experience of simpler pleasures and emotions, and consists in the sug gestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we had formerly been made familiar by the direct and intelligible agency of our common sensibilities; and that vast variety of objects to which we give the common name of beautiful, becomes entitled to that appellation merely because they all possess the power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they have been the accompaniments, or with which they have been associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of connection." ""* This is an application to aesthetics of the same theory of association by which Mill and others have attempted to account for our necessary beliefs of the first principles and the ethical ideas and laws of reason. This theory is being superseded by the broader theory which accounts for all the necessary beliefs, all the primitive truths of reason, all ethical and aesthetic distinctions and emotions, as imprinted on the human organization, by the continuous and uniform impression of nature, in its gradual evolution through many generations. The theory needs be no further considered. I will only add that the advocacy and application of this theory by Erasmus Darwin seem to constitute a complete reductio ad absurdum. In explaining by the association of ideas the origin of the idea and emotions of beauty, he says: “Soon after it (a babe) is born into this cold world it is applied to its mother's warm bosom, .. which the infant embraces with its hands, presses with its lips and watches with its eyes; and thus acquires accurate ideas of the form. Its pleasure at length becomes associated with the form. And hence in our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented to us, which by its waving or spiral lines bears any similitude to this form- - whether it be found in a landscape with soft gradations of rising and descending surface, or in the form of some antique vases, or in the works of pencil or chisel—we feel a generous glow of delight." In like manner he explains the natural signs and our instinctive interpretation of them: "When the babe is satisfied the sphincter of the mouth is relaxed and the antagonist muscles produce the smile of pleasure. Hence the smile, during our lives, is associated with gentle pleasure." III. The second theory requiring notice is that of Prof. Alexander Bain. The one distinctive characteristic of beauty is the agreeable feeling which it produces. "Excepting the feeling itself, there is no one thing common to all the objects of beauty." "The search after some common property applicable to all things named beautiful is now aban *Encyclopædia Britannica, 8th Ed., Article Beauty. doned. The common attribute resides only in the emotion, and even that may vary considerably without passing the limits of the name." The agreeable feeling is distinguished from other agreeable feelings in this: the beautiful objects "give us delight as their primary end," that is, "they do not minister to our necessities;" they "have no disagreeable or revolting accompaniments, and their enjoyment cannot be restricted to a single mind."* As another writer expresses it, "The Beautiful is the objective side of the purely pleasurable," that is, any object is beautiful which gives pleasure unmixed with anything disagreeable. He adds: "A cause of one's pleasure is not thought of as beautiful until it is conceived as holding this common relation to other minds besides our own." This may be taken as the representative of aesthetic theories which begin with the feelings without recognition of the fundamental principle of beauty in the reason. It is the latest product of the fruitless studies to construct such a theory which have been going on through centuries, and may be accepted as their highest and conclusive result. But as a theory of æsthetics it is an entire failure. In the first place, it fails to distinguish between the beautiful and the ugly. It gives no criterion for making the distinction. It gives no distinctive idea of beauty, and no rational principle determining what beauty is. It thus breaks down and fails as an aesthetic theory and forfeits all right to be so called. There can be no empirical science of beauty unless some distinctive characteristic common to all beautiful objects can be found. There can be no philosophical science of beauty unless some rational principle can be found as a standard of discrimination between the beautiful and ugly. But this common characteristic and common principle this theory cannot find and the search for them it abandons in despair. It thus confesses its own incompetency and failure. And this failure is inherent in the method, which begins with the æsthetic feeling and attempts from it to attain an aesthetic principle. The only principle thus attainable is that things are beautiful because they are agreeable. This is putting the effect for the cause. It is like saying that sugar is sweet because it is agreeable and wormwood bitter because it is disagreeable. Sugar is not sweet because it is agreeable; it is agreeable because it is sweet. Wormwood is not bitter because it is disagreeable; it is disagreeable because it is bitter. The sun is not warm because it is agreeable nor polar darkness cold because it is disagreeable; but the sun is agreeable because it is warm, and the polar darkness disagreeable because it is cold; and it is the business of science The Emotions and the Will, 213, 210, 211; Compendium of Psychology, p. 292. to point out the more or less rapid vibrations of the ether which produce these respective effects. So there is neither æsthetic science nor philosophy in saying that the Apollo Belvedere is beautiful because it is agreeable; and yet this is all which this theory of beauty has to say. We have already seen that according to the theory of knowledge which develops it from sensation we cannot attain to real knowledge; and that according to the ethical theory which develops moral distinctions from moral emotions, we cannot attain to moral ideas; so this theory, which tries to develop beauty from the aesthetic emotions, fails to attain any distinct idea of beauty and sticks fast in the idea of the agreeable or pleasing. It is a failure inseparable from the method. And this is the only feasible method for those who recognize no knowledge but what comes from sensation and our consciousness of sensations, and who hold that man is nothing but his physical organization. In ethics they have nothing but the pleasurable and the expedient, which they substitute for moral ideas, and in æsthetics nothing but the pleasurable, which they substitute for beauty. While the theory gives no criterion for distinguishing the beautiful from the ugly, it also fails to distinguish the agreeable emotions awakened by beauty from other agreeable feelings. It is true that the emotion of beauty is disinterested, but so are all altruistic feelings. It is true also that we are prompted to share it with another; but the same is characteristic of wonder and of some other non-aesthetic emotions. The aesthetic emotions can be distinguished from other agreeable feelings. only by the objects which awaken them. The very fact that all men do distinguish certain emotions as aesthetic proves that there is something distinctive in the beautiful objects, but this theory denies that there is any common distinctive quality in the objects and cannot in this way distinguish æsthetic from other agreeable feelings. An easychair produces agreeable feelings; why then is it not beautiful? Prof. Bain says: An easy-chair is too confined in its scope to be an æsthetic object." If then it were enlarged into a tête-a-tête, so that it could be shared with another, it might become beautiful. But if it were a chair elaborately carved of some rich wood, elegantly finished and symmetrically shaped, it would be beautiful, however confined in its scope. A rose does not cease to be beautiful when a lady plucks and wears it. She has appropriated the rose, but not its beauty. Beauty cannot be appropriated. Prof. Bain says: The search for the one common attribute of beautiful objects has been an entire failure. Had there been such we should have known it in the course of two thousand years." The multitude * Emotions and Will, p. 212. of failures has been because the idea of the beautiful has been sought in the feelings, not in the reason. The result has been the enumeration of a multitude of pleasing objects and qualities, a mosaic of pretty things with no unity of principle. But Prof. Bain is mistaken when he says that the true idea has never been found. The aesthetic philosophy which teaches that beauty is the expression of ideal perfection has long been held by profound thinkers. It meets all the conditions of the problem. It gives a principle which explains all beauty by the element of perfection common to all beautiful objects, from a China cup to a Corliss engine, from a painted flower to a Sistine Madonna or an Olympian Jupiter, from a violet or rose to the starry heavens and the Cosmos itself, from the innocence of a child's face to the character of Jesus and the perfection of God. CHAPTER XI. THE GOOD: THE FOURTH ULTIMATE REALITY KNOWN THROUGH RATIONAL INTUITION: THE NORM OR STANDARD OF WHAT MAY BE AC QUIRED AND ENJOYED. 47. The Question Stated. I. I USE the word happiness to denote agreeable feelings, joy or pleasure, and unhappiness to denote disagreeable feelings, sorrow or pain. The sum total of agreeable feelings constitutes the happiness of a person's life. Well-being is of broader significance, having reference to an ideal standard of perfection; perfect health is the well-being of the body. It means more than enjoyment. There is enjoyment in the visions of a hashish-eater, but not well-being. Welfare is of similar signi ficance. The Good I use as synonymous with well-being. II. The occasion in experience on which the idea of good and evil arises is some feeling impelling to exertion for some end or reacting in joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain. Good can be predicated of non-sentient beings only as related to sentient beings; as grass is good for cattle; wood and stone are good for man to use. We cannot conceive of an inanimate being as in itself a subject of good. It is not for the good of a block of marble that it is chiseled into a statue. If man were never impelled by any motive to action and were incapable of enjoyment or suffering, he could have no idea of good and evil. If it were possible to conceive of a being as pure reason and nothing else, we could not conceive of that being as a subject of good or evil; for the being would never experience the impulse of any motive nor be affected by any feeling. III. The idea of good or well-being having arisen, man must have some criterion or standard by which to decide what his good or wellbeing is. He finds himself impelled by various and often conflicting motives, susceptible of happiness from various and often incompatible sources, and thus is obliged to decide which is for his good. When he |