without right, that a work of art is nothing but what it means to those who behold it, has little value beyond its meaning to the artist's fellowmen. The matter is not closed when we say that the artist's creative ability must surpass that of the ordinary man; for the work of art necessarily must be confined within reach of the receptive ability, if not of all men, always of some, and must be judged also from the manner in which it affects its beholders. This side of art must also be considered by every theory of aesthetics that aims at completeness. In fact, for the critic of art it is by far the more important side, and probably for this reason was emphasized so strongly by Brownson,

3.—ART IN ITS EFFECT

Art does not exist, then, merely as an activity on the part of the artist. The latter externalizes his intuitions for the purpose of communicating them to his fellowmen. His mental vision, his inner experience, has a special value for him, a value that also exists for others; and he produces his work of art in order to have his fellowmen experience what he saw or felt. The intuition communicated is always a single crosssection of life, a real or imaginary vision of some concrete instance of life. Even if the intuition is that of a general truth, of a universal principle of life, it is only under the guise of an individual manifestation, a concrete example, that art by its very nature can portray these general ideas or truths. Art in its form or symbols copies from nature; and as in nature, especially human nature, each individual action is the manifestation of an attitude of life underlying it, so also in art. The latter cannot avoid the issues of individual life. Whatever vision an artist communicates to his audience is accompanied by an attitude of life. It is this accompaniment of art that gives to it a mission, if we should really use the term. Brownson insisted very strongly on the individuality of art, and on the fact that, as a natural consequence of this, a work of art like every other human activity has a social, ethical bearing. Even if the inculcation of views is not the avowed purpose of the artist, this effect will always exist at least as an unconscious

accompaniment. "Art is a human activity," says Tolstoi, "consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings, and also experience them."43

Tolstoi was strongly imbued with the ideal of the universal brotherhood of all men towards which everything should tend, and so he found that the task of art is "to make that feeling of brotherhood and love of one's neighbor, now attained only by the best members of society, the customary feeling and the instinct of all men.' "44 Brownson in a similar way makes the purpose of art to be the uplift of society. We should rather say that the purpose of art is to communicate to men the visions or intuitions of minds that stand out above the rest by reason of what is termed genius, and that the question of the effect of these visions is a question of the ordinary laws of humanity and society. No one can justify the launching upon an innocent public of that which is undoubtedly subversive of the best interests of society and mankind. And the evil will be the greater, as Brownson too believes, because art is not professedly didactic. To influence is not the avowed purpose of the artist, but it is an unconscious concomitant of his work; and neither he nor his audience can avoid the issue, it lies in the nature of art and man. "Toutefois, l'art n'est pas seulement un ensemble de faits significatifs," writes Guyau well; "il est avant tout un ensemble de moyens suggestifs. Ce qu'il dit emprunte souvent sa principale valeur à ce qu'il ne dit pas, mais suggère, fait penser et sentir. Le grand art est l'art évocateur, qui agit par suggestion."45

This suggestive power of art is a factor that the critic must take cognizance of. And where other things are equal, that art must be considered greatest which, within the sphere of art, is productive of the noblest sentiments in the beholders, gives them the healthiest aspirations, incites in them sentiments most conducive to their own good and that of mankind. In this respect we certainly must agree with Brownson, though we cannot go so far as to claim with him that this ennobling power is

43 What Is Art?, p. 43. New York 1899.

44 Op. cit., p. 184.

45 Op. cit., p. 65.

the criterion of the artistic quality or is the positive duty of art. Given works of artistic quality, the above consideration will help to decide upon the relative merit of the intuitions expressed, therefore of the works themselves as judged from the interests of mankind. But the principle as such we should rather consider negative than positive, arising from the relations of man to mankind, which enjoin that the individual refrain from activities injurious to society. Brownson's more positive attitude regarding the mission of art was interwoven with his idea of beauty as identical with the highest truth and the highest good, and was probably a deduction from his view that the expression of this beauty alone constituted true art.

Here it is that Brownson involves himself most apparently in contradictions, probably because he never attempted to synthesize his views on art and the beautiful. He makes art consist simply in an embodiment of the beautiful, and the beautiful is for him the criterion that distinguishes art from nonart. At the same time he claims that art has higher requisites than that of mere beauty. He also acknowledges that art may be good or bad; that art may portray a kind of beauty that is injurious to man and that does not fulfill the mission of art, namely, the promotion of the end of man. For this reason, he argues, such beauty is not true beauty, such art is not really art. True beauty is identical with the good and the true. True art then admits of no delight of the senses, although it addresses the intellect and the will only through the sensibility according to his own words. The outcome of such statements is that Brownson, while sometimes using the word beauty in a looser sense, considered only that to be real beauty which is identical with truth and morality. In this sense all art for him fulfills its mission by embodying the beautiful, and in this sense the beautiful is the criterion of all art.

With this last view of Brownson's we can agree no more than with his definition of beauty. We do not believe that the connection between beauty and art is a necessary one. The essence

of art lies rather in the expression of an intuition, as we tried to explain above and as Croce emphasized so strongly. Croce rides over the question of beauty by stating that what we ordinarily mean by the term beautiful is really the sympathetic, while beauty is simply accuracy of expression. Thus all art,

since it is intuition or internal expression, is in so far also beautiful. But this is merely a perversion of terms. Ana however, it may agree with Croce's theories according to which aesthetics has no concern beyond the internal artistic activity, it is an unwarranted digression from the accepted meaning of words. The term beautiful in art is by common consent applied to that quality which renders artistic productions pleasing to, exerts an attractive charm on, the beholders. Of course, this is no real definition of beauty; it says little more than Plato's: beauty is that quality by which "all beautiful things become beautiful.”46

The attempts to define the beautiful more closely are wellnigh innumerable. In general these attempts can be divided into two kinds: such as take an objective standpoint and such as take a subjective or psychological point of view. In accordance with the first class, some persons examine or analyse beautiful objects and try to define beauty as a harmonious arrangement of parts, as unity amid variety; or they grow more profound and define it as identity of the conscious with the unconscious, "Zweckmässigkeit ohne Zweck," first stage of the absolute, etc. Another view of beauty belonging in part to this first class is entirely metaphysical. Beauty is a reflection of the eternal Beauty, or of some absolute ideal of beauty. Thus Plato said: “If there be anything beautiful other than absolute beauty, that can only be beautiful in as far as it partakes of absolute beauty."47 A common expression of this view as found in treatises on ontology is: "The essence of beauty.........consists in that harmony whereby the beautiful object corresponds to its archetype, namely to the light of the intellect as showing forth the rule and measure of beauty."48 Thus, too, Brownson claimed that beauty in things is a correspondence to, or participation in, an absolute beauty, identical with God. We have already stated that such a claim may show the tendency art is to take, but does not give any positive content to beauty. For the latter we must fall back upon our experiences with the world

46 Op. cit., i, 429.

47 Loc. cit.

48 Cardinal Zigliara, Ontologia, Lib. ii. c. ii. art. vii.-Quoted in Rickaby, General Metaphysics, p. 165. New York 1909.

surrounding us.

And we arrive at it only by examining those objects that give us the impression of beauty.

Thus we are to led the second class of definitions, which views beauty psychologically as any quality producing pleasure or delight, "that quality or combination of qualities which affords keen pleaseure to the senses,............which charms the intellectual or moral faculties, through inherent grace,............ which appeals to the aesthetic taste," as the dictionaries have it. Even if these are no real definitions of the beautiful, they at least afford us some standard to go by. And when we remember that the term beautiful is applied to objects of color, of sound, of speech, of thought, actions, affections, etc., we cannot but acquiesce with Reid who calls attention to the fact that all these objects have little in common except the power of delighting us.49 Of course such a view emphasizes the subjective element of beauty. And Alison in consonance with his theory of association is careful to point out that not only individual habits of mind, but even the "temporary sensibility" of one's mind hic et nunc comes into play:50 while Marshall says that pleasure is never permanent, it "is a quality which may attach to any element of consciousness; but not permanently."51 Extremists of this view thus say that beauty is nothing but a subjective state of the individual beholder. But this is hardly tenable, since experience shows that there are beautiful objects which seem to strike at something permanent in human nature and afford pleasure to all mankind, that beauty is therefore a permanent quality of such objects. Here we agree with Brownson that the ultimate test of beauty in any concrete form is the 'universal mind of man,' the common judgment of man, and that the greatest test of it is time. The psychological analysis of beauty tells us also that the pleasure given by objects may arise from various sources, from the perfection of the symbols alone, from the thought alone, or from both. Hence we have the terms "sensuous beauty," "intellectual beauty." And they contain an explanation of the fact that a work may be beautiful under one aspect and not under another. Beauty as such,

49 Works, p. 498.

50 Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste, pp. 69-70. New York 1850.

51 Op. cit., p. 149.