Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/121

110 CRITICAL NOTICES : other ideal ends are the subjects of vol. i., the three sections of which are entitled, (1) " The Idea of Beauty " (pp. 1-238), (2) "Beauty in Nature and Spirit; the Material of Art" (pp. 289- 434), and (3) " Beauty in Art " (pp. 435-627). This general Part is followed by the treatment of the particular arts in vol. ii., where they are grouped under the heads of "Plastic Art" (pp. 1-329), " Music " (pp. 330-488), and " Poetry " (pp. 489-616). "The Beautiful" is defined, at the opening of Vol. i., as the harmony of the manifold of feeling and the unity of the idea in a sensible form the perception of which gives immediate pleasure. The element of feeling in art is the individual or personal element, which is the element of concrete reality. It is by reason of this element that a work of art is incapable of complete analysis. The union of the ideal with the sensible element in beauty is manifested in this, that, while beauty cannot be demonstrated to another but must be felt by each, yet at the same time each seeks to obtain from others agreement with his own aesthetic judgments. Beauty as it is perceived in nature is superior to the beauty of art in so far as art cannot completely reproduce all the impressions that are got from any natural object ; on the other hand, impres- sions of beauty occur scattered in nature and can only be obtained at different times and from selected points of view. Art, by the action of the " phantasy " or shaping imagination, collects these scattered impressions and gives to the ideal it has created an embodiment in an individual form. The phantasy has the mediating function in relation to the unity perceived in beauty that is ascribed by Kant to the faculty of imagination in relation to the reason and the understanding. Ideal beauty is for the " phantasy " what the concept is for the reason, what the idea of good is for the will. The world of sensible appearances, which provides the phantasy with material, has more significance for the artist than for the man of science, w r hose interest is in the general, or for the man of action, to whom the internal disposi- tion is the chief thing. The end of art is to bring into harmony " the manifold of feeling " and " the unity of consciousness " in a perfectly individualised concrete form. It is thus equally distinct from the ends of science and of morals, although the same ideal unity is expressed in all three. "What is to be remarked especially in the author's treatment of his subject throughout is that the distinction between the aesthetic, the scientific and the ethical points of view which he states in the form of a general principle is kept perfectly clear in practice. It is not unimportant to draw attention to this point, for here more than anywhere else the advantages of the philo- sophical treatment of aesthetics become obvious. The distinction of art, science and morals is indeed a current one in England us elsewhere. But if men of science the word " science being taken in its widest sense are no longer required on every occa- sion to re-establish the distinction between their own and the