Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/234

Beautiful and the Good or morally Worthy. Aristotle further distinguished the Beautiful from the Fit, and in a passage of the Politics set Beauty above the Useful and Necessary. Another characteristic of the Beautiful fixed by this thinker in the Rhetoric is the absence of all lust or desire in the pleasure it bestows. This is an important point, as suggesting the disinterested and unmonopolising side of æsthetic pleasure. The universal elements of beauty, again, Aristotle finds in the Metaphysics to be order (τάξις), symmetry, and definiteness or determinateness (τὸ ὡρισμένον). In the Poetics he adds another essential, namely, a certain magnitude, it being desirable, for a synoptic and single view of the parts, that the object, whether a natural body or a work of art, should not be too large, while clearness of perception requires that it should not be too small. At the same time he seems to think that, provided the whole be visible as such, the greater magnitude of an object is itself an element of beauty. This is probably to be understood by help of a passage in the Politics, which lays down the need of a number of beautiful parts or aspects in a highly beautiful object, as the human body. With respect to art, Aristotle's views are an immense advance on those of Plato. He distinctly recognised, in the Politics and elsewhere, that its aim is simply to give immediate pleasure, and so it does not need to seek the useful like the mechanical arts. The essence of art, considered as an activity, Aristotle found in imitation, which, unlike Plato, he considers not as an unworthy trick, but as including knowledge and discovery. The celebrated passage in the Poetics where he declares poetry to be more philosophic and serious a matter (σπουδαιότερον) than philosophy, best shows the contrast between Plato and Aristotle in their estimates of the dignity of artistic labour. In the Poetics he tells us that the objects to be imitated by the poet are of three kinds—(1.) Those things or events which have been or still are; (2.) The things which are said to be and seem probable; (3.) The things which necessarily are (εἶναι δεῖ). The last points, as Schasler supposes, to the ideal character of imitation as opposed to mere copying of individual objects or events, and accounts for the lofty value assigned to it by Aristotle. More particularly the objects of imitation in poetry and music, if not in all art, are dispositions (ἤθη), passions, and actions. Aristotle gives us some interesting speculations on the nature of the artist's mind, and distinguishes two varieties of the poetic imagination—the easy and versatile conceptive power of a man of natural genius (ἐνφυής), and the more emotional and lively temperament of an inspired man (μανικός). He gives us no complete classification of the fine arts, and it is doubtful how far his principles are to be taken as applicable to other than the poetic art. He seems, however, to distinguish poetry, music, and dancing—all of which are supposed to imitate some element of human nature, some feeling or action—by the means they employ, namely, rhythm, harmony, melody, and vocal sound. Painting and sculpture are spoken of as imitative arts, but their special aims are not defined. Architecture seems ignored by Aristotle as non-imitative. His peculiar theory of poetry can only be just glanced at here. Its aim, he says, is to imitate dispositions and actions. Metrical form is hardly looked on as an essential. Poetic imitation, as including the selection of the universal in human nature and history, is ably treated; and from this part of Aristotle's theory all modern ideas of poetic truth are more or less derivable. He distinguishes, somewhat superficially, the epic poem, the drama, and a third variety not named, but apparently lyric poetry, by the manner in which the poet speaks in each variety, whether in his own person, or in that of another, or in both alternately. The epic and the dramatic poem require unity of action, a certain magnitude, with beginning, middle, and end, and also those changes of fortune and recognitions that make up the thrilling character of plot. The end of tragedy Aristotle defines as the effecting, by means of pity and fear, of a purification of these passions; and this perhaps the point of greatest interest for æsthetics in the whole of his theory of poetry. Whether he is referring to any moral influence of tragedy on the emotions, bringing both fear and pity in the spectator's mind to their proper ethical mean, as Lessing and others conceive; whether he simply means the elimination of all painful ingredients in these feelings, either by the recognition of the imaginary nature of the evil represented, or by the simultaneous satisfaction of other and deeper feelings as moral approval or wide human sympathy; or, finally, whether by "purification" we are to understand the grateful relief by artificial means of a recurring emotion needing periodic vent, as Ueberweg argues,—this subtle point may be left to the student to decide. It would be interesting to know how far Aristotle attributed something analogous to this κάθαρσις to the other arts. In the Politics he certainly speaks of a purifying effect in certain kinds of music in quieting the wilder forms of excitement. Finally, it might perhaps be conjectured from his definition of the Ludicrous, as something faulty and disgraceful, yet free from pain, and not destructive, that he would find in the laughter of comedy something analogous to this purification, namely, the gradual resolution of the more painful feeling of contempt or disgust into the genial moods of pure hilarity.

Omitting to notice the few valuable remarks on æsthetic subjects of the later Greeks and their Roman contemporaries, one may briefly refer to the views of the Alexandrian mystic and Neo-Platonist Plotinus, not only because of their intrinsic interest, but on account of their resemblance to certain modern systems. His theory is to be found in an essay on the Beautiful in the series of discourses called Enneades. His philosophy differs from the Platonic in the recognition of an objective νοῦς, the direct emanation from the absolute Good, in which the ideas or notions (λόγοι), which are the prototypes of real things, are immanent. This Reason, as self-moving, becomes the formative influence reducing matter, which in itself is dead, to form. Matter thus formed becomes a notion (λόγος), and this form is beauty. Objects are ugly so far as they are unacted upon by Reason, and so remain formless. The creative νοῦς is absolute Beauty, and is called the more beautiful (τὸ ὑπέρκαλλον). There are three degrees or stages of the Beautiful in manifestation, namely, the beauty of subjective νοῦς, or human reason, which is the highest; that of the human soul, which is less perfect through the connection of the soul with a material body; and that of real objects, which is the lowest manifestation of all. As to the characteristic form of beauty, he supposed, in opposition to Aristotle, that a single thing not divisible into parts might be beautiful through its unity and simplicity. He attached special worth to the beauty of colours in which material darkness is overpowered by light and warmth. In reference to artistic beauty, he said that when the artist has λογοι as models for his creations, these may become more beautiful than natural objects. This is a very curious divergence of opinion from the Platonic.

After Plotinus there is little speculation on æsthetic subjects till we come to modern writers. St Augustine wrote a treatise on the Beautiful, now lost, in which he appears to have reproduced Platonic ideas under a Christian guise. He taught that unity is the form of all beauty ("omnis porro pulchritudinis forma unitas est"). Infinite goodness, truth, and beauty are the attributes of the Deity, and communicated by him to things. But passing from these fragmentary utterances, we may consider more fully