lecture on Æsthetic whose "chief author" or "inventor" (_Haupturheber,
Erfinder_), as Meier never tired of repeating, was "Herr Professor
Baumgarten"; at the same time warning them that his own _Anfangsgründe_
were no mere transcription of Baumgarten's lectures.[31] Still, while
recognizing the great gifts of Meier as publicity-agent, the facility,
clarity and wealth of his eloquence, and his shrewdness in polemic,
one cannot altogether deny the justice of the remark upon "Professor
Baumgarten of Frankfort and his ape (_Affe)_ Professor Meier of
Halle."[32] Every defect of Baumgarten's Æsthetic reappears accentuated
in Meier; the limits of the inferior cognitive faculties, alleged as
the domain of poetry and the arts, are laid down by him most strangely.
It is curious to note how, for example, he interprets the difference
between the confused (æsthetical) and the distinct (logical), and the
proposition that beauty disappears when made the object of distinct
thought. "The cheeks of a beautiful girl whereon bloom the roses of
youth are lovely so long as they are looked at with the naked eye. But
let them be examined with a magnifying glass. Where is their beauty?
One can hardly believe that such a disgusting surface, scaly, all
mounts and hollows, the pores full of dirt, with hairs sprouting here
and there, can be the seat of that amorous attraction which subdues
the heart."[33] That is described as "æsthetically false" whose truth
the inferior faculty is unable to grasp: for example, the theory that
bodies are composed of monads.[34] Once they have become intelligible
to these faculties, general concepts possess great æsthetic richness,
since they include infinite consequences and particular cases.[35]
Æsthetic also comprehends those things which cannot be thought
distinctly or, if so thought, might be capable of upsetting philosophic
gravity: a kiss may be an excellent subject for a poet; but whatever
would be thought of a philosopher who sought to demonstrate its
necessity by the mathematical method?[36] Moreover, Meier includes the
whole theory of observation and experiment in Æsthetic, to which this
theory belongs, he says, by right of its connexion with the senses,[37]
and also the whole theory of the appetitive faculties, because
"æsthetic requires not only a fine wit but a noble heart as well."[38]
He comes near truth sometimes, when, for example, he observes that
the logical form presupposes the æsthetic and that our first concepts
are sensitive, later becoming distinct by the help of logic;[39]
and when he condemns allegory as "among the most decadent forms of
beautiful thinking."[40] But, on the other hand, he thinks that logical
distinctions and definitions, although not necessarily sought after
by genius, are very useful in poetry; they are even indispensable as
regulators of beautiful thinking and make up, as it were, the skeleton
of the body poetic: great care, however, must be taken not to judge
æsthetical general concepts, _notiones æstheticæ universales,_ with
the rigorous exactitude demanded by philosophical. And since such
concepts, taken singly, may be likened to unstrung jewels, they must be
connected by the string of æsthetic judgement and syllogism, the theory
of which is identical with that presented by Logic, setting aside that
part which is of little or no use to genius, but belongs exclusively
to the philosopher.[41] In his _Considerations_ of 1757 Meier, having
combated the principle of imitation (which appeared to him at once too
broad, since science and morals are also imitations of nature, and too
narrow, since art does not imitate natural objects solely nor should
it imitate them all, for the immoral must be excluded), reaffirmed the
thesis that the æsthetic principle consists in the "greatest possible
beauty of sense-perception."[42] He upheld this by condemning as
erroneous the belief that this sense-perception is wholly sensuous
and confused, without any gleam of distinctness or rationality. The
perception of sweet, bitter, red, etc., is wholly sensuous; but there
is another perception which is both sensuous and intellectual, confused
and distinct, in which both faculties, the higher and the lower,
collaborate. When intellectuality prevails in this consciousness,
then we have science: when sensibility, then we have poetry. "From
our explanation it will be gathered that the inferior cognitive
faculties must collect all the material of a poem, and all its parts.
Intellect and judgement, on the other hand, watch and ensure that these
materials are placed side by side in such a way that in their connexion
distinction and order may be observed."[43] Here a plunge into
sensationalism, there a fugitive glimpse of truth: most often, and in
conclusion, an adherence to the old mechanical, ornamental, pedagogic
theory of poetry: this is the impression left on us by the æsthetic
writings of Meier.
[Sidenote: _M. Mendelssohn and other followers of Baumgarten. Vogue of
Æsthetic._]
Another disciple of Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, conceiving beauty
as "indistinct image of a perfection," deduced that God can have
no perception of beauty, as this is merely a phenomenon of human
imperfection. According to him a primary form of pleasure is that
of the senses, arising from "the bettered state of our bodily
constitution"; a secondary form is the æsthetic fact of sensible
beauty, that is to say, unity in variety; a third form is perfection,
or harmony in variety.[44] He too repudiates Hutcheson's _deus ex
machina,_ the sense of beauty. Sensible beauty, perfection such as
can be apprehended by the senses, is independent of the fact that
the object represented is beautiful or ugly, good or bad by nature;
it suffices that it leaves us not indifferent: whence Mendelssohn
agrees with Baumgarten's definition, "a poem is a discourse sensibly
perfect."[45] Elias Schlegel (1742) conceived art as imitation, not
so servile as to seem a copy, but having similarity rather than
identity with nature: he considered the duty of poetry was first to
please and only afterwards to instruct.[46] Treatises on Æsthetic,
university lectures or slender volumes for use of the public, _Theories
of the Fine Arts and Letters, Manuals, Sketches, Texts, Principles,
Introductions, Lectures, Essays,_ and _Considerations on Taste_ poured
down thick and fast on Germany during the second half of the eighteenth
century. There are at least thirty full or complete treatises and many
dozens of minor tracts or fragments. After the Protestant universities,
the Catholic took up the new science, which was taught by Riedel at
Vienna, Herwigh at Würzburg, Ladrone at Mainz, Jacobi at Freiburg,
and by others at Ingolstadt after the expulsion of the Jesuits.[47] A
pretty little volume on the _First Principles of the Fine Arts_[48] was
written (1790) for Catholic schools by the notorious Franciscan friar
Eulogius Schneider, who, after being unfrocked, terrorised Strasburg in
the days of the Convention, and met his end under the guillotine. The
frenzied output of these German _Æsthetics_ resembles that of _Poetics_
in Italy in the sixteenth century, after the rise to popularity of
Aristotle's treatise. Between 1771 and 1774 the Swiss Sulzer brought
out his great æsthetic encyclopædia, _The General Theory of the Fine
Arts,_ in alphabetical order, with historical notes upon each article,
which were greatly enlarged in the second edition of 1792, edited by a
retired Prussian captain, von Blankenburg.[49] In 1799, one J. Roller
published a first _Sketch of the History of Æsthetic,_[50] in which he
observes not unjustly, "Patriotic youth will be pleased to recognize
that Germany has produced more literature on this subject than any
other country."[51]
[Sidenote: _Eberhard and Eschenburg._]
Confining ourselves to bare mention of the works of Riedel (1767),
Faber (1767), Schütz (1776-1778), Schubart (1777-1781), Westenrieder
(1777), Szerdahel (1779), König (1784), Gang (1785), Meiners (1787),
Schott (1789), Moritz (1788),[52] we will select from the crowd the
_Theory of Fine Arts and Letters_ (1783) of Johann August Eberhard,
successor to Meier in the Chair at Halle,[53] and the _Sketch of a
Theory and Literature of Letters_ (1783) by Johann Joachim Eschenburg,
one of the most popular books of the day for students.[54] Both
these authors are followers of Baumgarten, with inclinations towards
sensationalism; amongst other things Eberhard considered the beautiful
as "that which pleases the most distinct senses," that is to say, of
sight and hearing.
[Sidenote: _J. G. Sulzer._]
A word must be accorded to Sulzer, in whom we find the most curious
alternation of new and old, the romantic influence of the new Swiss
school and the utilitarianism and intellectualism of his day. He
asserts that beauty exists wherever unity, variety and order are found:
the work of an artist is strictly in the form, in lively expression
(_lebhafte Darstellung_): the material is irrelevant to art, but
the duty of every reasonable and sensible man is to make judicious
selection. The beauty which is used to clothe the good as well as the
bad is not the ineffable, celestial Beauty, offspring of the alliance
between the beautiful, the good and the perfect, which awakens more
than mere pleasure, a veritable joy which ravishes and beatifies our
soul. Such is the human face when, by filling the eye of the beholder
with the pleasure of form arising from the variety, proportion and
order of the features, it proceeds to arouse the imagination and
intellect by its suggestion of interior perfection; of the same
nature is the statue of a great man carved by Phidias, or a patriotic
oration by Cicero. If truth lie outside art and belong to philosophy,
the most noble use to which art may be put is to make us feel the
important truths which lend her strength and energy, not to mention
that truth itself enters into art in the shape of truthful imitation
or representation. Sulzer also repeats (and he is not the last) that
orators, historians and poets are intermediaries between speculative
philosophy and the people.[55]
[Sidenote: _K. H. Heydenreich._]
Karl Heinrich Heydenreich returns to a sounder tradition when he
defines art (1790) as "a representation of a determinate state of
sensibility," and observes that man, as a cognitive being, is impelled
to enlarge the sphere of his cognitions and impart his discoveries to
his fellows, while as a sensitive being he is impelled to represent
and communicate his sensations; whence arise science and art. But
Heydenreich does not clearly grasp the cognitive character of art; for
in his opinion sensations become objects of artistic representation
either because they are pleasing or, when not pleasing, because they
are useful to further the moral aims of man as a social being; the
objects of sensibility which enter into art must be possessed of
intrinsic excellence and value and bear reference not to a single
individual but to the individual as a rational being: hence the
objectivity and necessity of taste. Like Baumgarten and Meier, he
divides Æsthetic into three parts: a doctrine of _inventio,_ another of
_methodica,_ a third of the _ars significandi_.[56]
[Sidenote: J. G. Herder.]
Another disciple of Baumgarten is J. G. Herder, who had an unbounded
admiration for the old Berlin master, whom he calls "the Aristotle
of his day," and defends him warmly against those who think fit to
describe him as a "stupid and obtuse syllogizer" (1769). On the
other hand he had slight esteem for subsequent Æsthetic, for example
Meier's work, which he stigmatized accurately enough as "in part a
re-mastication of Logic, in part a patchwork of metaphorical terms,
comparisons and examples." "O Æsthetic!" he cries with emphasis,
"O Æsthetic! the most fertile, the most beautiful and by far the
most novel of all abstract sciences, in what cavern of the Muses is
sleeping the youth of my philosophic nation destined to bring thee
to perfection?"[57] He denied Baumgarten's claim to have established
an _Ars pulchre cogitandi_ instead of limiting himself to a simple
_Scientia de pulchro et pulchris philosophice cogitans,_ and ridiculed
the scruple which held Æsthetic to be unworthy of the dignity of
Philosophy.[58] To compensate for this, however, he accepted the
fundamental definition cf poetry as _oratio sensitiva perfecta_:
gem of definitions (says he), the best that has ever been invented,
that penetrates to the heart of the matter, touches the true poetic
principles and opens the most extended view over the entire philosophy
of the beautiful, "coupling poetry with her sisters, the fine
arts."[59] Like Cesarotti the Italian, but with much less vivacity and
brilliance, Herder the German had studied primitive poetry, Ossian and
the songs of ancient peoples, Shakespeare (1773), popular love-songs
(1778), the spirit of Hebrew poetry (1782), and oriental poetry; these
studies powerfully impressed upon his mind the sensitive nature of
poetry. His friend Hamann (1762) had written these memorable words,
which read like an extract from one of Vico's aphorisms: "Poetry is
the mother-tongue of mankind: in the same way that the garden is older
than the ploughed field, painting than writing, song than declamation,
barter than trade. The repose of our most ancient progenitors was a
slumber deeper than ours; their motion a tumultuous dance. They spent
seven days in the silence of thought or of stupor; and opened their
mouths to pronounce winged words. Their speech was sensation and
passion, and they understood nothing but images. Of images is composed
all the treasure of human knowledge and felicity."[60] Although
Herder, who knew and admired Vico,[61] does not mention him by name
when treating of language and poetry, one might suppose him to be
influenced by the great Neapolitan at least in the final consolidation
of his theories; but, on the contrary, the authors whom he chiefly
quotes in this connexion are Du Bos, Goguet and Condillac, and observes
"the first beginnings of human speech in tone, gesture, expression of
sensations and thoughts by means of images and signs, can only have
been a kind of crude poetry, and so it is among every savage nation
in the world." Not a speech with punctuation and a sense of syllable,
like ours, learning as we do to read and write, but an unsyllabled
melody which gave birth to the primitive epic. "Natural man depicts
what he sees and as he sees it, alive, powerful, monstrous; in order
or disorder, as he sees and hears, so he reproduces. Not alone did
barbarous tongues thus arrange their images, but Greek and Latin do
the same. As the senses offered material, so the poets utilized it;
especially in Homer we see how closely nature is followed in images
which glow and fade perpetually and inimitably. He describes things
and events line by line, scene by scene; and, in the same way, he
paints men in their very bodies, actually as they speak and move."
Later we distinguish epic from what we call history; because the former
"not only describes what has happened but describes the event in its
entirety, showing how it occurred in the only possible way, having
regard to surrounding circumstance of body and spirit": this is the
reason of the more philosophical character of poetry. As for pleasure,
no doubt we do find poetry pleasant; but the idea that the poet's
motive is merely to excite pleasure cannot be condemned too strongly.
"Homer's gods were as essential and indispensable to the poet's world
as the forces of motion are to the world of matter. Without the
deliberations and activities of Olympus, none of the necessary events
which happen on this earth could take place. Homer's magic island in
the western sea belongs to the map of his hero's wanderings by the same
necessity which placed it on the map of the world: it was necessary
to the plan of his poem. It is the same with the severe Dante and his
circles of Hell and Heaven." Art is formative: she disciplines, orders
and governs the imagination and every faculty of man: not only did she
generate history, "but, earlier yet, she created gods and heroes and
purified the uncouth imaginations and fables of peoples with their
Titans, monsters and Gorgons, reducing to limit and law the riotous
imagination of ignorant men which knows no bounds or rule."[62]
Notwithstanding these intuitions, so like those of Vico early in the
same century, Herder as a philosopher is inferior to his Italian
predecessor, and in point of fact does not rise superior to Baumgarten.
By application of Leibniz' law of continuity, he too arrived at the
opinion that the pleasing, the true, the beautiful and the good are
degrees of one single activity. For instance, sensible pleasure" is
a participation in the true and the good, so far as the senses may
comprehend them; the feeling of pleasure and pain is no other than the
feeling of the true and the good, that is to say, the consciousness
that the aim of our organism, the conservation of our well-being and
the avoidance of our hurt, has been attained."[63] Fine arts and
letters are all instructive (_bildend_): hence the terms _humaniora,_
the Greek _καλόν,_ the Latin _pulchrum,_ the _gentle_ arts of days
of chivalry, _les belles lettres et les beaux arts_ of the French. A
group of them (gymnastic, dance, etc.) educates the body; a second
group (painting, plastic, music) educates the nobler senses of man,
the eye, the ear, the hand and tongue; a third (poetry) touches the
intellect, the imagination and the reason: a fourth group governs human
tendencies and inclinations.[64] Herder disapproved of the facile
theorists of art who began straight away with a definition of beauty,
a complex and involved concept. He held that the theory of fine arts
should be subdivided into three theories, each to be built up from
the foundations, the theory of sight, of hearing and of touch, that
is to say of painting, music and sculpture, _i.e._ into æsthetical
Optics, æsthetical Acoustics and æsthetical Physiology. "Fairly well
elaborated in the psychological and subjective aspects, Æsthetic
is sadly undeveloped in all that belongs to the object and to the
sensation of beauty, without which there can never be a fertile theory
of the Beautiful capable of influencing all the arts."[65] Taste is not
"a fundamental faculty of the soul but a habitual application of our
judgement (intellectual judgement) to objects of beauty"; an acquired
facility of the intellect (of which Herder outlines the genesis).[66]
The poet is poet not only in his imagination but in his intellect.
In 1782 he writes: "The barbarous name Æsthetic of recent invention
indicates nothing beyond a section of Logic: that which we call taste
is neither more nor less than a quick and rapid judgement which does
not exclude truth and profundity, but rather presupposes and promotes
them. All didactic poetry is nothing more than philosophy rendered
sensible: the fable as exposition of a general doctrine is truth in
act, in activity.... When expounded and applied to human affairs,
Philosophy is not only a fine art in herself (_schöne Wissenschaft,_)
but the mother of Beauty: it is only through her that Rhetoric and
Poetry can ever be educational, useful, or in the truest sense
pleasant."[67]
[Sidenote: _Philosophy of language._]