§ 41 The empirical interest in the beautiful
ABUNDANT proof has been given above to show that the judgement of taste by which something is declared beautiful must have no interest as its determining ground. But it does not follow from this that after it has once been posited as a pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter into combination with it. This combination, however, can never be anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say, first of all be represented in conjunction with something else, if the delight attending the mere reflection upon an object is to admit of any further connection with a pleasure in the existence of the object (as that wherein all interest consists). For the saying, a posse ad esse non valet consequential,* which is applied to cognitive judgements, holds good here in the case of aesthetic judgements. Now this ‘something else’ may be something empirical, such as an inclination proper to the nature of human beings, or it may be something intellectual, as a property of the will whereby it admits of rational determination a priori. Both of these involve a delight in the existence of the object, and so can lay the foundation for an interest in what has already pleased of itself and without regard to any interest whatsoever.
The empirical interest in the beautiful exists only in society. And if we admit that the impulse to society is natural to mankind, and that the suitability for and the propensity towards it, i.e. sociability, is a property essential to the requirements of human beings as creatures intended for society, and one, therefore, that belongs to humanity, it is inevitable that we should also look upon taste in the light of a faculty for judging whatever enables us to communicate even our feeling to everyone else, and hence as a means of promoting that upon which the natural inclination of everyone is set.	297
With no one to take into account but himself, an individual abandoned on a desert island would not adorn either himself or his hut, nor would he look for flowers, and still less plant them, with the object of providing himself with personal adornments. Only in society does it occur to him to be not merely a human being, but a human being refined in his own way (the beginning of civilization)—for that is how we judge of one who has the bent and turn for communicating his pleasure to others, and who is not quite satisfied with an object unless his feeling of delight in it can be shared in communion with others. Further, a regard to universal communicability is a thing which everyone expects and requires from everyone else, just as if it were part of an original contract dictated by humanity itself. And thus, no doubt, at first only charms, e.g. colours for painting oneself (roucou among the Caribs and cinnabar among the Iroquois), or flowers, sea-shells, beautifully coloured feathers, then, in the course of time, also beautiful forms (as in canoes, apparel, etc.) which convey no gratification, i.e. delight of enjoyment, become of moment in society and attract a considerable interest. Eventually, when civilization has reached its height it makes this work of communication almost the main business of refined inclination, and the entire value of sensations is placed in the degree to which they permit of universal communication. At this stage, then, even where the pleasure which each one has in an object is but insignificant and possesses of itself no conspicuous interest, still the idea of its universal communicability almost indefinitely augments its value.
This interest, indirectly attached to the beautiful by the inclination towards society, and, consequently, empirical, is, however, of no importance for us here. For that to which we have alone to look is what can have a bearing a priori, even though indirect, upon the judgement of taste. For, if even in this form an associated interest should betray itself, taste would then reveal a transition on the part of our faculty of judging from the enjoyment of sense to the moral feeling. This would not merely mean that we should be supplied with a more effectual guide for the final employment of taste, but taste would further be presented as a link in the chain of the human faculties a priori upon which all legislation must depend. This much may certainly be said of the empirical interest in objects of taste, and in taste itself, that as taste thus pays homage to inclination, however refined, such interest will nevertheless readily fuse also with all inclinations and passions, which in society attain to their greatest variety and highest degree, and the interest in the beautiful, if this is made its ground, can but afford a very ambiguous transition from the agreeable to the good. We have reason, however, to inquire whether this transition may not still in some way be furthered by means of taste when taken in its purity.	298
§ 42 The intellectual interest in the beautiful
IT has been with the best intentions that those who love to see in the ultimate end of humanity, namely the morally good, the goal of all activities to which human beings are impelled by the inner bent of their nature, have regarded it as a mark of a good moral character to take an interest in the beautiful generally. But they have, not without reason, been contradicted by others who appeal to the fact of experience, that virtuosi in matters of taste, being not only often, but one might say as a general rule, vain, capricious, and addicted to injurious passions, could perhaps more rarely than others lay claim to any pre-eminent attachment to moral principles. And so it would seem, not only that the feeling for the beautiful is specifically different from the moral feeling (which as a matter of fact is the case), but also that the interest which we may combine with it, will hardly consort with the moral, and certainly not on grounds of inner affinity.
Now I willingly admit that the interest in the beautiful of art (including under this heading the artificial use of natural beauties for personal adornment, and so from vanity) gives no evidence at all of a habit of mind attached to the morally good, or even inclined that way. But, on the other hand, I do maintain that to take an immediate interest in the beauty of nature (not merely to have taste in judging it) is always a mark of a good soul; and that, where this interest is habitual, it is at least indicative of a temper of mind favourable to the moral feeling that it should readily associate itself with the contemplation of nature. It must, however, be borne in mind that I mean to refer strictly to the beautiful forms of nature, and to put to one side the charms which she is wont so lavishly to combine with them; because, though the interest in these is no doubt immediate, it is nevertheless empirical.	299
One who alone (and without any intention of communicating his observations to others) regards the beautiful form of a wild flower, a bird, an insect, or the like, out of admiration and love of them, and being loath to let them escape him in nature, even at the risk of some misadventure to himself—so far from there being any prospect of advantage to him—such a one takes an immediate, and in fact intellectual, interest in the beauty of nature. This means that he is not merely pleased with nature’s product in respect of its form, but is also pleased at its existence, and is so without any charm of sense having a share in the matter, or without his associating with it any end whatsoever.
In this connexion, however, it is of note that were we to play a trick on our lover of the beautiful, and plant in the ground artificial flowers (which can be made so as to look just like natural ones), and perch artfully carved birds on the branches of trees, and he were to find out how he had been deceived, the immediate interest which these things previously had for him would at once vanish—though, perhaps, a different interest might intervene in its stead, that, namely, of vanity in decorating his room with them for the eyes of others. The fact is that our intuition and reflection must have as their concomitant the thought that the beauty in question is nature’s handiwork; and this is the sole basis of the immediate interest that is taken in it. Failing this we are either left with a bare judgement of taste devoid of all interest whatever, or else only with one that is combined with an interest that is mediate, involving, namely, a reference to society; and this latter affords no reliable indication of morally good habits of thought.
The advantage which natural beauty enjoys over that of art, even where it is excelled by the latter in point of form, in yet being alone able to awaken an immediate interest, accords with the refined and well-grounded habits of thought of all those who have cultivated their moral feeling. If a person with taste enough to judge of works of fine art with the greatest correctness and refinement readily quits the room in which he meets with those beauties that minister to vanity or, at least, social joys, and betakes himself to the beautiful in nature, so that he may there find as it were a feast for his spirit in a train of thought which he can never completely evolve, we will then regard this his choice even with veneration, and give him credit for a beautiful soul, to which no connoisseur or art collector can lay claim on the score of the interest which his objects have for him.—Here, now, are two kinds of objects which in the judgement of mere taste could scarcely contend with one another for a superiority. What then, is the distinction that makes us hold them in such different esteem?	300
We have a faculty of judgement which is merely aesthetic—a faculty of judging of forms without the aid of concepts, and of finding, in the mere judging of them, a delight that we at the same time make into a rule for everyone, without this judgement being founded on an interest, or yet producing one.—On the other hand we have also a faculty of intellectual judgement for the mere forms of practical maxims (so far as they are of themselves qualified for universal legislation)—a faculty of determining an a priori delight, which we make into a law for everyone, without our judgement being founded on any interest, though here it produces one. The pleasure or displeasure in the former judgement is called that of taste; the latter is called that of the moral feeling.
But, now, reason is further interested in ideas (for which in our moral feeling it brings about an immediate interest) having also objective reality. That is to say, it is of interest to reason that nature should at least show a trace or give a hint that it contains in itself some ground or other for assuming a uniform accordance of its products with our wholly disinterested delight (a delight which we cognize a priori as a law for everyone without being able to ground it upon proofs). That being so, reason must take an interest in every manifestation on the part of nature of some such accordance. Hence the mind cannot reflect on the beauty of nature without at the same time finding its interest engaged. But this interest is akin to the moral. One, then, who takes such an interest in the beautiful in nature can only do so in so far as he has previously set his interest deep in the foundations of the morally good. On these grounds we have reason for presuming the presence of at least the germ of a good moral disposition in the case of someone to whom the beauty of nature is a matter of immediate interest.	301
It will be said that this interpretation of aesthetic judgements on the basis of kinship with our moral feeling has far too studied an appearance to be accepted as the true reading of the cypher in which nature speaks to us figuratively through its beautiful forms. But, first of all, this immediate interest in the beauty of nature is not in fact common. It is peculiar to those whose habits of thought are already trained to the good or else are eminently susceptible of such training; and under these circumstances the analogy in which the pure judgement of taste that, without relying upon any interest, gives us a feeling of delight, and at the same time represents it a priori as proper to humanity in general, stands to the moral judgement that does just the same from concepts, is one which, without any clear, subtle, and deliberate reflection, conduces to a like immediate interest being taken in the objects of the former judgement as in those of the latter—with this one difference, that the interest in the first case is free, while in the latter it is one founded on objective laws. In addition to this there is our admiration of nature which in her beautiful products displays herself as art, not as mere matter of chance, but, as it were, designedly, according to a law-directed arrangement, and as purposiveness apart from any purpose. As we never meet with such an end outside ourselves, we naturally look for it in ourselves, and, in fact, in that which constitutes the ultimate end of our existence—namely in our moral vocation. (The inquiry into the ground of the possibility of such a natural purposiveness will, however, first come under discussion in the analysis of teleology.)
The fact that the delight in beautiful art does not, in the pure judgement of taste, involve an immediate interest, as does that in beautiful nature, may be readily explained. For the former is either such an imitation of the latter as goes the length of deceiving us, in which case it acts upon us in the character of a natural beauty, which we take it to be; or else it is an intentional art obviously directed to our delight. In the latter case, however, the delight in the product would, it is true, be brought about immediately by taste, but there would be nothing but a mediate interest in the cause that lay beneath—an interest, namely, in an art only capable of interesting by its end, and never in itself. It will, perhaps, be said that this is also the case where an object of nature only interests by its beauty so far as a moral idea is brought into partnership therewith. But it is not the object that is of immediate interest, but rather the inherent character of the beauty qualifying it for such a partnership—a character, therefore, that inwardly belongs to the character of beauty.	302
The charms in natural beauty, which are to be found blended, as it were, so frequently with beauty of form, belong either to the modifications of light (in colouring) or of sound (in tones). For these are the only sensations which permit not merely of a feeling of the senses, but also of reflection upon the form of these modifications of the senses, and so embody as it were a language in which nature addresses us and which seems to possess a higher meaning. Thus the white colour of the lily seems to dispose the mind to ideas of innocence, and the other seven colours, following the series from the red to the violet, similarly to ideas of (1) sublimity, (2) courage, (3) candour, (4) amiability, (5) modesty, (6) constancy, (7) tenderness. The bird’s song tells of joyousness and contentment with its existence. At least so we interpret nature—whether such be its purpose or not. But it is the indispensable requisite of the interest which we here take in beauty, that the beauty should be that of nature, and it vanishes completely as soon as we are conscious of having been deceived, and that it is only the work of art—so completely that even taste can then no longer find in it anything beautiful nor sight anything attractive. What do poets set more store on than the nightingale’s bewitching and beautiful note, in a lonely thicket on a still summer evening by the soft light of the moon? And yet we have instances of how, where no such songster was to be found, a jovial host has played a trick on the guests with him on a visit to enjoy the country air, and has done so to their huge satisfaction, by hiding in a thicket a rogue of a youth who (with a reed or rush in his mouth) knew how to reproduce this note so as to hit off nature to perfection. But the instant one realizes that it is all a fraud no one will long endure listening to this song that before was regarded as so attractive. And it is just the same with the song of any other bird. It must be nature, or be mistaken by us for nature, to enable us to take an immediate interest in the beautiful as such; and this is all the more so if we may even call upon others to take a similar interest. And such a demand we do in fact make, since we regard as coarse and low the habits of thought of those who have no feeling for beautiful nature (for this is the word we use for susceptibility to an interest in the contemplation of beautiful nature), and who devote themselves to the merely sensuous enjoyments found in eating and drinking.	303
§ 43 Art in general
(I) Art is distinguished from nature as making (facere) is from acting or operating in general (agere), and the product or the result of the former is distinguished from that of the latter as work (opus) from effect (effectus).
By right it is only production through freedom, i.e. through an act of will that places reason at the basis of its action, that should be termed art.* For, although we are pleased to call what bees produce (their regularly constructed cells) a work of art, we only do so on the strength of an analogy with art; that is to say, as soon as we call to mind that no rational deliberation forms the basis of their labour, we say at once that it is a product of their nature (of instinct), and it is only to their creator that we ascribe it as art.
If, as sometimes happens, in a search through a bog, we light on a piece of hewn wood, we do not say it is a product of nature but of art. Its producing cause had an end in view to which the object owes its form. Apart from such cases, we recognize an art in everything formed in such a way that its actuality must have been preceded by a representation of the thing in its cause (as even in the case of the bees), although the effect could not have been thought by the cause. But where anything is called absolutely a work of art, to distinguish it from a natural product, then some work of man is always understood.
(2) Art, as human skill, is distinguished also from science (as ability from knowledge), as a practical from a theoretical faculty, as technic from theory (as the art of surveying from geometry). For this reason, also, what one can do the moment one only knows what is to be done, hence without anything more than sufficient knowledge of the desired result, is not called art. To art that alone belongs for which the possession of the most complete knowledge does not involve one’s having then and there the skill to do it. Camper describes very exactly * how the best shoe must be made, but he, doubtless, was not able to turn one out himself.12	304
(3) Art is further distinguished from handicraft. The first is called free, the other may be called renumerative art. We look on the former as something which could only prove purposive (be a success) as play, i.e. an occupation which is agreeable on its own account; but on the second as labour, i.e. a business, which on its own account is disagreeable (drudgery), and is only attractive by means of what it results in (e.g. the pay), and which is consequently capable of being a compulsory imposition. Whether in the list of arts and crafts we are to rank watchmakers as artists, and smiths on the contrary as craftsmen, requires a standpoint different from that here adopted—one, that is to say, taking account of the proportion of the talents which the business undertaken in either case must necessarily involve. Whether, also, among the so-called seven free arts some may not have been included which should be reckoned as sciences, and many, too, that resemble handicraft, is a matter I will not discuss here. It is not amiss, however, to remind the reader of this: that in all free arts something of a compulsory character is still required, or, as it is called, a mechanism, without which the spirit, which in art must be free, and which alone gives life to the work, would be bodyless and evanescent (e.g. in the poetic art there must be correctness and wealth of language, likewise prosody and metre). For not a few leaders of a newer school believe that the best way to promote a free art is to sweep away all restraint, and convert it from labour into mere play.
§ 44 Fine art
THERE is no science of the beautiful, but only a critique. Nor, again, is there such a thing as beautiful science, but only beautiful art.* For a science of the beautiful would have to determine scientifically, i.e. by means of proofs, whether a thing was to be considered beautiful or not; and the judgement upon beauty, consequently, would, if belonging to science, fail to be a judgement of taste. As for a beautiful science—a science which, as such, is to be beautiful, is a nonsense. For if, treating it as a science, we were to ask for reasons and proofs, we would be put off with elegant phrases (bons mots). What has given rise to the current expression beautiful sciences is, doubtless, no more than this, that common observation has, quite accurately, noted the fact that for fine art, in the fulness of its perfection, a large store of knowledge is required, as, for example, knowledge of ancient languages, acquaintance with classical authors, history, antiquarian learning, and so forth. Hence these historical sciences, owing to the fact that they form the necessary preparation and groundwork for fine art, and partly also owing to the fact that they are taken to comprise even the knowledge of the products of fine art (rhetoric and poetry), have by a confusion of words, actually acquired the name of beautiful sciences.	305
Where art, merely seeking to actualize a possible object to the cognition of which it is adequate, performs whatever acts are required for that purpose, then it is mechanical. But should the feeling of pleasure be what it has immediately in view it is then termed aesthetic art. As such it may be either agreeable or fine art. The description ‘agreeable art’ applies where the end of the art is that the pleasure should accompany the representations considered as mere sensations, the description ‘fine art’ where it is to accompany them considered as modes of cognition.
Agreeable arts are those which have mere enjoyment for their object. Such are all the charms that can gratify a dinner party: entertaining narrative, the art of engaging the whole table in unrestrained and sprightly conversation, or with jest and laughter inducing a certain air of gaiety. Here, as the saying goes, there may be much chattering over the glasses, without a person wishing to be brought to book for all he utters, because it is only given out for the entertainment of the moment, and not as a lasting matter to be made the subject of reflection or repetition. (Of the same sort is also the art of arranging the table for enjoyment, or, at large banquets, the music of the orchestra—a quaint idea intended to act on the mind merely as an agreeable noise fostering a genial spirit, which, without anyone paying the smallest attention to the composition, promotes the free flow of conversation between guest and guest.) In addition must be included play of every kind which is attended with no further interest than that of making the time pass by unheeded.	306
Fine art, on the other hand, is a mode of representation which is intrinsically purposive, and which, although devoid of an end, has the effect of advancing the culture of the mental powers in the interests of social communication.
The universal communicability of a pleasure involves in its very concept that the pleasure is not one of enjoyment arising out of mere sensation, but must be one of reflection. Hence aesthetic art, as art which is beautiful, is one having for its standard the reflective judgement and not bodily sensation.
§ 45 Fine art is an art, so far as it has at the same time the appearance of being nature
A PRODUCT of fine art must be recognized to be art and not nature. Nevertheless the purposiveness in its form must appear just as free from the constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were a product of mere nature. Upon this feeling of freedom in the play of our cognitive faculties—which play has at the same time to be purposive—rests that pleasure which alone is universally communicable without being based on concepts. Nature proved beautiful when it wore the appearance of art; and art can only be termed beautiful, where we are conscious of its being art, while yet it has the appearance of nature.
For, whether we are dealing with beauty of nature or beauty of art, we may make the universal statement: that is beautiful which pleases in the mere judging of it (not in sensation or by means of a concept). Now art has always got a definite intention of producing something. Were this ‘something’, however, to be mere sensation (something merely subjective), intended to be accompanied with pleasure, then such product would, in our judging of it, only please through the agency of the feeling of the senses. On the other hand, if the intention were one directed to the production of a definite object, then, supposing this were attained by art, the object would only please by means of a concept. But in both cases the art would please, not in the mere judging of it, i.e. not as fine art, but rather as mechanical art.
Hence the purposiveness in the product of fine art, intentional though it be, must not have the appearance of being intentional; i.e. we must be able to look upon fine art as nature, although we recognize it to be art. But the way in which a product of art seems like nature, is by the presence of perfect exactness in the agreement with rules prescribing how alone the product can be what it is intended to be, but with an absence of laboured effect (without academic form betraying itself), i.e. without a trace appearing of the artist having always had the rule present to him and of its having fettered his mental powers.	307
§ 46 Fine art is the art of genius
Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule to art. Since talent, as an innate productive faculty of the artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius is the innate mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature gives the rule to art.
Whatever may be the merits of this definition, and whether it is merely arbitrary, or whether it is adequate or not to the concept usually associated with the word genius (a point which the following sections have to clear up), it may still be shown at the outset that, according to this acceptation of the word, fine arts must necessarily be regarded as arts of genius.
For every art presupposes rules which are laid down as the foundation which first enables a product, if it is to be called one of art, to be represented as possible. The concept of fine art, however, does not permit of the judgement upon the beauty of its product being derived from any rule that has a concept for its determining ground, and that depends, consequently, on a concept of the way in which the product is possible. Consequently fine art cannot of its own self excogitate the rule according to which it is to realize its product. But since, for all that, a product can never be called art unless there is a preceding rule, it follows that nature in the individual (and by virtue of the harmony of his faculties) must give the rule to art, i.e. fine art is only possible as a product of genius.
From this it may be seen that genius (1) is a talent for producing that for which no definite rule can be given: and not an aptitude in the way of cleverness for what can be learned according to some rule; and that consequently originality must be its primary property. (2) Since there may also be original nonsense, its products must at the same time be models, i.e. be exemplary; and, consequently, though not themselves derived from imitation, they must serve that purpose for others, i.e. as a standard or rule of judging. (3) It cannot indicate scientifically how it brings about its product, but rather gives the rule as nature. Hence, where an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know how the ideas for it have entered into his head, nor has he it in his power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate the same to others in such precepts as would enable them to produce similar products. (Hence, presumably, our word Genie is derived from genius, as the peculiar guardian and guiding spirit bestowed upon a human being at birth, by the inspiration of which those original ideas were obtained.) (4) Nature prescribes the rule through genius not to science but to art, and this also only in so far as it is to be fine art.	308
§ 47 Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation of genius
EVERYONE is agreed on the point of the complete opposition between genius and the spirit of imitation. Now since learning is nothing but imitation, the greatest ability, or aptness as a pupil (capacity), is still, as such, not equivalent to genius. Even if someone weaves his own thoughts or fancies, instead of merely taking in what others have thought, and even though he go so far as to bring fresh gains to art and science, this does not afford a valid reason for calling such an intelligent, and often very intelligent, individual, a genius, in contradistinction to one who goes by the name of a block-head, because he can never do more than merely learn and follow a lead. For what is accomplished in this way is something that could have been learned. Hence it all lies in the natural path of investigation and reflection according to rules, and so is not specifically distinguishable from what may be acquired as the result of diligence backed up by imitation. So all that Newton has set forth in his immortal work* on the Principles of Natural Philosophy may well be learned, however great a mind it took to find it all out, but we cannot learn to write in a true poetic vein, no matter how complete all the precepts of the poetic art may be, or however excellent its models. The reason is that all the steps that Newton had to take from the first elements of geometry to his greatest and most profound discoveries were such as he could make intuitively evident and plain to follow, not only for himself but for everyone else. On the other hand no Homer or Wieland* can show how his ideas, so rich at once in fantasy and in thought, enter and assemble themselves in his brain, for the good reason that he does not himself know, and so cannot teach others. In matters of science, therefore, the greatest inventor differs only in degree from the most laborious imitator and apprentice, whereas he differs specifically from one endowed by nature for fine art. No disparagement, however, of those great men, to whom the human race is so deeply indebted, is involved in this comparison of them with those who on the score of their talent for fine art are so favoured by nature. The talent for science is formed for the continued advances of greater perfection in knowledge, with all its dependent practical advantages, as also for imparting the same to others. Hence scientists can boast a considerable advantage over those who merit the honour of being called geniuses, since genius reaches a point at which art must come to a halt, as there is a limit imposed upon it which it cannot transcend. This limit has in all probability been long since attained. In addition, such skill cannot be communicated, but requires to be bestowed directly from the hand of nature upon each individual, and so with him it dies, awaiting the day when nature once again endows another in the same way—one who needs no more than an example to set the talent of which he is conscious at work on similar lines.	309
Seeing, then, that the natural endowment of art (as fine art) must furnish the rule, what kind of rule must this be? It cannot be one set down in a formula and serving as a precept—for then the judgement upon the beautiful would be determinable according to concepts. Rather must the rule be gathered from the execution, i.e. from the product, which others may use to put their own talent to the test, so as to let it serve as a model, not for imitation, but for following. The possibility of this is difficult to explain. The artist’s ideas arouse comparable ideas on the part of his pupil, presuming nature to have endowed him with a comparable proportion of the mental powers. For this reason the models of fine art are the only means of handing down this art to posterity. This is something which cannot be done by mere descriptions (especially not in the field of the arts of speech), and in these arts, furthermore, only those models can become classical of which the ancient, dead languages, preserved as learned, are the medium.	310
Despite the marked difference that distinguishes mechanical art, as an art merely depending upon diligence and learning, from fine art, as that of genius, there is still no fine art in which something mechanical, capable of being at once comprehended and followed in obedience to rules, and consequently something academic does not constitute the essential condition of the art. For the thought of something as end must be present, or else its product would not be ascribed to an art at all, but would be a mere product of chance. But the realization of an end necessitates determinate rules which we cannot venture to dispense with. Now, seeing that originality of talent is one (though not the sole) essential factor that goes to make up the character of genius, shallow minds fancy that the best evidence they can give of their being full-blown geniuses is by emancipating themselves from all academic constraint of rules, in the belief that one cuts a finer figure on the back of an ill-tempered than of a trained horse. Genius can do no more than furnish rich material for products of fine art; its elaboration and its form require a talent academically trained, so that it may be employed in such a way as to stand the test of judgement. But, for a person to hold forth and pass sentence like a genius in matters that fall to the province of the most patient rational investigation, is ridiculous in the extreme. One is at a loss to know whether to laugh more at the impostor who envelops himself in such a cloud—in which we are given fuller scope to our imagination at the expense of all use of our judgement,—or at the simple-minded public which imagines that its inability clearly to cognize and comprehend this masterpiece of penetration is due to its being confronted by new truths en masse, in comparison with which, detail, due to carefully weighed exposition and an academic examination of fundamental principles, seems to it only the work of a tyro.
§ 48 The relation of genius to taste	311
FOR judging beautiful objects, as such, what is required is taste; but for fine art, i.e. the production of such objects, one needs genius.
If we consider genius as the talent for fine art (which the proper signification of the word imports), and if we would analyse it from this point of view into the faculties which must concur to constitute such a talent, it is imperative at the outset accurately to determine the difference between beauty of nature, which it only requires taste to judge, and beauty of art, which requires genius for its possibility (a possibility to which regard must also be paid in judging such an object).
A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing; beauty of art is a beautiful representation of a thing.
To enable me to judge a beauty of nature, as such, I do not need to be previously possessed of a concept of what sort of a thing the object is intended to be, i.e. I am not obliged to know its material purposiveness (the end), but, rather, in judging it apart from any knowledge of the end, the mere form pleases on its own account. If, however, the object is presented as a product of art, and is as such to be declared beautiful, then, seeing that art always presupposes an end in the cause (and its causality), a concept of what the thing is intended to be must already be provided. And, since the agreement of the manifold in a thing with an inner character belonging to it as its end constitutes the perfection of the thing, it follows that in judging beauty of art the perfection of the thing must be also taken into account—a matter which in judging a beauty of nature, as beautiful, is quite irrelevant.—It is true that in forming a judgement, especially of animate objects of nature, e.g. of a human being or a horse, objective purposiveness is also commonly taken into account with a view to judgement upon their beauty; but then the judgement also ceases to be purely aesthetic, i.e. a mere judgement of taste. Nature is no longer judged as it appears like art, but rather in so far as it actually is art, though superhuman art; and the teleological judgement serves as basis and condition of the aesthetic, and one which the latter must regard. In such a case, where one says, for example, ‘that is a beautiful woman,’ what one in fact thinks is only this, that in her form nature excellently portrays the ends present in the female figure. For one has to extend one’s view beyond the mere form to a concept, to enable the object to be thought in such manner by means of an aesthetic judgement that is logically conditioned.	312
Where fine art manifests its superiority is in the beautiful descriptions it gives of things that in nature would be ugly or displeasing.* The Furies, diseases, devastations of war, and the like, can (as evils) be very beautifully described, and even represented in pictures. One kind of ugliness alone is incapable of being represented conformably to nature without destroying all aesthetic delight, and consequently artistic beauty, namely, that which excites disgust. For, as in this strange sensation, which depends purely on the imagination, the object is represented as insisting, as it were, upon our enjoying it, while we violently resist it, the artificial representation of the object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful. The art of sculpture, again, since in its products art is almost confused with nature, has excluded from its creations the direct representation of ugly objects, and, instead, only sanctions, for example, the representation of death (in a beautiful genius), or of the warlike spirit (in Mars), by means of an allegory, or attributes which wear a pleasant guise, and so only indirectly, through an interpretation on the part of reason, and not for the pure aesthetic judgement.
So much for the beautiful representation of an object, which is properly only the form of the presentation of a concept, and the means by which the latter is universally communicated. To give this form, however, to the product of fine art, taste merely is required. By this the artist, having practised and corrected his taste by a variety of examples from nature or art, guides his work and, after many, and often laborious, attempts to satisfy taste, finds the form which commends itself to him. Hence this form is not, as it were, a matter of inspiration, or of a free swinging of the powers of the mind, but rather of a slow and even painful process of improvement, directed to making the form adequate to his thought without prejudice to the freedom in the play of those powers.	313
Taste is, however, merely a faculty of judging, rather than a productive one; and what conforms to it is not, merely on that account, a work of fine art. It may belong to useful and mechanical art, or even to science, as a product following definite rules which are capable of being learned and which must be closely followed. But the pleasing form imparted to the work is only the vehicle of communication and a mode, as it were, of execution, in respect of which one remains to a certain extent free, notwithstanding being otherwise tied down to a definite end. So we demand that tableware, or even a moral dissertation, and, indeed, a sermon, must bear this form of fine art, yet without its appearing studied. But one would not call them on this account works of fine art. A poem, a musical composition, a picture-gallery, and so forth, would, however, be placed under this head; and so in a would be work of fine art we may frequently recognize genius without taste, and in another taste without genius.
§ 49 The faculties of the mind which constitute genius
OF certain products which are expected, partly at least, to stand on the footing of fine art, we say they are devoid of spirit; and this, although we find nothing to censure in them as far as taste goes. A poem may be very pretty and elegant, but is devoid of spirit. A narrative has precision and method, but is devoid of spirit. A speech on some festive occasion may be good in substance and ornate withal, but may be devoid of spirit. Conversation frequently is not devoid of entertainment, but yet devoid of spirit. Even of a woman we may well say, she is pretty, affable, and refined, but devoid of spirit. Now what do we mean here by ‘spirit’?
‘Spirit’ in an aesthetic sense, signifies the animating principle in the mind. But that whereby this principle animates the soul—the material which it employs for that purpose—is that which sets the mental powers into a swing that is purposive, i.e. into a play which is self-maintaining and which strengthens those powers for such activity.
Now my proposition is that this principle is nothing else than the faculty of presenting aesthetic ideas. But, by an aesthetic idea I mean that representation of the imagination which evokes much thought, yet without the possibility of any definite thought whatever, i.e. concept, being adequate to it, and which language, consequently, can never quite fully capture or render completely intelligible.—It is easily seen, that an aesthetic idea is the counterpart (pendant) of a rational idea, which, conversely, is a concept, to which no intuition (representation of the imagination) can be adequate.	314
The imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature. It affords us entertainment where experience proves too commonplace; and we even use it to refashion experience, always following, no doubt, laws that are based on analogy, but still also following principles which have a higher seat in reason (and which are every whit as natural to us as those followed by the understanding in laying hold of empirical nature). By this means we come to feel our freedom from the law of association (which attaches to the empirical employment of the imagination), with the result that the material can be borrowed by us from nature in accordance with that law, but be worked up by us into something else—namely, what surpasses nature.
Such representations of the imagination may be termed ideas. This is partly because they at least strain after something lying out beyond the confines of experience, and so seek to approximate to a presentation of rational concepts (i.e. intellectual ideas), thus giving to these concepts the semblance of an objective reality. But, on the other hand, there is this most important reason, that no concept can be wholly adequate to them as internal intuitions. The poet essays the task of giving sensible form to the rational ideas of invisible beings, the kingdom of the blessed, hell, eternity, creation, and so forth. Or, again, as to things of which examples occur in experience, e.g. death, envy, and all vices, as also love, fame, and the like, transgressing the limits of experience he attempts with the aid of an imagination, which in reaching for a maximum emulates the precedent of reason, to present them for the senses with a completeness of which nature affords no parallel; and it is in fact precisely in the poetic art that the faculty of aesthetic ideas can show itself to full advantage. This faculty, however, regarded solely on its own account, is properly no more than a talent (of the imagination).
If, now, we attach to a concept a representation of the imagination belonging to its presentation, but evoking solely on its own account such a wealth of thought as would never admit of comprehension in a definite concept, and, as a consequence, giving aesthetically an unbounded expansion to the concept itself, then the imagination here displays a creative activity, and it sets the faculty of intellectual ideas (reason) into movement—a movement, occasioned by a representation, towards an extension of thought, that, while germane, no doubt, to the concept of the object, exceeds what can be grasped in that representation or clearly expressed.	315
Those forms which do not constitute the presentation of a given concept itself, but which, as further representations of the imagination, express the implications connected with it, and its kinship with other concepts, are called (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of which, as an idea of reason, cannot be adequately presented. In this way Jupiter’s eagle, with the lightning in its claws, is an attribute of the mighty king of heaven, and the peacock of its stately queen. They do not, like logical attributes, represent what lies in our concepts of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else—something that encourages the imagination to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper task, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken. But it is not only in the arts of painting or sculpture, where the name of attribute is customarily employed, that fine art acts in this way; poetry and rhetoric also derive the spirit that animates their works wholly from the aesthetic attributes of the objects—attributes which go hand in hand with the logical, and give the imagination an impetus to bring more thought into play in the matter, though in an undeveloped manner, than allows of being brought within the embrace of a concept, or, therefore, of being definitely formulated in language.—For the sake of brevity I must confine myself to a few examples only. When the great king expresses himself in one of his poems * by saying:
‘Let us depart this life untroubled and without regrets, leaving the world replete with our good deeds. Thus does the sun, his daily path completed, still shed a gentle light across the sky. The last rays it sends forth through the air, are its last sighs for the well-being of the world’, he enlivens in this way his rational idea of a cosmopolitan sentiment even at the close of life, with the help of an attribute which the imagination (in remembering all the pleasures of a beautiful summer’s day that is over and gone—a memory of which pleasures is suggested by a serene evening) allies with that representation, and which stirs up a host of sensations and further representations for which no expression can be found. On the other hand, even an intellectual concept may serve, conversely, as attribute for a representation of the senses, and so enliven the latter with the idea of the supersensible; but only by the aesthetic aspect subjectively attaching to the consciousness of the supersensible being employed for the purpose. So, for example, a certain poet says * in his description of a beautiful morning: ‘The sun arose, as out of virtue rises peace.’ The consciousness of virtue, even where we put ourselves only in thought in the position of a virtuous man, diffuses in the mind a multitude of sublime and comforting feelings, and gives a boundless outlook into a happy future, such as no expression within the compass of a definite concept completely attains.13	316
In a word, the aesthetic idea is a representation of the imagination, allied with a given concept, with which, in the free employment of imagination, such a multiplicity of partial representations are bound up, that no expression indicating a definite concept can be found for it—one which on that account allows a concept to be supplemented in thought by much that is indefinable in words, and the feeling of which enlivens the cognitive faculties, and with language, as a mere thing of the letter, combines spirit.
The mental powers whose union in a certain relation constitutes genius are imagination and understanding. Now, since the imagination, in its employment on behalf of cognition, is subjected to the constraint of the understanding and the restriction of having to be conformable to the concept belonging thereto, whereas aesthetically it is free to furnish of its own accord, over and above that agreement with the concept, a wealth of undeveloped material for the understanding, to which the latter paid no regard in its concept, but which it can make use of, not so much objectively for cognition, as subjectively for enlivening the cognitive faculties, and hence also indirectly for cognitions, it may be seen that genius properly consists in the happy relation, which science cannot teach nor diligence learn, enabling one to seek out ideas for a given concept, and, besides, to hit upon the expression for them—the expression by means of which the subjective condition of the mind aroused by the ideas as the concomitant of a concept may be communicated to others. This latter talent is properly that which is termed spirit. For to get an expression for what is indefinable in the mental state accompanying a particular representation and to make it universally communicable—whether the expression be in language or painting or statuary—is a thing requiring a faculty for laying hold of the rapid and transient play of the imagination, and for unifying it in a concept (which for that very reason is original, and reveals a new rule which could not have been inferred from any preceding principles or examples) that admits of communication without any constraint of rules.	317
If, after this analysis, we cast a glance back upon the above definition of what is called genius, we find: First, that it is a talent for art—not one for science, in which clearly known rules must take the lead and determine the procedure. Secondly, being a talent in the line of art, it presupposes a definite concept of the product—as its end. Hence it presupposes understanding, but, in addition, a representation, indeterminate though it be, of the material, i.e. of the intuition, required for the presentation of that concept, and so a relation of the imagination to the understanding. Thirdly, it displays itself, not so much in the working out of the projected end in the presentation of a definite concept, as rather in the portrayal, or expression of aesthetic ideas containing a wealth of material for effecting that intention. Consequently the imagination is represented by it in its freedom from all guidance of rules, but still as purposive for the presentation of the given concept. Fourthly, and lastly, the unsought and undesigned subjective purposiveness in the free harmonizing of the imagination with the understanding’s conformity to law presupposes a proportion and accord between these faculties such as cannot be brought about by any observance of rules, whether of science or mechanical imitation, but can only be produced by the nature of the subject.	318
Genius, according to these presuppositions, is the exemplary originality of the natural endowments of a subject in the free employment of his cognitive faculties. On this showing, the product of a genius (in respect of so much in this product as is attributable to genius, and not to possible learning or academic instruction) is an example, not to be imitated (for that would mean the loss of the element of genius, and just the very spirit of the work), but to be followed by another genius—one whom it arouses to a sense of his own originality in putting freedom from the constraint of rules so into force in his art, that for art itself a new rule is won—which is what shows a talent to be exemplary. Yet, since the genius is one who is favoured by nature—something which must be regarded as but a rare phenomenon—for other clever minds his example gives rise to a school, that is to say a methodical instruction according to rules, collected, so far as the circumstances admit, from such products of genius and their peculiarities. And, to that extent, fine art is for such persons a matter of imitation, for which nature, through the medium of a genius, gave the rule.
But this imitation becomes aping when the pupil copies everything down to the deformities which the genius only of necessity suffered to remain, because they could hardly be removed without loss of force to the idea. This courage has merit only in the case of a genius. A certain boldness of expression, and, in general, many a deviation from the common rule becomes him well, but in no sense is it a thing worthy of imitation. On the contrary it remains all through intrinsically a blemish, which one is bound to try to remove, but for which the genius is, as it were, allowed to plead a privilege, on the ground that a scrupulous carefulness would spoil what is inimitable in the impetuous ardour of his spirit. Mannerism is another kind of aping—an aping of peculiarity (originality) in general, for the sake of distancing oneself as far as possible from imitators, while the talent requisite to enable one to be at the same time exemplary is absent.—There are, in fact, two modes (modi) in general of arranging one’s thoughts for utterance. The one is called a manner (modus aestheticus), the other a method (modus logicus). The distinction between them is this: the former possesses no standard other than the feeling of unity in the presentation, whereas the latter here follows definite principles. As a consequence the former is alone admissible for fine art. It is only, however, where the manner of carrying the idea into execution in a product of art is aimed at singularity instead of being made appropriate to the idea, that mannerism is properly ascribed to such a product. The ostentatious (precious), forced, and affected styles, intended to mark one out from the crowd (though spirit is wanting), resemble the behaviour of a man who, as we say, hears himself speaking, or who stands and moves about as if he were on a stage to be gaped at—action which invariably betrays a tyro.	319
§ 50 The combination of taste and genius in products of fine art
TO ask whether more stress should be laid in matters of fine art upon the presence of genius or upon that of taste, is equivalent to asking whether more turns upon imagination or upon judgement. Now, imagination rather entitles an art to be called an inspired than a fine art. It is only in respect of judgement that the name of fine art is deserved. Hence it follows that judgement, being the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non), is at least what one must regard as of capital importance in forming a judgement of art as fine art. So far as beauty is concerned, to be fertile and original in ideas is not such an imperative requirement as it is that the imagination in its freedom should be in accordance with the understanding’s conformity to law. For in lawless freedom imagination, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense; the power of judgement, on the other hand, is the faculty that makes it consonant with understanding.
Taste, like judgement in general, is the discipline (or corrective) of genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it seemly or polished; but at the same time it gives it guidance, directing and controlling its flight, so that it may preserve its purposive character. It introduces a clearness and order into the plenitude of thought, and in so doing gives stability to the ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent and universal approval, for being followed by others, and for a continually progressive culture. And so, where the interests of both these qualities clash in a product, and there has to be a sacrifice of something, then it should rather be on the side of genius; and judgement, which in matters of fine art bases its decision on its own proper principles, will more readily endure an infringement of the freedom and wealth of the imagination, than that the understanding should be compromised.	320
The requisites for fine art are, therefore, imagination, understanding, spirit, and taste)14
§ 51 The division of the fine arts
BEAUTY (whether it be of nature or of art) may in general be termed the expression of aesthetic ideas. But the proviso must be added that with beauty in art this idea must be occasioned through a concept of the object, whereas with beauty of nature the bare reflection upon a given intuition, apart from any concept of what the object is intended to be, is sufficient for awakening and communicating the idea of which that object is regarded as the expression.
Accordingly, if we wish to make a division of the fine arts, we can choose for that purpose, tentatively at least, no more convenient principle than the analogy which art bears to the mode of expression of which individuals avail themselves in speech, with a view to communicating themselves to one another as completely as possible, i.e. not merely in respect of their concepts but also in respect of their sensations.15—Such expression consists in word, gesture, and tone (articulation, gesticulation, and modulation). It is the combination of these three modes of expression which alone constitutes a complete communication of the speaker. For thought, intuition, and sensation are in this way conveyed to others simultaneously and in conjunction.
Hence there are only three kinds of fine art: the art of speech, formative art, and the art of the play of sensations (as external sense impressions). This division might also be arranged as a dichotomy, so that fine art would be divided into that of the expression of thoughts or intuitions, the latter being subdivided according to the distinction between the form and the matter (sensation). It would, however, in that case appear too abstract, and less in line with popular conceptions.	321
(i) The arts of SPEECH are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is the art of engaging a serious business of the understanding as if it were a free play of the imagination; poetry that of conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious business of the understanding.
Thus the orator announces a serious business, and for the purpose of entertaining his audience conducts it as if it were a mere play with ideas. The poet promises merely an entertaining play with ideas, and yet for the understanding there ensues as much as if the promotion of its business had been his one intention. The combination and harmony of the two faculties of cognition, those of sensibility and understanding, which, though, doubtless, indispensable to one another, do not readily permit of being united without compulsion and reciprocal infringement, must have the appearance of being undersigned and a spontaneous occurrence—otherwise it is not fine art. For this reason what is studied and laboured must here be avoided. For fine art must be free art in a double sense: i.e. not only in a sense opposed to remunerated work, as not being a work the magnitude of which may be judged, exacted, or paid for according to a definite standard, but free also in the sense that, while the mind, no doubt, occupies itself, still it does so without ulterior regard to any other end, and yet with a feeling of satisfaction and stimulation (independent of reward).
The orator, therefore, gives something which he does not promise, viz. an entertaining play of the imagination. On the other hand, there is something in which he fails to come up to his promise, and a thing, too, which is his avowed business, namely, the engagement of the understanding to some end. The poet’s promise, on the contrary, is a modest one, and a mere play with ideas is all he holds out to us, but he accomplishes something worthy of being made a serious business, namely, the using of play to provide food for the understanding, and the giving of life to its concepts by means of the imagination. Hence the orator in reality performs less than he promises, the poet more.
(2) The FORMATIVE arts * or those for the expression of ideas in sensuous intuition (not by means of representations of mere imagination that are excited by words) are arts either of sensuous truth or of sensuous semblance. The first is called plastic art, the second painting. Both use figures in space for the expression of ideas: the former makes figures discernible to two senses, sight and touch (though, so far as the latter sense is concerned, without regard to beauty), the latter makes them discernible to the former sense alone. The aesthetic idea (archetype, original) is the fundamental basis of both in the imagination; but the figure which constitutes its expression (the ectype, the copy) is given either in its bodily extension (the way the object itself exists) or else in accordance with the image which it produces in the eye (according to its appearance when projected on a flat surface). Or, whatever the archetype is, either the reference to an actual end or only the semblance of one may be imposed upon reflection as its condition.	322
To plastic art, as the first kind of formative fine art, belong sculpture and architecture. The first is that which presents concepts of things corporeally, as they might exist in nature (though as fine art it directs its attention to aesthetic purposiveness). The second is the art of presenting concepts of things which are possible only through art, and the determining ground of whose form is not nature but an arbitrary end—and of presenting them both with a view to this purpose and yet, at the same time, with aesthetic purposiveness. In architecture the chief point is a certain use of the artistic object to which, as the condition, the aesthetic ideas are limited. In sculpture the mere expression of aesthetic ideas is the main intention. Thus statues of men, gods, animals, and so forth, belong to sculpture; but temples, splendid buildings for public concourse, or even dwelling-houses, triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, and the like, erected as monuments, belong to architecture, and in fact all household furniture (the work of cabinet-makers, and so forth—things meant to be used) may be added to the list, on the ground that adaptation of the product to a particular use is the essential element in a work of architecture. On the other hand, a mere piece of sculpture, made simply to be looked at, and intended to please on its own account, is, as a corporeal presentation, a mere imitation of nature, though one in which regard is paid to aesthetic ideas, and in which, therefore, sensuous truth should not go the length of losing the appearance of being an art and a product of the power of choice.
Painting, as the second kind of formative art, which presents the sensuous semblance in artful combination with ideas, I would divide into that of the beautiful depiction of nature, and that of the beautiful arrangement of its products. The first is painting proper, the second landscape gardening. For the first gives only the semblance of bodily extension; whereas the second, while giving the latter, according to its truth, gives only the semblance of utility and employment for ends other than the play of the imagination in the contemplation of its forms.16 The latter consists in no more than decking out the ground with the same manifold variety (grasses, flowers, shrubs, and trees, and even water, hills, and dales) as that with which nature presents it to our view, only arranged differently and in obedience to certain ideas. The beautiful arrangement of corporeal things, however, is also a thing for the eye only, just like painting—the sense of touch can form no intuitable representation of such a form. In addition I would place under the head of painting, in the wide sense, the decoration of rooms by means of hangings, ornamental accessories, and all beautiful furniture the sole function of which is to be looked at; and in the same way the art of tasteful dressing (with rings, snuff-boxes, etc.). For a parterre of various flowers, a room with a variety of ornaments (including even the ladies’ attire), go to make at a festive gathering a sort of picture which, like pictures in the true sense of the word (those which are not intended to teach history or natural science), has no business beyond appealing to the eye, in order to entertain the imagination in free play with ideas, and to engage actively the aesthetic power of judgement independently of any definite end. No matter how heterogeneous, on the mechanical side, may be the craft involved in all this decoration, and no matter what a variety of artists may be required, still the judgement of taste, so far as it is one upon what is beautiful in this art, is determined in one and the same way: namely, as a judgement only upon the forms (without regard to any end) as they present themselves to the eye, singly or in combination, according to their effect upon the imagination.—The justification, however, of bringing formative art (by analogy) under a common head with gesture in a speech, lies in the fact that through these figures the spirit of the artist furnishes a bodily expression for the substance and character of his thought, and makes the thing itself speak, as it were, in mimic language—a very common play of our fantasy that attributes to lifeless things a spirit suitable to their form, and that uses them as its mouthpiece.	323 324
(3) The art of the BEAUTIFUL PLAY OF SENSATIONS (sensations that arise from external stimulation) which is a play of sensations that has nevertheless to permit of universal communication, can only be concerned with the proportion of the different degrees of attunement (tension) in the sense to which the sensation belongs, i.e. with its tone. In this comprehensive sense of the word it may be divided into the artistic play of sensations of hearing and of sight, consequently into music and the art of colour.—It is remarkable that these two senses, over and above that receptivity for impressions as is required to obtain concepts of external objects by means of these impressions, also admit of a peculiar associated sensation of which we cannot easily determine whether it is based on sensibility or reflection; and that this affectability may at times be lacking, although the sense, in other respects, and in what concerns its employment for the cognition of objects, is by no means deficient but particularly keen. In other words, we cannot confidently assert whether a colour or a tone (sound) is merely an agreeable sensation, or whether they are in themselves a beautiful play of sensations, and in being judged aesthetically, convey, as such, a delight in their form. If we consider the velocity of the vibrations of light, or, in the second case, of the air, which in all probability far outstrips any capacity on our part for forming an immediate judgement in perception of the time-interval between them, we should be led to believe that it is only the effect of those vibrating movements upon the elastic parts of our body, that can be evident to the senses, but that the time-interval between them is not noticed nor involved in our judgement, and that, consequently, all that enters into combination with colours and tones is the agreeableness, and not the beauty, of their composition. But, let us consider, on the other hand, first, the mathematical character both of the proportion of those vibrations in music, and of our judgement upon it, and, as is reasonable, form an estimate of colour contrasts on the analogy of the latter. Secondly, let us consult the instances, albeit rare, of individuals who, with the best of sight, have failed to distinguish colours, and, with the sharpest hearing, to distinguish tones, while for those who have this ability the perception of an altered quality (not merely of the degree of the sensation) in the case of the different intensities in the scale of colours or tones is definite, as is also the number of those which may be intelligibly distinguished. Bearing all this in mind we may feel compelled to look upon the sensations afforded by both, not as mere sense-impressions, but as the effect of a judging of form in the play of a number of sensations. The difference which the one opinion or the other occasions in judging of the basis of music would, however, only give rise to this much change in its definition, that either it is to be interpreted, as we have done, as the beautiful play of sensations (through hearing), or else as one of agreeable sensations. According to the former interpretation, alone, would music be represented out and out as a fine art, whereas according to the latter it would be represented as (in part at least) an agreeable art.	325
§ 52 The combination of the fine arts in one and the same product
RHETORIC may in a drama be combined with a pictorial presentation of its subjects as well as its objects; as may poetry with music in a song; and this again with a pictorial (theatrical) presentation in an opera; and so may the play of sensations in a piece of music with the play of figures in a dance, and so on. Even the presentation of the sublime, so far as it belongs to fine art, may be brought into union with beauty in a tragedy in verse, a didactic poem or an oratorio, and in this combination fine art is even more artistic. Whether it is also more beautiful (having regard to the multiplicity of different kinds of delight which intersect with one another) may in some of these instances be doubted. Still in all fine art the essential element consists in the form which is purposive for observation and for judgement. Here the pleasure is at the same time culture, and disposes the spirit to ideas, making it thus susceptible to such pleasure and entertainment in greater abundance. The matter of sensation (charm or emotion) is not essential. Here the aim is merely enjoyment, which leaves nothing behind it with regard to the idea, and renders the spirit dull, the object in the course of time distasteful, and the mind dissatisfied with itself and ill-humoured, owing to a consciousness that in the judgement of reason its mood is contrary to purpose.	326
Where fine arts are not, either closely or remotely, brought into combination with moral ideas, which alone are attended with a self-sufficing delight, the above is the fate that ultimately awaits them. They then only serve for a diversion, of which one continually feels an increasing need in proportion as one has availed oneself of it as a means of dispelling one’s discontented mind, with the result that one makes oneself ever more and more unprofitable and dissatisfied with oneself. With a view to the purpose first named the beauties of nature are in general the most beneficial, if one is early habituated to observe, judge, and admire them.
§ 53 Comparison of the aesthetic worth of the fine arts
Poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and is least willing to be led by precepts or example) holds the first rank among all the arts. It expands the mind by giving freedom to the imagination and by offering, from among the boundless multiplicity of possible forms accordant with a given concept, to whose bounds it is restricted, that one which couples with the presentation of the concept a wealth of thought to which no verbal expression is completely adequate, and by thus rising aesthetically to ideas. It invigorates the mind by letting it feel its faculty—free, spontaneous, and independent of determination by nature—of regarding and judging nature as phenomenon in the light of aspects which nature of itself does not afford us in experience, either for the senses or the understanding, and of employing it accordingly on behalf of, and as a sort of schema for, the supersensible. It plays with semblance, which it produces at will, but not as an instrument of deception; for its avowed pursuit is merely one of play, which, however, understanding may turn to good account and employ for its own purpose.—Rhetoric, so far as this is taken to mean the art of persuasion, i.e. the art of deluding by means of such beautiful semblance (as ars oratoria), and not merely excellence of speech (eloquence and style), is a dialectic, which borrows from poetry only so much as is necessary to win over people’s minds to the side of the speaker before they have weighed the matter, and to rob their verdict of its freedom. Hence it can be recommended neither for the bar nor the pulpit. For where civil laws, the right of individual persons, or the permanent instruction and determination of people’s minds to a correct knowledge and a conscientious observance of their duty is at stake, then it is below the dignity of an undertaking of such import to exhibit even a trace of the exuberance of wit and imagination, and, still more, of the art of talking people round and prejudicing them in favour of anyone. For although such art is capable of being at times directed to ends intrinsically legitimate and praiseworthy, still it becomes reprehensible on account of the subjective injury done in this way to maxims and dispositions, even where objectively the action may be lawful. For it is not enough to do what is right, but we should practise it solely on the ground of its being right. Further, the simple lucid concept of human concerns of this kind, backed up with lively illustrations of it, exerts of itself, in the absence of any offence against the rules of euphony of speech or of propriety in the expression of ideas of reason (all which together make up excellence of speech), a sufficient influence upon human minds to obviate the necessity of having recourse here to the machinery of persuasion, which, being equally available for the purpose of putting a fine gloss or a cloak upon vice and error, fails to rid one completely of the lurking suspicion that one is being artfully hoodwinked. In poetry everything is straight and above board. It shows its hand: it desires to carry on a mere entertaining play with the imagination, and one consonant, in respect of form, with the laws of understanding; and it does not seek to steal upon and ensnare the understanding with a sensuous presentation.17	327
After poetry, if we take charm and the capacity to move the mind into account, I would give the next place to that art which comes nearer to it than to any other art of speech, and admits of very natural union with it, namely the art of tone. For though it speaks by means of mere sensations without concepts, and so does not, like poetry, leave behind it any food for thought, still it moves the mind more diversely, and, although with transient, still with intenser effect. It is certainly, however, more a matter of enjoyment than of culture—the play of thought incidentally excited by it being merely the effect of a more or less mechanical association—and it possesses less worth in the judgement of reason than any other of the fine arts. Hence, like all enjoyment, it calls for constant change, and does not stand frequent repetition without inducing weariness. Its charm, which admits of such universal communication, appears to rest on the following facts. Every expression in language has an associated tone suited to its sense. This tone indicates, more or less, a mode in which the speaker is affected, and in turn evokes it in the hearer also, in whom conversely it then also excites the idea which in language is expressed with such a tone. Further, just as modulation is, as it were, a universal language of sensations intelligible to every human being, so the art of tone wields the full force of this language wholly on its own account, namely, as a language of the affects, and in this way, according to the law of association, universally communicates the aesthetic ideas that are naturally combined therewith. But, further, inasmuch as those aesthetic ideas are not concepts or determinate thoughts, the form of the arrangement of these sensations (harmony and melody), taking the place of the form of a language, only serves the purpose of giving an expression to the aesthetic idea of an integral whole of an unutterable wealth of thought in accordance with a certain theme forming the dominant affect in the piece. This purpose is produced by means of a proportion in the accord of the sensations (an accord which may be brought mathematically under certain rules, since it rests, in the case of tones, upon the numerical relation of the vibrations of the air in the same time, so far as there is a combination of the tones simultaneously or in succession). Although this mathematical form is not represented by means of determinate concepts, to it alone belongs the delight which the mere reflection upon such a number of concomitant or consecutive sensations couples with this their play, as the universally valid condition of its beauty, and it is with reference to it alone that taste can lay claim to a right to anticipate the judgement of every human being.	328 329
But mathematics, certainly, plays not the slightest part in the charm and movement of the mind produced by music. Rather is it only the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non) of that proportion of the combining as well as changing impressions which makes it possible to grasp them all in one and prevent them from destroying one another, and to let them, rather, conspire towards the production of a continuous movement and enlivening of the mind by affects that are in unison with it, and thus towards a contented self-enjoyment.
If, on the other hand, we measure the worth of the fine arts by the culture they supply to the mind, and adopt for our standard the expansion of the faculties whose confluence, in judgement, is necessary for cognition, music, then, since it plays merely with sensations, has the lowest place among the fine arts (just as it has perhaps the highest among those valued at the same time for their agreeableness). Looked at in this light it is far excelled by the formative arts. For, in putting the imagination into a play which is at once free and adapted to the understanding, they all the while carry on a serious business, since they execute a product which serves the concepts of understanding as a vehicle, permanent and appealing to us on its own account, for effecting their union with sensibility, and thus for promoting, as it were, the urbanity of the higher powers of cognition. The two kinds of art pursue completely different courses. Music advances from sensations to indeterminate ideas: formative art from determinate ideas to sensations. The latter gives a lasting impression, the former one that is only fleeting. The former sensations imagination can recall and agreeably entertain itself with, while the latter either vanish entirely, or else, if involuntarily repeated by the imagination, are more oppressive to us than agreeable. Over and above all this, music has a certain lack of urbanity about it. For owing chiefly to the character of its instruments, it scatters its influence abroad to an uncalled-for extent (through the neighbourhood), and thus, as it were, becomes obtrusive and deprives others, outside the musical circle, of their freedom. This is a thing that the arts that address themselves to the eye do not do, for if one is not disposed to give admittance to their impressions, one has only to look the other way. The case is almost on a par with the practice of regaling oneself with a perfume that exhales its odours far and wide. The man who pulls his perfumed handkerchief from his pocket treats all around to it whether they like it or not, and compels them, if they want to breathe at all, to be parties to the enjoyment, and so the habit has gone out of fashion.18	330
Among the formative arts I would give the palm to painting: partly because it is the art of design, and, as such, the groundwork of all the other formative arts; partly because it can penetrate much further into the region of ideas, and in conformity with them give a greater extension to the field of intuition than it is open to the others to do.
§ 54 Remark
As we have often shown, there is essential distinction between what pleases simply in the judging of it and what gratifies (pleases in sensation). The latter is something which, unlike the former, we cannot demand from everyone. Gratification (no matter whether its cause has its seat even in ideas) appears always to consist in a feeling of the furtherance of the entire life of human beings and, hence, also of their bodily well-being, i.e. their health. And so, perhaps, Epicurus was not wide of the mark* when he said that at bottom all gratification is bodily sensation, and only misunderstood himself in ranking intellectual and even practical delight under the head of gratification. Bearing in mind the latter distinction, it is readily explicable how even the gratification a person feels is capable of displeasing him (like the joy of a needy but good-natured individual on being made the heir of an affectionate but penurious father), or how deep pain may still give pleasure to the sufferer (as the sorrow of a widow over the death of her deserving husband), or how there may be pleasure over and above gratification (as in scientific pursuits), or how a pain (as, for example, hatred, envy, and desire for revenge) may in addition be a source of displeasure. Here the delight or aversion depends upon reason, and is one with approval or disapproval. Gratification and pain, on the other hand, can only depend upon feeling, or upon the prospect of a possible well-being or the reverse (irrespective of its source).	331
The changing free play of sensations (which do not follow any preconceived plan) is always a source of gratification, because it promotes the feeling of health; and it is immaterial whether or not we experience delight in the object of this play or even in the gratification itself when judged in the light of reason. Also this gratification may amount to an affect, although we take no interest in the object itself, or none, at least, proportionate to the degree of the affect. We may divide the aforementioned play into that of games of chance, harmony, and wit. The first stands in need of an interest, whether it be of vanity or self-seeking, but one which falls far short of that centred in the way in which we seek to procure it. All that the second requires is the change of sensations, each of which has its bearing on affect, though without attaining to the degree of an affect, and excites aesthetic ideas. The third springs merely from the change of the representations in the power of judgement, which, while unproductive of any thought conveying an interest, yet enlivens the mind.
What a fund of gratification must be afforded by play, without our having to fall back upon any consideration of interest, is a matter to which all our evening parties bear witness—for without play they hardly ever escape falling flat. But the affects of hope, fear, joy, anger, and derision here engage in play, as every moment they change their parts, and are so lively that, as by an internal motion, the whole vital function of the body seems to be furthered by the process—as is proved by a vivacity of the mind produced—although no one comes by anything in the way of profit or instruction. But as the play of chance is not one that is beautiful, we will here lay it aside. Music, on the contrary, and what provokes laughter are two kinds of play with aesthetic ideas, or even with representations of the understanding, by which, all said and done, nothing is thought. By mere force of change they yet are able to afford lively gratification. This furnishes pretty clear evidence that the enlivening effect of both is physical, despite its being excited by ideas of the mind, and that the feeling of health, arising from a movement of the viscera answering to that play, makes up that entire gratification of an animated gathering upon the spirit and refinement of which we set such store. Not any estimate of harmony in tones or flashes of wit, which, with its beauty, serves only as a necessary vehicle, but rather the stimulated vital functions of the body, the affect stirring the viscera and the diaphragm, and, in a word, the feeling of health (of which we are only aware upon some such occasion) are what constitute the gratification we experience at being able to reach the body even through the soul and use the latter as the physician of the former.	332
In music the course of this play is from bodily sensation to aesthetic ideas (which are the objects for the affects), and then from these back again, but with gathered strength, to the body. In jest (which just as much as the former deserves to be ranked rather as an agreeable than a fine art) the play arises from thoughts which collectively, so far as seeking sensuous expression, engage the activity of the body. In this presentation the understanding, missing what it expected, suddenly lets go its hold, with the result that the effect of this slackening is felt in the body by the oscillation of the organs. This favours the restoration of the equilibrium of the latter, and exerts a beneficial influence upon the health.
Something absurd (something in which, therefore, the understanding can of itself find no delight) must be present in whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh. Laughter is an affect arising from a strained expectation being suddenly reduced to nothing. This very reduction, at which certainly understanding cannot rejoice, is still indirectly a source of very lively enjoyment for a moment. Its cause must consequently lie in the influence of the representation upon the body, and the reciprocal effect of this upon the mind. This, moreover, cannot depend upon the representation being objectively an object of gratification, (for how can we derive gratification from a disappointment?) but must rest solely upon the fact that the reduction is a mere play of representations, and, as such, produces an equilibrium of the vital forces of the body.	333
Suppose that someone tells the following story: An Indian at an Englishman’s table in Surat saw a bottle of ale opened, and all the beer turned into froth and flowing out. The repeated exclamations of the Indian showed his great astonishment. ‘Well, what is so wonderful in that?’ asked the Englishman. ‘Oh, I’m not surprised myself,’ said the Indian, ‘at its getting out, but at how you ever managed to get it all in.’ At this we laugh, and it gives us hearty pleasure. This is not because we believe ourselves, maybe, more quick-witted than this ignorant Indian, or because our understanding here brings to our notice any other ground of delight. It is rather that the bubble of our expectation was extended to the full and suddenly burst into nothing. Or, again, take the case of the heir of a wealthy relative being minded to make preparations for having the funeral obsequies on a most imposing scale, but complaining that things would not go right for him, because (as he said) ‘the more money I give my mourners to look sad, the merrier they look’. At this we laugh outright, and the reason lies in the fact that we had an expectation which is suddenly reduced to nothing. We must be careful to observe that the reduction is not one into the positive contrary of an expected object—for that is always something, and may frequently pain us—but must be a reduction to nothing. For where a person arouses great expectation by recounting some tale, and at the close its untruth becomes at once apparent to us, we are displeased at it. So it is, for instance, with the tale of people whose hair from excess of grief is said to have turned white in a single night. On the other hand, if a wag, wishing to cap the story, tells with the utmost elaboration of a merchant’s grief, who, on his return journey from India to Europe with all his wealth in merchandise, was obliged by stress of storm to throw everything overboard, and grieved to such an extent that in the selfsame night his wig turned grey, we laugh and enjoy the tale. This is because we keep for a time playing on our own mistake about an object otherwise indifferent to us, or rather on the idea we ourselves were following out, and, beating it to and fro, just as if it were a ball eluding our grasp, when all we intend to do is just to get it into our hands and hold it tight. Here our gratification is not excited by a knave or a fool getting a rebuff: for, even on its own account, the latter tale told with an air of seriousness would of itself be enough to set a whole table into roars of laughter; and the other matter would ordinarily not be worth a moment’s thought.	334
It is noteworthy that in all such cases the joke must have something in it capable of momentarily deceiving us. Hence, when the semblance vanishes into nothing, the mind looks back in order to try it over again, and thus by a rapidly succeeding tension and relaxation it is thrown to and fro and put in oscillation. Since the snapping of what was, as it were, tightening up the string takes place suddenly (not by a gradual loosening), the oscillation must bring about a mental movement and a sympathetic internal movement of the body. This continues involuntarily and produces fatigue, but in so doing it also affords recreation (the effects of a commotion conducive to health).
For supposing we assume that some movement in the bodily organs is associated sympathetically with all our thoughts, it is readily intelligible how the sudden act above referred to, of shifting the mind now to one standpoint and now to the other, to enable it to contemplate its object, may involve a corresponding and reciprocal straining and slackening of the elastic parts of our viscera, which communicates itself to the diaphragm (and resembles that felt by ticklish people), in the course of which the lungs expel the air with rapidly succeeding interruptions, resulting in a movement beneficial to health. This alone, and not what goes on in the mind, is the proper cause of the gratification in a thought that at bottom represents nothing.—Voltaire said that heaven has given us two things * to compensate us for the many miseries of life, hope and sleep. He might have added laughter to the list—if only the means of exciting it in men of intelligence were as ready to hand, and the wit or originality of humour which it requires were not just as rare as the talent is common for inventing stuff that breaks one’s head, as mystic speculators do, or that breaks one’s neck, as the genius does, or that breaks one’s heart as sentimental novelists do (and moralists of the same type for that matter).
We may, therefore, as I conceive, concede Epicurus the point that all gratification, even when occasioned by concepts that evoke aesthetic ideas, is animal, i.e. bodily sensation. For from this admission the spiritual feeling of respect for moral ideas, which is not one of gratification, but a self-esteem (an esteem for humanity within us) that raises us above the need of gratification, suffers not a whit—no nor even the less noble feeling of taste.	335
In naïveté we meet with a joint product of both the above. Naïveté is the breaking forth of the ingenuousness originally natural to humanity, in opposition to the art of disguising oneself that has become a second nature. We laugh at the simplicity that is as yet a stranger to dissimulation, but we rejoice the while over the simplicity of nature that thwarts that art. We await the commonplace manner of artificial utterance, carefully calculated as a beautiful illusion, and lo! nature stands before us in unsullied innocence—nature that we were quite unprepared to meet, and that he who laid it bare had also no intention of revealing. That the outward appearance, beautiful but false, that usually assumes such importance in our judgement, is here, at a stroke, turned to a nullity, that, as it were, the rogue in us is nakedly exposed, calls forth the movement of the mind, in two successive and opposite directions, agitating the body at the same time with wholesome motion. But that something infinitely better than any accepted code of manners, namely purity of mind (or at least the potential for such purity), has not become wholly extinct in human nature, infuses seriousness and reverence into this play of judgement. But since it is only a manifestation that obtrudes itself for a moment, and the veil of a dissembling art is soon drawn over it again, there enters into the above feelings a touch of pity. This is an emotion of tenderness, playful in its way, that thus readily admits of combination with this sort of genial laughter. And, in fact, this emotion is as a rule associated with it, and, at the same time, tends to make amends to the person who provides such food for our merriment for his embarrassment at not being wise after the common manner.—For that reason an art of being naïf is a contradiction. But it is quite possible to give a representation of naïveté in a fictitious personage, and, rare as the art is, it is a fine art. With this naïveté we must not confuse open-hearted simplicity, which only avoids spoiling nature by artificiality, because it has no notion of the art of social life.
The humorous manner may also be ranked as a thing which in its enlivening influence is clearly allied to the gratification provoked by laughter. It belongs to originality of spirit, though not to the talent for fine art. Humour, in a good sense, means the talent for being able to put oneself at will into a certain frame of mind in which everything is judged on lines that do not follow the beaten track (quite the reverse in fact) and yet on lines that follow certain principles, rational in the case of such a mental temperament. A person with whom such variations are not a matter of choice is said to have humours;* but if a person can assume them voluntarily, and of set purpose (on behalf of a lively presentation drawn from a ludicrous contrast), he and his way of speaking are termed humorous. This manner belongs, however, to agreeable rather than to fine art, because the object of the latter must always have an evident intrinsic worth about it, and thus demands a certain seriousness in its presentation, as taste does in judging it.	336