fresh air into the study of the philosophy of language. The lead given
by the Port-Royal authors had been followed since the beginning of
the century by many writers of logical or general grammars. According
to the French Encyclopædia, "_La grammaire générale est la science
raisonnée des principes immuables et généraux de la parole prononcée
ou écrite dans toutes les langues_,"[68] and d'Alembert spoke of
grammarians of invention and grammarians of memory, assigning to the
former the duty of studying the metaphysics of grammar.[69] General
grammars had been written by Du Marsais, De Beauzée, and Condillac
in France; Harris in England; and many others.[70] But what was the
relation between general grammar and particular grammars? If logic be
one, how comes it that languages are many? Is the variety of tongues
but a deviation on their part from one single model? And, if there be
no such deviation or error, what is the explanation of the fact? What
is language, and how was it born? If language be external to thought,
how can thought exist if not in language? "_Si les hommes_," says
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "_ont eu besoin de la parole pour apprendre
à penser, ils ont eu bien plus besoin encore de savoir penser pour
trouver l'art de la parole_"; appalled at the difficulty, he declares
his conviction "_de l'impossibilité presque démontrée que les langues
aient pu naître et s'établir par des moyens purement humains._"[71]
Such questions became fashionable; books on the origin and formation
of language were written by de Brosses (1765) and Court de Gébelin
(1776) in France, by Monboddo (1774) in England, Süssmilch (1766) and
Tiedemann in Germany, and Cesarotti (1785) in Italy, and by others
who had some slight acquaintance with Vico, but profited little by
it.[72] None of the above-named writers was able to free himself of
the notion that speech was either natural and mechanical, or else a
symbol attached to thought: whereas in fact it was impossible to solve
the difficulties under which they were labouring except by dropping
the notion of a sign or symbol and attaining the conception of the
active and expressive imagination, verbal imagination, language as
the expression not of intellect but of intuition. An approach towards
this explanation was made by Herder in a brilliant and imaginative
thesis in 1770 upon this subject of the origin of language, chosen
for discussion by the Berlin Academy. In it he says that language is
the reflexion or consciousness (_Besonnenheit_) of man. "Man shows
reflexion when he puts forth freely such force of mind as enables him
to make selection from amongst the crowd of sensations by which he is
assailed: from the ocean of the senses, so to speak, to select a single
wave and consciously to watch it. He shows reflexion when, amidst the
thronging chaos of images which pass before him as in a dream, he can
in a waking moment collect himself and fasten his attention upon a
single image, examine it calmly and clearly, and separate it from its
neighbours. Once again, man shows reflexion when he is able not merely
to grasp vividly and clearly all the properties of an image, but also
to recognize one or more of its distinctive properties." The language
of man "does not depend on the organization of the mouth, for even he
who is dumb from birth has, if he reflects, a language; it is not a
cry of the senses, since it resides in a reflective creature, not in a
breathing machine; it is not an affair of imitation, since imitation
of nature is a means, and we are here trying to explain the end: much
less is it an arbitrary convention; a savage in the depths of the
forest would have had to create a language for himself even though he
never used it. Language is an understanding of the soul with herself,
necessary just in so far as man is man."[73] Here language begins to
show itself no longer as purely mechanical or as something derived
from arbitrary choice and invention, but as a creative activity and a
primary affirmation of the activity of the human mind. Herder's essay
may not state such a view unequivocally, but it points forward to such
a conclusion in a striking way for which its author has not received
the credit he deserves. Hamann, in reviewing his friend's theories,
agreed with him in denying the origin of language by invention or
arbitrary choice; while dwelling also on the liberty of man, he
regarded language as something which man could only have learned by
means of a mystical _communicatio idiomatum_ from God.[74] That, too,
was one way of recognizing that the mystery of language is not to be
solved except by placing it in the forefront of the problem of the
spirit.
[1] Vico, _Opere, ed. cit._ iv. p. 305.
[2] Herder, _Briefe zur Beförderung der Humanität,_ 1793-1797, Letter
59; Goethe, _Italien. Reise,_ Mar. 5, 1787.
[3] Letters from Wolf to Cesarotti, June 5, 1802; in Cesarotti,
_Opere,_ vol. xxxviii. pp. 108-112; cf. _ibid._ pp. 43-44, and vol.
xxxvii. pp. 281, 284, 324; cf. on the question of the relations between
Wolf and Vico, Croce, _Bibliografia vichiana,_ pp. 51, 56-58, and
_Supplem._ pp. 12-14.
[4] Letter in French to Mme. Ferrant (1719), and to the Marquis Maffei
in _Prose e poesie,_ vol. ii. (1756), pp. lxxxv.-civ., cviii.-cix.
[5] _Prose e poesie,_ vol. i., 1739, pref.
[6] Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) was an Irishman. Croce's mistake is
probably due to the fact that he studied and taught at Glasgow, or that
his family was ultimately of Scottish origin.--TR.
[7] _Prose e poesie,_ vol. ii. pp. clxxi.-clxxvii.
[8] See above, pp. 184-185.
[9] _Prose e poesie,_ vol. ii. pp. 242-246.
[10] _Op. cit._ ii. p. 249.
[11] _Op. cit._ ii. pp. 252-253.
[12] _Prose e poesie,_ vol. ii. pp. 233-234.
[13] _Op. cit._ i. pref.
[14] _Op. cit._ ii. p. 127.
[15] _Op. cit._ i. p. xliii.
[16] Fr. Sav. Quadrio, _Della storia e della ragione d' ogni poesia,_
Bologna, 1739, vol. i. part i. dist. i. ch. 1.
[17] Fr. M. Zanotti, _Dell' arte poetica, ragionamenti cinque,_
Bologna, 1768.
[18] On Ossian, _Opere,_ vols, ii.-v.; on Homer, vols, vi.-x.; _Saggio
copra il diletto della tragedia,_ vol. xxix. pp. 117-167; _Saggio sul
bello,_ vol. xxx. pp. 13-70; on _Filosofia del gusto,_ vol. i.; on
_Eloquenza,_ lecture, vol. xxxi.
[19] _Opere,_ vol. xl. p. 49.
[20] _Ibid._ p. 55.
[21] Letter from Corniani to Cesarotti, November 21, 1790, in _Opere,_
vol. xxxvii. p. 146.
[22] _Saggio sopra le istituzioni scolastiche, private e pubbliche,_ in
_Opere,_ vol. xxix. pp. 1-116.
[23] Letter of March 30, 1764, in _Opere,_ vol. xxxv. p. 202.
[24] Saverio Bettinelli, _Dell' entusiasmo nelle belle arti, 1769,_ in
_Opere,_ iii. pp. xi.-xiii.
[25] Fr. M. Pagano, _De' saggi politici,_ Naples, 1783-1785, vol. i.
Appendix to § 1, "Sull' origine e natura della poesia"; vol. ii. § 6,
"Del gusto e delle belle arti."
[26] See above, p. 217.
[27] _Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften,_ Halle, 1748-1750.
[28] _Auszug aus den Anfangsgründe,_ etc., _ibid._ 1758.
[29] _Betrachtungen über den ersten Grundsätzen aller schönen Künste u.
Wissenschaften, ibid._ 1757.
[30] Preface to 2nd ed. (1768) of vol. ii. of _Anfangsgründe,_ and
_Betrachtungen, cit.,_ esp. §§ 1, 2, 34.
[31] Preface to vol. i., and cf. § 5.
[32] In a letter to Gottsched, 1747, in Danzel, _Gottsched,_ p. 215.
[33] _Anfangsgründe,_ § 23.
[34] _Op. cit._ § 92.
[35] _Op. cit._ § 49.
[36] _Op. cit._ § 55.
[37] _Op. cit._ §§ 355-370.
[38] _Op. cit._ §§ 529-540.
[39] _Op. cit._ § 5.
[40] _Op. cit._ § 413.
[41] Anfangsgründe, §§ 541-670.
[42] Betrachtungen, § 20.
[43] Op. cit. § 21.
[44] _Briefe über die Empfindungen,_ 1755 (in _Opere filosofiche,_
Ital. trans., Parma, 1800, vol. ii.). Letters 2, 5, 11.
[45] _Betrachtungen üb. d. Quellen d. sch. Wiss. u. K.,_ 1757, later
entitled _Über die Hauptgrundsätze,_ etc., 1761, in _Opere, ed. cit._
ii. pp. 10, 12-15, 21-30.
[46] J. E. Schlegel, _Von der Nachahmung,_ 1742; cf. Braitmaier,
_Gesch. d. poet. Th._ i. p. 249 _sqq._
[47] Koller, _Entwurf,_ p. 103.
[48] _Die ersten Grundsätze der schönen Kunst überhaupt, und der
schönen Schreibart insbesondere,_ Bonn, 1790; cf. Sulzer, i. p. 55, and
Koller, pp. 55-56.
[49] See Bibliographical Appendix.
[50] _Entwurf zur Geschichte u. Literatur d. Ästhetik,_ etc.,
Regensburg. 1799; see Bibl. App.
[51] Koller, _op. cit._ p. 7.
[52] Notices and extracts in Sulzer and Koller, _opp. citt._
[53] Joh. Aug. Eberhard, _Theorie der schönen Künste u.
Wissenschaften,_ Halle, 1783; reprinted 1789, 1790.
[54] Joh. Joach. Eschenburg, _Entwurf einer Theorie u. Literatur d. s.
W.,_ Berlin, 1783; reprinted 1789.
[55] Allgem. Th. d. sch. Künste, on words Schön, Schönheit, Wahrheit,
Werke des Geschmacks, etc.
[56] Karl Heinrich Heydenreich, _System der Ästhetik,_ vol. i.,
Leipzig, 1790, esp. pp. 149-154. 367-385. 385-392.
[57] _Kritische Wälder oder Betrachtungen über die Wissenschaft und
Kunst des Schönen,_ Fourth Forest, 1769, in _Sämmtliche Werke,_ ed. B.
Suphan, Berlin, 1878, vol. iv. pp. 19, 21, 27.
[58] _Kritische Wälder, loc. cit._ pp. 22-27.
[59] Fragment, _Von Baumgarten Denkart_; and cf. _op. cit._ pp. 132-133.
[60] _Æsthetica in mice,_ in _Kreuzzüge des Philologen,_ Königsberg,
quoted in Herder, _Werke,_ xii. 145.
[61] See above, p. 235.
[62] _Kaligone,_ 1800, in _Werke, ed. cit.,_ xii. pp. 145-150.
[63] _Kaligone,_ pp. 34-55.
[64] _Ibid._ pp. 308-317.
[65] _Kritische Wälder, loc. cit._ iv. pp. 47-127.
[66] _Op. cit._ pp. 27-36.
[67] _Sophron,_ 1782, § 4.
[68] _Encyclopédie, ad verb._
[69] _Éloge de Du Marsais,_ 1756 (introd. to _Œuvres de Du Marsais,_
Paris, 1797, vol. i.).
[70] Du Marsais, _Méthode raisonnée,_ 1722; _Traité des tropes,_
1730; _Traité de grammaire générale_ (in _Encyclopédie_); De Beauzée,
_Grammaire générale pour servir de fondement à l'étude de toutes les
langues,_ 1767; Condillac, _Grammaire française,_ 1755; J. Harris,
_Hermes, or a Philosophical Enquiry concerning Language and Universal
Grammar,_ 1751.
[71] _Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes,_ 1754.
[72] De Brosses, _Traité de la formation mécanique des langues,_ 1765;
Court de Gébelin, _Histoire naturelle de la parole,_ 1776; Monboddo,
_Origin and Progress of Language,_ 1774; Süssmilch, _Beweis dass der
Ursprung der menschlichen Sprache göttlich sei,_ 1766; Tiedemann,
_Ursprung der Sprache;_ Cesarotti, _Saggio sulla filosofia delle
lingue,_ 1785 (in _Opere,_ vol. i.); D. Colao Agata, _Piano, ovvero
ricerche filosofiche sulle lingue,_ 1774; Soave, _Ricerche intorno all'
istituzione naturale d'una società e d'una lingua,_ 1774.
[73] _Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache,_ in a small book _Zwei
Preisschriften,_ etc. (2nd ed., Berlin, 1789), esp. pp. 60-65.
[74] Steinthal, _Ursprung der Sprache,_ 4th ed., pp. 39-58.
VII
OTHER ÆSTHETIC DOCTRINES OF THE SAME PERIOD
[Sidenote: _Other writers of the eighteenth century: Batteux._]
A great medley of heterogeneous ideas is noticeable among other writers
on Æsthetic during the same period. In 1746 appeared a little volume
by Abbé Batteux bearing the attractive title of _The Fine Arts reduced
to a Single Principle,_ in which the author attempted a unification
of all the different rules laid down by the writers of treatises. All
such rules (says Batteux) are branches emerging from one trunk; he who
possesses the simple principle will be able to deduce the rules one by
one without entangling himself in their mass, which can but involve him
in endless coils. The author had passed in review the _Ars Poetica_ of
Horace and that of Boileau, and the works of Rollin, Dacier, le Bossu
and d'Aubignac; but had found real help only in Aristotle's principle
of imitation, which he thought could be easily and strikingly applied
to poetry, painting, music and the art of gesture. But suddenly the
Aristotelian principle of imitation yields place to a wholly new
rendering, namely the "imitation of natural _beauty._" The business
of art is to "select the most beautiful parts of nature in order to
frame them into an exquisite whole which shall be more beautiful than
nature's self, without ceasing to be natural." Now, what may this
greater perfection, this beautiful nature, be? On one occasion Batteux
identifies it with truth: but "with the truth which may be; with
beauty-truth, which is represented as though it really existed with all
the perfections it could possibly receive," recalling one example from
the ancients in the Helen of Zeuxis, and one from the moderns in the
_Misanthrope_ of Molière. In another place he explains that beautiful
nature, _"tum ipsius (obiecti) naturæ, tum nostræ convenit," i.e._ that
it has the closest connexion with our own perfection, our advantage
and our interest, and is, at the same time, perfect in itself. The
aim of imitation is "to please, to move, to soften, in one word, to
delight"; so beautiful nature must be interesting and furnished with
unity, variety, symmetry and proportion. Embarrassed by the question
of artistic imitation of things naturally ugly or objectionable,
Batteux falls back on saying, as Castelvetro had said before him, that
displeasing objects please when imitated, since imitation, being always
imperfect, in comparison with the reality, cannot excite the horror and
disgust aroused by the latter. From pleasure he deduces the other aim
of utility: if the aim of poetry be to give pleasure, and "pleasure
by moving the passions, then in order to give a perfect and enduring
pleasure it ought to rouse such passions only as it is well to excite,
not those inimical to goodness."[1]
[Sidenote: _The English: W. Hogarth._]
It is difficult to string together a more insubstantial mass of
contradictions. But Batteux is rivalled and outdone by the English
philosophers or rather scribblers on Æsthetic or rather on things in
general which sometimes accidentally include æsthetic facts. Happening
to find in Lomazzo some words attributed to Michæl Angelo on the beauty
of shapes, Hogarth the artist took into his head the idea that the
figurative arts can be regulated by a special principle which can be
expressed in a particular fine.[2] Filled with this discovery, in 1745
he designed a frontispiece for a volume of his engravings; it depicted
a painter's palette scored across with an undulating line and the words
_The Line of Beauty._ Public curiosity was immediately aroused by this
hieroglyphic, to be satisfied a little later by the publication of
his book _The Analysis of Beauty_ (1753).[3] In this he combated the
mistake of judging pictures either by the subject or the excellence of
the imitation instead of by their form, which is the true essential
of art and is composed "of symmetry, variety, uniformity, simplicity,
intricacy and quantity; all things which co-operate in the production
of beauty, correcting and restraining each other as required."[4]
But immediately afterwards Hogarth proclaims that there must also be
correspondence and agreement with the thing copied; for "regularity,
uniformity and symmetry give pleasure in so far only as they serve
to give the illusion of faithful correspondence."[5] Further on, the
reader learns that "amongst the immense variety of undulating lines
which may be conceived, there is but one which truly merits the name of
the Line of Beauty, and this is a precisely serpentine line which may
be called the Line of Grace."[6] Again, we are told that intricacy of
lines is beautiful because "the active mind likes to be engaged," and
the eye delights in being "guided in a sort of hunt."[7] A straight
line has no beauty, and the pig, the bear, the spider and the toad are
ugly because devoid of undulating lines.[8] The ancients showed much
judgement in the management and grouping of lines, "varying from the
precise line of grace only on those occasions when the character or
action demanded."[9]
[Sidenote: _E. Burke._]
With similar indecision Edmund Burke wavers between the principle
of imitation and other heterogeneous or imaginary principles in his
book, _An Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the
Beautiful_ (1756). He observes, "Natural properties contained in an
object give pleasure or displeasure to the imagination: beyond this,
however, imagination may delight in the likeness of a copy to its
original"; he asserts that from "these two reasons" arises the whole
pleasure of imagination.[10]
Without dwelling further on the second, he proceeds to a lengthy
discussion of the natural qualities which should be found in an object
of sensible beauty: "Firstly, comparative smallness; secondly, smooth
surface; thirdly, variety in disposition of the parts; fourthly, that
it have no angularity, all lines fusing one in another; fifthly, a
structure of great delicacy betraying no signs of violence; sixthly,
vivid colouring without glare or harshness; seventhly, if it have any
glaring colour, let it be different from the background." These are the
properties of beauty working in harmony with nature and least liable to
suffer from caprice and differences of taste.[11]
[Sidenote: _H. Home._]
These books of Hogarth and Burke are generally described as classical;
if so, they belong to the type of classic that fails to convince. To
a somewhat higher type belongs the _Elements of Criticism_ (1761)
of Henry Home, Lord Kaimes, who seeks "the true principles of the
fine arts" with the object of converting criticism into "a rational
science," and to this end chooses "the upward path of facts and
experiments." Home confines himself to feelings derived from objects
of sight and hearing, which, in so far as unaccompanied by desires,
are more truly described as simple feelings (emotions, not passions).
These occupy a middle position between mere sense-impressions and
intellectual or moral ideas, and are therefore akin to both; and it is
from these that the pleasures of beauty are derived. Beauty is divided
into beauty of relation and intrinsic beauty.[12] Of the latter, Home's
only account is that regularity, simplicity, uniformity, proportion,
order and other pleasing qualities have been "so disposed by the Author
of nature in order to increase our happiness here on earth which, as
is clearly shown in numberless instances, is not foreign to his care."
This notion is confirmed when he reflects that "our taste for such
details is not accidental, but uniform and universal, being a very
part of our nature"; adding that "regularity, uniformity, order and
simplicity help to facilitate perception and make it possible for us
to form clearer conception of objects than it would be possible to
gain by the most earnest attention were such qualities not present."
Proportions are often combined with a view to utility, "as we see that
the best proportioned amongst animals are also the strongest; but there
are also many examples in which this conjunction does not hold good";
wherefore the wisest plan "is to rest content with the final cause just
mentioned: that of the increase of our happiness intended by the Author
of nature."[13] In his _Essay on Taste_ (1758) and on _Genius_ (1774)
Alexander Gérard employs by turns, according to the various forms of
art, the principles of association, of direct pleasure, of expression,
and even of moral sense: the same kind of explanation reappears in
another _Essay on Taste_ by Alison (1792).
[Sidenote: _Eclecticism and sensationalism. E. Platner._]
It is impossible to classify works of such calibre, almost wholly
lacking as they are in scientific method; on each page their writers
pass from physiological sensationalism to moralism; from the imitation
of nature to mysticism and transcendent finalism without the slightest
sense of incongruity. It would be absurd to take them seriously; in
comparison it is almost refreshing to come across a frank hedonist
in the German, Ernst Plainer, who interpreted Hogarth's inquiry into
lines after a fashion of his own and was unable to see anything in
æsthetic facts except a reverberation of sexual pleasure. Where can we
find a beauty, he asks, that is not derived from the female figure,
the centre of all beauty? Undulating lines are beautiful because
found in a woman's body; beautiful are all movements distinctively
feminine; beautiful the tones of music melting one into another;
beautiful the poem where one thought embraces another with tenderness
and facility.[14] Condillac's sensationalism had already shown
itself wholly incapable of understanding æsthetic productivity; the
associationism especially promoted by the work of Hume fared no better.
[Sidenote: _Fr. Hemsterhuis._]
The Dutchman Hemsterhuis considered beauty as a phenomenon born of
the meeting between sensibility, which gives multiplicity, and the
internal sense, which tends to unity; hence the beautiful is "that
which exhibits the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time." Man,
to whom it is not permitted to attain ultimate unity, finds in beauty
an approximate unity which gives him a pleasure somewhat analogous
with the joy of love. This theory of Hemsterhuis, in which elements of
mysticism and sensationalism mingle with glimpses of truth, developed
later into the sentimentalism of Jacobi, for whom the totality of Truth
and Goodness and even the Supersensible itself are sensibly present to
the soul in the form of beauty.[15]
[Sidenote: _Neo-Platonism and mysticism. Winckelmann._]
Platonism or, more accurately, neo-Platonism was revived by the creator
of the history of figurative art, Winckelmann (1764). Contemplation
of the masterpieces of antique plastic art, and the impression of
superhuman loftiness and divine indifference which they create all
the more irresistibly because we cannot reawaken the life they once
possessed or understand their real significance, led Winckelmann, and
others with him, to the conception of a Beauty which, descending from
the seventh heaven of the divine Idea, embodied itself in works of this
description. Baumgarten's follower Mendelssohn had denied the enjoyment
of beauty to God: the neo-Platonist Winckelmann gave it back to him and
lodged it in his bosom.
[Sidenote: _Beauty and lack of significance._]
"Wise men who have meditated upon the causes of universal Beauty,
seeking her amongst created things and trying to gain the contemplation
of Supreme Beauty, have placed it in the perfect harmony of creatures
with their ends and of their parts with one another. But as this is
equivalent to perfection, which man is incapable of attaining, our
concept of universal beauty remains indeterminate, and arises by means
of particular cognitions which, when accurately collected and fitted
together, give us the highest idea we can attain of human beauty,
which we elevate in proportion as we raise it above matter. But,
again, since the Creator deals out perfection to all his creatures
in the proportion that befits them, and since every concept rests
on some cause which must be sought outside the concept itself, the
cause of Beauty which is to be found in every created thing cannot
be sought in anything outside these created things. For this reason,
and because our cognitions are comparative concepts, whereas Beauty
cannot be compared with anything higher, it is difficult to attain a
distinct and universal cognition of Beauty."[16] The only way out of
this difficulty and others like it is the recognition that "supreme
beauty resides in God": "the concept of human beauty becomes the more
perfect in proportion as it can be thought more in conformity and
agreement with supreme Being, which is distinguished from matter by
its own unity and indivisibility. This conception of Beauty is as a
spirit which, freed by fire from the prison of matter, strives to
conjure up a creature in the likeness of the first reasonable creature
formed by the divine intelligence. The forms of such an image are
simple and continuous and within this unity they are varied and for
that very reason harmonious."[17] 2 To these characteristics is added
"lack of significance" (_Unbezeichnung_), since supreme beauty cannot
be described with points or fines different from those which alone
can constitute that beauty; its form "is not peculiar to this or that
determinate person, neither does it express any state of feeling or
sensation of passion, things which disturb unity and overcloud beauty."
Winckelmann concludes: "We look upon Beauty as a purest water drawn
from the centre of the spring; the less taste it has the higher it is
esteemed because free from all impurities."[18]
To perceive pure beauty, a special faculty is required, which certainly
is not sense, but may perhaps be intellect or even, as Winckelmann
says, "a fine internal sense" free from all intentions or passions
of instinct, inclination or pleasure. Having asserted beauty to be
something supersensible, it is not surprising that Winckelmann should
wish, if not wholly to exclude colour, at least to reduce it to a
minimum, and treat it not as a constitutive element in beauty but as
secondary and ancillary.[19] True beauty is given in form: by which he
means line and surface, forgetting that these are only apprehended by
the senses, and could not be seen without being in some way coloured.
[Sidenote: _Winckelmann's contradictions and compromises._]
When error refuses to retire, hermit-like, to the narrow cell of a
brief aphorism, it finds itself condemned to self-contradiction in
order to live at all in the world of concrete facts and problems.
Although composed with a view to stating a theory, the work of
Winckelmann always led him among concrete historical facts clamouring
to be brought into relation with his formally stated idea of supreme
beauty. In his admission of line-drawing and his further admission, on
a lower plane, of colour, we have two compromises already; to which
a third is added in his principle of Expression. "Since human nature
has no state intermediate between pain and pleasure" and as living
creature without such feelings is inconceivable, "the human figure must
be represented in a condition of action and passion, which artists
call expression." Hence Winckelmann, after dealing with Beauty, goes
on to treat of Expression.[20] He then found himself obliged to effect
a fourth compromise between the single constant supreme beauty and
individual beauties; for while he preferred the male to the female body
as a completer embodiment of perfect beauty, he could not shut his eyes
to the obvious fact that we know and admire beautiful women's bodies
and even beautiful animals' bodies.
[Sidenote: _A. R. Mengs._]