Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/614

J. DELBOEUF, LA MATIERE BRUTE, ETC. 601 Classical sympathies. One would like to know what he would have thought of Turner's landscapes, or of the poetry of Wordsworth and Shelley : one is rather afraid that he would have dealt out only some surly sarcasms. To most people it will seem a defect that he separates the beautiful in the Fine Arts from the beautiful in Nature, and expressly excludes the latter from his Science of ^Esthetics ; his defence is that only in the case of the Fine Arts does the beautiful admit of clear and definite treatment. The English critic is most likely to urge the preliminary need of a psychological inquiry into the origin and growth of our feelings about the beautiful ; and such an account would have the best claim to Baumgarten's term "^Esthetics". A treatise like Mr. Grant Allen's Physiological ^Esthetics, based expressly on the system of Mr. Herbert Spencer, might seem quite inconsistent with Hegel's, but they may exist very well side by side ; for the one begins where the other leaves off. The psychologist is dealing with a question of origin (How do we come to feel or judge this or that beautiful?), and is occupied chiefly with the materials which Art has to use ; Hegel is chiefly concerned with the ideas which Art endeavours to express, and thus naturally is most occupied with the highest phases of artistic development, where such ideas can be most clearly seen ; whereas the evolu- tionary psychologist gives most attention to children and savages, or even the lower animals. There is inconsistency only if the latter denies, as I am afraid Mr. Grant Allen would deny, the legitimacy of Hegel's attempt altogether, as apart from the psy- chological inquiry. Yet, it is curious to see how well the two methods fit in in most cases ; perhaps it implies that, after all, there is a great deal of sound psychology in Hegel. Thus we might com- pare Hegel's ^Esth., pp. 68-71 in tr. (where he shows that the interest of art is distinct (1) from the practical and self-seeking interest of desire, and (2) from the theoretical interest of intellect) with Physiological ^Esthetics, pp. 33 and 189 ff., whose subject is the same, "nur mit ein bischen andern Worten ". Again, that Art arises from the need man has to act and express himself is a thesis which will be found in Hegel (pp. 58-60 in tr.) and in Phys. JSsth. (pp. 33 and 208). Hegel shows the artistic superiority of Ehine-wine over coffee in Hermann und Dorothea (jEsth. i., p. 330), and Mr. Grant Allen has an elaborate note on the poetical advantages generally of wine over rum (Phys. JEsth., p. 268). Some people would of course say that this only shows that men may come to the same sensible conclusion whatever their philosophical systems. May it not show a greater affinity than is generally suspected between ways of thinking that are supposed to lie far apart ? D. G. RITCHIE. La Matiere brute et la Matter e vivante. l5tude sur 1'Origine de la Vie et de la Mort. Par J. DELBOEUF, Professeur a 1'Univer- site de Liege. Paris : F. Alcan, 1887. Pp. 184. 39