Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/528

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508 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

world, to logic (to which it is related because of their greater or less degree of complexity and speciality) , and also to their his- torical order parallel to their logical order.

The arts concerned with our most general relations with the exterior world, clothing and ornament, the dwelling and archi- tecture, are the simplest. Next come those relating to our senses, beginning with the most general senses, the muscular the sense of movement and the tactile from which all the special senses are derived. Harmony of movement was first represented by dances, whose most ordinary manifestations are war dances, pastoral dances, imitations of the hunting of man and of animals, imitations of peaceful occupations and of love. The arts relating to our general sensibility, which is mainly tactile, especially rep- resent the pleasure arising from contact with smooth, soft, and pleasing forms. Then come the arts which are related to our lowest special senses, and which aid in the formation and devel- opment of the same the culinary art, perfumery, etc., which correspond to taste and smell. Moreover, all the special senses are a progressive differentiation of the most general and elemen- tary senses, the muscular and the tactile ; they combine the sensation of movement with that of static simultaneity resulting from contact. Hearing and sight are the highest of the senses. They imply movement and touch, which, however, do not neces- sarily imply sight and hearing. Architecture, sculpture, painting, are the successive forms of art in relation to life. As for music, it is the emotional art par excellence, the highest and the most complex emotional art, in spite of its sentimental diffusion in the nervous system. Literature is the most complex and the most special art, the most precise of the fine arts. Like architecture, it erects the noblest edifices ; like sculpture, it creates the most beautiful forms inorganic, organic, and, above all, human and gives to each a color living and brilliant or somber or gray as the reality; its language is musical. At the same time, litera- ture serves as a medium and opens to us the highest in ideation and in scientific knowledge, first concrete knowledge, and finally abstract. It embraces in its descriptions all the sensations fur- nished by the inferior arts, subordinating them in part to the