of language, Æsthetic
and Linguistic, conceived as true sciences, are not two distinct
things, but one thing only. Not that there is a special Linguistic;
but the much-sought-for science of language, general Linguistic, _in
so far as what it contains is reducible to philosophy,_ is nothing
but Æsthetic. Whoever studies general Linguistic, that is to say,
philosophical Linguistic, studies æsthetic problems, and _vice versa.
Philosophy of language and philosophy of art are the same thing._
Were Linguistic really a _different_ science from Æsthetic it would
not have for its object expression, which is the essentially æsthetic
fact; that is to say, we must deny that language is expression. But an
emission of sounds which expresses nothing is not language. Language
is sound articulated, circumscribed and organized for the purposes of
expression. If, on the other hand, linguistic were a _special_ science
in respect to Æsthetic, it would necessarily have for its object a
_special class_ of expressions. But the non-existence of classes of
expression is a point which we have already demonstrated.
[Sidenote: _Æsthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of
language._]
The problems which Linguistic tries to solve, and the errors in which
Linguistic has been and is involved, are the same that respectively
occupy and complicate Æsthetic. If it be not always easy, it is on
the other hand always possible to reduce the philosophic questions of
Linguistic to their æsthetic formula.
The disputes themselves as to the nature of the one find their parallel
in those as to the nature of the other. Thus it has been disputed
whether Linguistic be a historical or a scientific discipline, and,
the scientific having been distinguished from the historical, it
has been asked whether it belong to the order of the natural or of
the psychological sciences, understanding by these latter empirical
Psychology as well as the Sciences of the spirit. The same has happened
with Æsthetic, which some have looked upon as a natural science
(confusing the æsthetic and the physical sense of the word expression).
Others have looked upon it as a psychological science (confusing
expression in its universality with the empirical classification of
expressions). Others again, denying the very possibility of a science
of such a subject, change it into a simple collection of historical
facts; not one of these attaining to the consciousness of Æsthetic as a
science of activity or of value, a science of the spirit.
Linguistic expression, or speech, has often seemed to be a fact of
_interjection,_ which belongs to the so-called physical expressions
of the feelings, common alike to men and animals. But it was soon
perceived that an abyss yawns between the "Ah!" which is a physical
reflex of pain and a word; as also between that "Ah!" of pain and
the "Ah!" employed as a word. The theory of the interjection being
abandoned (jocosely termed the "Ah! Ah!" theory by German linguists),
the theory of _association_ or _convention_ appeared. This is liable to
the same objection which destroyed æsthetic associationism in general:
speech is unity, not multiplicity of images, and multiplicity does
not explain, but indeed presupposes the expression to be explained. A
variant of linguistic associationism is the imitative, that is to say,
the theory of _onomatopœia,_ which the same philologists deride under
the name of the "bow-wow" theory, from the imitation of the dog's bark,
which, according to the onomatopœists, must have given its name to
the dog.
The most usual theory of our times as regards language (apart from mere
crass naturalism) consists of a sort of eclecticism or mixture of the
various theories to which we have referred. It is assumed that language
is in part the product of interjections and in part of onomatopœia and
convention. This doctrine is altogether worthy of the philosophical
decadence of the second half of the nineteenth century.
[Sidenote: _Origin of language and its development._]
We must here note an error into which have fallen those very
philologists who have best discerned the activistic nature of language,
when they maintain that although language was _originally a spiritual
creation,_ yet that it afterwards increased by _association._ But the
distinction does not hold, for origin in this case cannot mean anything
but nature or character; and if language be spiritual creation, it must
always be creation; if it be association, it must have been so from the
beginning. The error has arisen from having failed to grasp the general
principle of Æsthetic, known to us: that expressions already produced
must descend to the rank of impressions before they can give rise to
new impressions. When we utter new words we generally transform the
old ones, varying or enlarging their meaning; but this process is not
associative, it is _creative,_ although the creation has for material
the impressions, not of the hypothetical primitive man, but of man who
has lived long ages in society, and who has, so to say, stored so many
things in his psychic organism, and among them so much language.
[Sidenote: _Relation between Grammar and Logic._]
The question of the distinction between the æsthetic and the
intellectual fact appears in Linguistic as that of the relations
between Grammar and Logic. This problem has been solved in two
partially true ways: the _inseparability_ and the _separability_ of
Logic and Grammar. But the complete solution is this: if the logical
form be inseparable from the grammatical (æsthetic), the grammatical is
separable from the logical.
[Sidenote: _Grammatical kinds or parts of speech._]
If we look at a picture which for instance portrays a man walking on a
country road we may say: "This picture represents a fact of _movement,_
which, if conceived as voluntary, is called _action_; and since every
movement implies a _material object,_ and every action a _being_ that
acts, this picture also represents a _material object_ or _being._
But this movement takes place in a definite place, which is a piece
of a definite heavenly body (the Earth), and precisely of a piece of
it which is called _terra-firma,_ and more precisely of a part of it
that is wooded and covered with grass, which is called _country,_
cut naturally or artificially into a form called _road._ Now, there
is only one example of that star, which is called Earth: the earth
is an _individual._ But _terra-firma, country, road_ are genera or
_universals,_ because there are other terra-firmas, other countries,
other roads." And it would be possible to continue for a while with
similar considerations. By substituting a phrase for the picture that
we have imagined, for example one to this effect: "Peter is walking on
a country road," and by making the same remarks, we obtain the concepts
of _verb_ (motion or action), of _noun_ (material object or agent), of
_proper noun,_ of _common noun;_ and so on.
What have we done in both cases? Neither more nor less than submit to
logical elaboration what first presented itself only æsthetically;
that is to say, we have destroyed the æsthetic for the logical. But
since in general Æsthetic error begins when we wish to return from the
logical to the æsthetic and ask what is the _expression_ of motion,
action, matter, being, of the general, of the individual, etc.; so in
the case of language, error begins when motion or action are called
_verb,_ being or matter, _noun_ or _substantive,_ and when linguistic
categories, or _parts of speech,_ are made of all these, noun and verb
and so on. The theory of the parts of speech is really identical with
that of artistic and literary kinds, already criticized in our Æsthetic.
It is false to say that the verb or noun is expressed in definite
words, truly distinguishable from others. Expression is an indivisible
whole. Noun and verb do not exist in it, but are abstractions made by
us, destroying the sole linguistic reality, which is the _sentence._
This last is to be understood, not in the way common to grammars, but
as an organism expressive of a complete meaning, which includes alike
the simplest exclamation and a great poem. This sounds paradoxical, but
is nevertheless the simplest truth.
And since in Æsthetic the artistic productions of certain peoples
have been looked upon as imperfect, owing to the error above
mentioned, because the supposed kinds have seemed not yet to have
been discriminated, or to be in part wanting; so in Linguistic, the
theory of the parts of speech has caused the analogous error of judging
languages as _formed_ and _unformed,_ according to whether there appear
in them or no some of those supposed parts of speech; for example, the
verb.
[Sidenote: _The individuality of speech and the classification of
languages._]
Linguistic also discovered the irreducible individuality of the
æsthetic fact, when it affirmed that the word is what is really
spoken, and that two truly identical words do not exist. Thus were
synonyms and homonyms destroyed, and thus was shown the impossibility
of really translating one word into another, from so-called dialect
into so-called language, or from the so-called mother-tongue into the
so-called foreign tongue.
But the attempt to classify languages ill agrees with this just view.
Languages have no reality beyond the propositions and complexes of
propositions really written and pronounced by given peoples at definite
periods; that is to say, they have no existence outside the works of
art (whether little or great, oral or written, soon forgotten or long
remembered, does not matter) in which they exist concretely. And what
is the art of a given people but the whole of its artistic products?
What is the character of an art (for example of Greek art or Provençal
literature) but the whole physiognomy of those products? And how can
such a question be answered, save by narrating in its particulars the
history of the literature, that is to say, of the language in its
actuality?
It may be thought that this argument, although possessing validity
as against many of the usual classifications of languages, yet
is without any as regards that queen of classifications, the
historico-genealogical, that glory of comparative philology. And this
it certainly is; but why? Precisely because that historico-genealogical
method is not a mere classification. He who writes history does not
classify, and the philologists themselves have hastened to say that
languages which can be arranged in historical series (those whose
series have hitherto been traced) are not distinct and separate species
but a single whole of facts in the various phases of its development.
[Sidenote: _Impossibility of a normative grammar._]
Language has sometimes been regarded as a voluntary or arbitrary act.
But at others the impossibility of creating language artificially, by
an act of will, has been clearly seen. "_Tu, Caesar, civitatem dare
potes homini, verbo non potes_" was once said to a Roman Emperor. And
the æsthetic (and therefore theoretic as opposed to practical) nature
of expression supplies the method of discovering the scientific error
which lies in the conception of a (normative) _Grammar_, establishing
the rules of correct speech. Good sense has always rebelled against
this error. An example of such rebellion is the "So much the worse for
grammar" attributed to Monsieur de Voltaire. But the impossibility
of a normative grammar is also recognized by those who teach it,
when they confess that to write well cannot be learned by rules, that
there are no rules without exceptions, and that the study of Grammar
should be conducted practically, by reading and examples, which should
form the literary taste. The scientific reason of this impossibility
lies in the principle that we have demonstrated: that a technique of
the theoretical amounts to a contradiction in terms. And what could
a (normative) grammar be, but precisely a technique of linguistic
expression, that is to say of a theoretic fact?
[Sidenote: _Didactic organisms._]
The case in which Grammar is understood merely as an empirical
discipline, that is to say, as a collection of schemes useful for
learning languages, without any claim whatever to philosophic truth, is
quite different. Even the abstractions of the parts of speech are in
this case both admissible and useful. And we must tolerate as merely
didascalic many books entitled "Treatises of Linguistic," where we
generally find a little of everything, from the description of the
vocal apparatus and of the artificial machines (phonographs) which can
imitate it, to summaries of the most important I results obtained by
Indo-European, Semitic, Coptic, Chinese, or other philologies; from
philosophical generalizations as to the origin or nature of language,
to advice on format, calligraphy and the arrangement of notes relating
to philological work. But this mass of notions, here administered in
a fragmentary and incomplete manner about language in its essence,
about language as expression, resolves itself into notions of Æsthetic.
Nothing exists outside _Æsthetic,_ which gives knowledge of the
nature of language, and _empirical Grammar,_ which is a pedagogic
expedient, save the _History of languages_ in their living reality,
that is to say, the history of concrete literary productions, which is
substantially identical with the _History of literature._
[Sidenote: _Elementary linguistic facts or roots._]