NOTES.†Hegel’sdictum, History of Philosophy, iii, 543.†Critique of Judgment, transl. by Meredith, p. 15.*Dr Bosanquet was one of the last adherents. See hisThree Lectures on Æsthetics.†E.g. Vernon Lee,The Beautiful.*E.g. Any choice for which the chooser cannot give his reasons tends in the laboratory to be called an ‘æsthetic choice.’*Cf. Chapters X and XXXII, and Impersonality,Index.†Clive Bell,Art, p. 25.†A.C. Bradley,Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 5.†G. W. Mackail,Lectures on Poetry. Introduction.*We can diagrammatically represent the delusion as follows. What actually occurs is that A, a work of art, causes E an effectin us, which has the character b; AcausesE[b]. Wespeakas though we perceived that A has the quality B (Beauty); we are perceiving A[B]; and if we are not careful we think so too. No one of our recent revolutions in thought is more important than this progressive rediscovery of what we are talking about. It is being inevitably followed by wide changes in our attitudes to the world and to fellow-creatures. One current in this change is towards tolerance, another towards scepticism, a third towards far more secure founding of our motives of action. The startling philosophical changes in the general outlook sometimes’ predicted for Relativity (or for popular ideas about it when once they become widespread) appear likely, if they occur at all, to be engulfed by these more unobtrusive but more domestic changes*See Chapter XXIV.*This point will be discussed in Chapter XXIV.*Again the normality of the artist has to be considered.*As will be seen, I am not going to identify ‘beauty’ with ‘communicative efficacy’. This is a trap which it is easy to fall into. A number of the exoteric followers of Croce may be found in it, though not Croce himself.*Throughout this discussion ‘experience’ will be used in a wide sense to stand for any occurrence in the mind. It is equivalent to ‘mental state, or process.’ The term has often unfortunate suggestions of passiveness and of consciousness, but many of the ‘experiences’ here referred to would ordinarily be called ‘actions’ and have parts which are not conscious and not accessible to introspection as important as those which are.*A chief advocate of this view is Dr G. E. Moore, whosePrincipia EthicaandEthicscontain brilliant statements of the position.†Cf. F. Brentano,The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, pp. 12, 46.*Cf. Russell,The Principles of Mathematics, p. 100. “On this principle, from which I can see no escape, that every genuine word must have some meaning, theisandthanmust form part of ‘ais greater thanb’, which thus contains more than two terms and a relation. Theisseems to state thatahas togreaterthe relation of referent, while thethanstates similarly thatbhas togreaterthe relation of relatum. But ‘aexceedsb’ may be held to express solely the relation ofatob, without including any of the implications of further relations.” On the introspective comparison of judgmentsThe Meaning of Meaning, by C. K. Ogden and the writer, may be consulted.*E.g., “The value of the object is its capacity of becoming the object of feeling and desire through actualisation of dispositional tendencies by acts of presumption, judgment, and assumption.” Urban,Valuation, p. 53.*Or, of course, aversions. In what follows we shall take no further note of aversions. To do so would introduce inessential complications. The omission in no way affects the argument, since for our present purposes they may be counted in with appetencies.*This view plainly has close connections with Utilitarianism. In fact if Bentham’s editor is to be trusted in his interpretation of his master’s doctrine, it would be what Bentham intended to teach. “The term nearest to being synonymous with pleasure isvolition: what it pleases a man to do is simply what he wills to do. . . . What a man wills to do, or what he pleases to do, may be far from giving him enjoyment; yet shall we say that in doing it, he is not following his own pleasure? .. . A native of Japan, when he is offended, stabs himself to prove the intensity of his feelings. It is difficult to prove enjoyment in this case: yet the man obeyed his impulses.” John Hill Burton,Jeremy Bentham’s Works, vol. 1, p. 22.†Cf. W. J. Perry,The Origin of Magic and Religion, p. 15.*Both ‘enjoyment’ and ‘satisfaction’ are unsuitable terms in this connection. An unfortunate linguistic gap must be recognised. The full exercise of an activity is commonly its own ‘satisfaction’, and, as we shall see later, what pleasure may accompany it is derivative and incidental.“Beatitudo non est virtutis premium, sed ipsa virtus.”†Works, Vol. X, p. 560.*Not necessarily ‘social workers.’ Only personal communication can show who have the virtues here referred to.†What is Art?Section V.†What is Art?Section XVI.*“This story of the Cenci is indeed eminently fearful and monstrous: anything like a dry exhibition of it on the stage would be insupportable. The person who would treat such a subject must increase the ideal, and diminish the actual horror of the events.” From Shelley’s preface. The producers, however, were of the contrary opinion.*It is true that in mechanics one might draw up a formidable list of names and say “Opposed to all these appeared a certain Einstein”, but the cases are not parallel. A scientific advance is different from a change of fashion, and no new facts nor any new hypothesis—no Michelson-Morley experiment, nor any widened purview—led up to the separate value theory of art. Although historians of æsthetics are sometimes pleased to present their facts as though they represented a progress from cruder to more refined opinion, from ignorance to wisdom, there is no sound basis for the procedure. Aristotle was at least as clearly and fully aware of the relevant facts and as adequate in his explanations as any later inquirers. Æsthetics in fact has hardly yet reached the scientific stage, in which succeeding investigators can start where their predecessors left off.†An Essay on Style. The final paragraph.*See Chapters XVI, XVIII and XXXI.†Clive Bell,Art, p. 49.†A. C. Bradley,Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 5.†Eyeless Sight, p. 22.†Dedalus, or Science and the Future, by J. B. S. Haldane.*Compare Chapter XXXIV where the ways in which emotive factors interfere with thought are considered.†Cf. Piéron,Thought and the Brain, Chapter I.*Many apparent questions which begin with the words ‘What’ and ‘Why’ are not questions at all, but requests for emotive Satisfaction.*‘Willing’ is a bad word; I would use conation throughout were it not so likely to increase unnecessarily the difficulty which this chapter will unavoidably present to readers who are not familiar with psychological jargon. The essential thing is to think of willing (desiring, striving towards, trying) as an unconscious as much as a conscious process.*This topic is discussed at length inThe Meaning of Meaning.*Titchener,Text-book of Psychology, p. 248.*Into conjectures as to what these are, it seems as yet not profitable to enter.†Problèmes de Psychologie affective, pp. 141-144.*It is probable that Wordsworth and certain that Coleridge if writing to-day would use quite other terms in place of pleasure for describing poetic values.*The fashion in which the term ‘feeling’ shifts about in psychology is notorious as a source of confusion. It would be convenient if it could be kept for pleasure-unpleasure, and used no longer as a synonym for ‘emotion’, since emotions can much more easily be regarded as built up from organic sensations.*“Tragedy is an imitation of an action... effecting through Pity and Terror the correction and refinement (κάθαρςις) of such passions.”Poetics, VI. Cf. p. 247,infra.*The description of images belongs to the first steps in psychology, and it is often possible to judge the rank and standing of a psychologist by the degree of importance which he attaches to their peculiarities. On theoretical grounds it seems probable that they are luxury products (cf.The Meaning of Meaning, pp. 148-151) peculiarly connected with the reproduction of emotion. For a discussion of some experimental investigations into their utility, Spearman,The Nature of Intelligence, Ch. XII, may be consulted.*Two kinds of onomatopœia should be distinguished. In one the sound of the words (actual or imaginal) is like some natural sound (the buzzing of bees, galloping horses, and so forth). In the other it is not like any such sound but such as merely to call up free auditory images of the sounds in question. The second case is by far the more common.†Works, II, 171.*It is worth remarking that any application of critical principles must be indirect. They are not any the less useful because this is so. Misunderstanding on this point has often led artists to accuse critics of wishing to make art a matter of rules, and their objection to any such attempt is entirely justified.*This character of blue is the basis of the doctrine of Reynolds, that blue is unsuitable in foregrounds, which led Gainsborough, according to the well-known story, to paint The Blue Boy.*This account of harmony also applies to music. Few modern authorities are content to regard harmony as an affair merely of the physical relationships of notes.†D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionisme, p. 39.*This remark applies equally strongly to the attempts which are from time to time made to find formulæ for the proportions of buildings. No one with an adequate idea of the complexity of the factors which determine our responses is likely to attach great importance to these investigations, interesting though they are. The interpretation of the results is not within sight of even the most optimistic of psychologists.†The Power of Sound, p. 176.*The very strange and important phenomena of apparent telepathy, and the feats of some ‘psychometrists’ and ‘clairvoyants’, although they may call for a great extension of our ideas as to how minds influence one another, do not require any such desperate devices as transference of, or participation in,identicalexperiences. If they did, the possibility of investigating them by the only technique with which anything has ever been successfully investigated would be remote. On any ‘identity’ or ‘participation’ theory, communication becomes an ineffable and irremovable mystery. There may, of course, be any number of strange events occurring about which we cannot know, but to discuss such events is unprofitable.†Henry Head, ‘The Conception of Nervous and Mental Energy’ in theBritish Journal of Psychology, Oct. 1923, Vol. XIV, p. 126.†Vision and Design, p. 194.†What is Art, Sect. XV.†Biographia Literaria, Vol. 11, Ch. XIV, p. 12.*The degree of racial difference is peculiarly difficult to estimate. In view of the extent of mixture which has taken place it may be of great importance in considering even the art of one culture or tradition alone. Cf. F. G. Crookshank,The Mongol in our Midst.*These types if they must be admitted, have not yet been described satisfactorily. The defects of such attempts as those of Jung, for example, are shown by the fact that individuals change so readily and so freely from ‘type’ to ‘type’, being extrovert one hour and introvert the next, rationalist and intuitive from moment to moment. This is of course denied by the Zurich School but not by the majority of observers. To point it out is not to overlook much that is valuable in these distinctions. A satisfactory classification would doubtless be very complex, and perhaps of the form: An individual of Type A is extrovert under these conditions, introvert under those, etc.*Biographia Literaria, Ch. XIII. “The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.” The luminous hints dropped by Coleridge in the neighbourhood of this sentence would seem to have dazzled succeeding speculators. How otherwise explain why they have been overlooked.*Coleridge’s distinction between IMAGINATION and Fancy was in part the same as this. But he introduced value considerations also, Imagination being such combination or fusion of mental elements as resulted in certain valuable states of mind, and Fancy being a mere trivial playing with these elements. The discussion of this distinction will be postponed to Chapter XXXII, where the different uses of the term ‘imagination’ are separated.*It is useful in this discussion to distinguish between the artist’s personality as involved in his work and such other parts of it as are not involved. With these last we are not here concerned.*A weakness of the modern Irish school (even at its best, in Mr Yeats) or of the exquisite poetry of Mr De la Mare, may be that its sensibility is a development out of the main track. It is this which seems to make it minor poetry in a sense in which Mr Hardy’s best work or Mr Eliot’sThe Waste Landis major poetry.*A specimen: “The thoughtful man, the man on business bent, wends his way to Wembley with definite purpose. He seeketh knowledge, desireth increase of commerce or willeth to study new epoch-making inventions.”—Official Advertisement.*For another instance see Browning,Parting at Morning.†The Keys of the Gates: To the Accuser who is the God of this World.*We must, of course, distinguish art of this kind from the Christmas party or magazine kind of production, in which the author provides something (different and in a different place) for everybody. The works of Dickens might be cited as examples.*Cf.Prometheus Unbound, Act 1:‘the air around themlooks radiant as the air around a star’;alsoTriumph of Life:‘as veil by veil the silent splendour dropsFrom Lucifer’.†Paradise Lost, Bk. II, line 672.*A very interesting contemporary example in connection with which the problem arises perhaps more acutely than ever before is Mr Eliot’sThe Waste Landalready mentioned. The impatience of so many critics and the fact that they have complained of the presence and necessity of notes well illustrates the confusion which prevails upon this question. A more reasonable complaint would have been that Mr Eliot did not provide a larger apparatus of elucidation. (See Appendix).*E.g. ‘When lovely woman stoops to folly,’ Heraclitus, The Millers Daughter, Alexander Selkirk, and (its best known parts at least)The Skylark.*Difficulties even here arise, e.g. the poet may be dissatisfied without reason. Coleridge thoughtKubla Khanmerely ‘a psychological curiosity’ without poetic merits, and may have been justified in some degree. If he was not, it is his dream experience which we should presumably have to take as our standard.*Even Coleridge was not exempt from this failing. Cf. his comments on Gloster.†Essay on Casanova, inAffirmations, p. 115.†Affirmations, p. 115.*Coleridge’s debt here to Schelling has been over-estimated. Such borrowings as he made were more hampering to him than helpful.†Biographia Literaria, II, pp. 12, 14.*It may perhaps be desirable to point out that this description of the effects of art follows from the theory of value outlined in Chapter VII. They are the most valuable experiences because they are the least wasteful. Thus the place assigned to them is not a mere personal expression of preference.*May I assume that references here will not distress the reader? Tennyson, Scott, Landor, Shelley, Keats, Scott, Anon; Marvell, Donne, Peacock. I am anxious to facilitate the actual detailed comparison of these poems.*This topic is discussed from a slightly different angle inThe Foundations of Æsthetics(Allen and Unwin, 1922).*I will quote the familiar passage for the reader’s convenience:I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts: a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:A motion and a spirit that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thoughtAnd rolls through all things.Not itself an instance of imaginative utterance, although some instancescanbe found in the poem.†Shooting Niagara.†Sartor Resartus.†Essay on Style.*A discussion of Croce’s doctrines might seem advisable at some point. But all that is strictly necessary has already been said inThe Foundations of Æsthetics. It may be repeated here in the vigorous terms of Giovanni Papini (Four and Twenty Minds): “If you disregard critical trivialities and didactic accessories, the entire æsthetic system of Croce amounts merely to a hunt for pseudonyms of the word ‘art’, and may indeed be stated briefly and accurately in this formula: art = intuition = expression = feeling = imagination = fancy = lyricism = beauty. And you must be careful not to take these words with the shadings and distinctions which they have in ordinary or scientific language. Not a bit of it. Every word is merely a different series of syllables signifying absolutely and completely the same thing.” When you are not careful the amalgam of confusions and contradictions which ensues is very remarkable. It is interesting to notice that Croce’s appeal has been exclusively to those unfamiliar with the subject, to the man of letters and the dilettante. He has been ignored by serious students of the mind. How many of those for example who have been impressed by his dicta as to expression and language have been aware of how the problem has been discussed before, or have ever heard of the ‘imageless thought’ controversy? Upon the ways in which Croce’s strategy has inveigled the guileless into supposing him to be saying something, Papini is excellent. ‘The Barabbas of art, the Thug of philosophy, the Apache of culture’—Papini so describes himself—has here rendered a notable service to those who have been depressed by the vogue of ‘Expressionism’.*ὅμοιον. This word is variously translated ‘resemblance’ (Twining), and ‘truth to life’? (Butcher). Its usual meaning in thePoeticsis ‘the quality ofbeing like ourselves’, ‘averagehumanity’.*Cf. Eastlake,Literature of the Fine Arts.“The elephant with his objectionable legs and inexpressive hide may still be supposed to be a very normal specimen and may accordingly be a fit object for artistic imitation.”†Preface toLyrical Ballads.*Compare Thomas Rymer,A Short View of Tragedy.“A little preparation and forecast might do well now and then. For his Desdemona’s Marriage, he might have helped out the probability by figuring how that some way or other a Blackamoor woman had been her nurse and suckled her; or that once upon a time someVirtuosohad transfused into her veins the Blood of a Black Sheep.” We may take it such are not the secret laws of nature to which Goethe was alluding.†On Poesy or Art.†‘Literature and Religion’ inThe Necessity of Art, published by The Student Christian Movement, p. 155.*The reader who is a psychologist will notice many points in this statement at which elaboration and qualifications are required. For example, when we are ‘introspecting’ factors normally belonging to the second set may enter the first. But he will be able, if he grasps the general theory, to supply these complications himself. I did not wish to burden the text with unnecessary intricacies.*Revelation Doctrines when once given a foothold tend to interfere everywhere. They serve as a kind of omnipotent major premise justifying any and every conclusion. A specimen: “Since the function of Art is to pierce through to the Real World, then it follows that the artist cannot be too definite in his outlines, and that good drawing is the foundation of all good art.”—Charles Gardner,Vision and Vesture, p. 54.†Essay on Style, p. 19.†Short View of Tragedy.†Cf. A. Clutton-Brock,The Times, 11th July 1922, p. 13.*No merit, that is,in this connection. There may be some exceptions to this, cases in which the explicit recognition of the truth of a statement as opposed to the simple acceptance of it, isnecessaryto the full development of the further response. But I believe that such cases will on careful examination be found to be very rare with competent readers. Individual differences, corresponding to the different degrees to which individuals have their belief feelings, their references, and their attitudes entangled, are to be expected. There are, of course, an immense number of scientific beliefs present among the conditions of every attitude. But since acceptances would do equally well in their place they are notnecessaryto it.*In view of a possible misunderstanding at this point, compare Chapter X, especially the final paragraph. If a belief in Retributive Justice, for example, is fatal toPrometheus Unbound, so in another way is the belief that the Millennium is at hand. To steer an unperplexed path between these opposite dangers is extremely difficult. The distinctions required are perhaps better left to the reader’s reflection than laboured further in the faulty terminology which alone at present is available.*Cf. Gurney,The Power of Sound, p. 126. “A splendid melodic phrase seems continually not like an object of sense, but like an affirmation; not so much prompting admiring ejaculation as compelling passionate assent.” His explanation, through association with speech, seems to me inadequate. He adds that the use of terms such as “expressivenessandsignificance, as opposed to meaninglessness and triviality, may be allowed, without the implication of any reference to transcendental views which one may fail to understand, or theories of interpretation which one may entirely repudiate.”†Percy Dearmer,The Necessity of Art, p. 180.†A.W. Pollard,ibidem, p. 135.
†Hegel’sdictum, History of Philosophy, iii, 543.
†Critique of Judgment, transl. by Meredith, p. 15.
*Dr Bosanquet was one of the last adherents. See hisThree Lectures on Æsthetics.
†E.g. Vernon Lee,The Beautiful.
*E.g. Any choice for which the chooser cannot give his reasons tends in the laboratory to be called an ‘æsthetic choice.’
*Cf. Chapters X and XXXII, and Impersonality,Index.
†Clive Bell,Art, p. 25.
†A.C. Bradley,Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 5.
†G. W. Mackail,Lectures on Poetry. Introduction.
*We can diagrammatically represent the delusion as follows. What actually occurs is that A, a work of art, causes E an effectin us, which has the character b; AcausesE[b]. Wespeakas though we perceived that A has the quality B (Beauty); we are perceiving A[B]; and if we are not careful we think so too. No one of our recent revolutions in thought is more important than this progressive rediscovery of what we are talking about. It is being inevitably followed by wide changes in our attitudes to the world and to fellow-creatures. One current in this change is towards tolerance, another towards scepticism, a third towards far more secure founding of our motives of action. The startling philosophical changes in the general outlook sometimes’ predicted for Relativity (or for popular ideas about it when once they become widespread) appear likely, if they occur at all, to be engulfed by these more unobtrusive but more domestic changes
*See Chapter XXIV.
*This point will be discussed in Chapter XXIV.
*Again the normality of the artist has to be considered.
*As will be seen, I am not going to identify ‘beauty’ with ‘communicative efficacy’. This is a trap which it is easy to fall into. A number of the exoteric followers of Croce may be found in it, though not Croce himself.
*Throughout this discussion ‘experience’ will be used in a wide sense to stand for any occurrence in the mind. It is equivalent to ‘mental state, or process.’ The term has often unfortunate suggestions of passiveness and of consciousness, but many of the ‘experiences’ here referred to would ordinarily be called ‘actions’ and have parts which are not conscious and not accessible to introspection as important as those which are.
*A chief advocate of this view is Dr G. E. Moore, whosePrincipia EthicaandEthicscontain brilliant statements of the position.
†Cf. F. Brentano,The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, pp. 12, 46.
*Cf. Russell,The Principles of Mathematics, p. 100. “On this principle, from which I can see no escape, that every genuine word must have some meaning, theisandthanmust form part of ‘ais greater thanb’, which thus contains more than two terms and a relation. Theisseems to state thatahas togreaterthe relation of referent, while thethanstates similarly thatbhas togreaterthe relation of relatum. But ‘aexceedsb’ may be held to express solely the relation ofatob, without including any of the implications of further relations.” On the introspective comparison of judgmentsThe Meaning of Meaning, by C. K. Ogden and the writer, may be consulted.
*E.g., “The value of the object is its capacity of becoming the object of feeling and desire through actualisation of dispositional tendencies by acts of presumption, judgment, and assumption.” Urban,Valuation, p. 53.
*Or, of course, aversions. In what follows we shall take no further note of aversions. To do so would introduce inessential complications. The omission in no way affects the argument, since for our present purposes they may be counted in with appetencies.
*This view plainly has close connections with Utilitarianism. In fact if Bentham’s editor is to be trusted in his interpretation of his master’s doctrine, it would be what Bentham intended to teach. “The term nearest to being synonymous with pleasure isvolition: what it pleases a man to do is simply what he wills to do. . . . What a man wills to do, or what he pleases to do, may be far from giving him enjoyment; yet shall we say that in doing it, he is not following his own pleasure? .. . A native of Japan, when he is offended, stabs himself to prove the intensity of his feelings. It is difficult to prove enjoyment in this case: yet the man obeyed his impulses.” John Hill Burton,Jeremy Bentham’s Works, vol. 1, p. 22.
†Cf. W. J. Perry,The Origin of Magic and Religion, p. 15.
*Both ‘enjoyment’ and ‘satisfaction’ are unsuitable terms in this connection. An unfortunate linguistic gap must be recognised. The full exercise of an activity is commonly its own ‘satisfaction’, and, as we shall see later, what pleasure may accompany it is derivative and incidental.“Beatitudo non est virtutis premium, sed ipsa virtus.”
†Works, Vol. X, p. 560.
*Not necessarily ‘social workers.’ Only personal communication can show who have the virtues here referred to.
†What is Art?Section V.
†What is Art?Section XVI.
*“This story of the Cenci is indeed eminently fearful and monstrous: anything like a dry exhibition of it on the stage would be insupportable. The person who would treat such a subject must increase the ideal, and diminish the actual horror of the events.” From Shelley’s preface. The producers, however, were of the contrary opinion.
*It is true that in mechanics one might draw up a formidable list of names and say “Opposed to all these appeared a certain Einstein”, but the cases are not parallel. A scientific advance is different from a change of fashion, and no new facts nor any new hypothesis—no Michelson-Morley experiment, nor any widened purview—led up to the separate value theory of art. Although historians of æsthetics are sometimes pleased to present their facts as though they represented a progress from cruder to more refined opinion, from ignorance to wisdom, there is no sound basis for the procedure. Aristotle was at least as clearly and fully aware of the relevant facts and as adequate in his explanations as any later inquirers. Æsthetics in fact has hardly yet reached the scientific stage, in which succeeding investigators can start where their predecessors left off.
†An Essay on Style. The final paragraph.
*See Chapters XVI, XVIII and XXXI.
†Clive Bell,Art, p. 49.
†A. C. Bradley,Oxford Lectures on Poetry, p. 5.
†Eyeless Sight, p. 22.
†Dedalus, or Science and the Future, by J. B. S. Haldane.
*Compare Chapter XXXIV where the ways in which emotive factors interfere with thought are considered.
†Cf. Piéron,Thought and the Brain, Chapter I.
*Many apparent questions which begin with the words ‘What’ and ‘Why’ are not questions at all, but requests for emotive Satisfaction.
*‘Willing’ is a bad word; I would use conation throughout were it not so likely to increase unnecessarily the difficulty which this chapter will unavoidably present to readers who are not familiar with psychological jargon. The essential thing is to think of willing (desiring, striving towards, trying) as an unconscious as much as a conscious process.
*This topic is discussed at length inThe Meaning of Meaning.
*Titchener,Text-book of Psychology, p. 248.
*Into conjectures as to what these are, it seems as yet not profitable to enter.
†Problèmes de Psychologie affective, pp. 141-144.
*It is probable that Wordsworth and certain that Coleridge if writing to-day would use quite other terms in place of pleasure for describing poetic values.
*The fashion in which the term ‘feeling’ shifts about in psychology is notorious as a source of confusion. It would be convenient if it could be kept for pleasure-unpleasure, and used no longer as a synonym for ‘emotion’, since emotions can much more easily be regarded as built up from organic sensations.
*“Tragedy is an imitation of an action... effecting through Pity and Terror the correction and refinement (κάθαρςις) of such passions.”Poetics, VI. Cf. p. 247,infra.
*The description of images belongs to the first steps in psychology, and it is often possible to judge the rank and standing of a psychologist by the degree of importance which he attaches to their peculiarities. On theoretical grounds it seems probable that they are luxury products (cf.The Meaning of Meaning, pp. 148-151) peculiarly connected with the reproduction of emotion. For a discussion of some experimental investigations into their utility, Spearman,The Nature of Intelligence, Ch. XII, may be consulted.
*Two kinds of onomatopœia should be distinguished. In one the sound of the words (actual or imaginal) is like some natural sound (the buzzing of bees, galloping horses, and so forth). In the other it is not like any such sound but such as merely to call up free auditory images of the sounds in question. The second case is by far the more common.
†Works, II, 171.
*It is worth remarking that any application of critical principles must be indirect. They are not any the less useful because this is so. Misunderstanding on this point has often led artists to accuse critics of wishing to make art a matter of rules, and their objection to any such attempt is entirely justified.
*This character of blue is the basis of the doctrine of Reynolds, that blue is unsuitable in foregrounds, which led Gainsborough, according to the well-known story, to paint The Blue Boy.
*This account of harmony also applies to music. Few modern authorities are content to regard harmony as an affair merely of the physical relationships of notes.
†D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionisme, p. 39.
*This remark applies equally strongly to the attempts which are from time to time made to find formulæ for the proportions of buildings. No one with an adequate idea of the complexity of the factors which determine our responses is likely to attach great importance to these investigations, interesting though they are. The interpretation of the results is not within sight of even the most optimistic of psychologists.
†The Power of Sound, p. 176.
*The very strange and important phenomena of apparent telepathy, and the feats of some ‘psychometrists’ and ‘clairvoyants’, although they may call for a great extension of our ideas as to how minds influence one another, do not require any such desperate devices as transference of, or participation in,identicalexperiences. If they did, the possibility of investigating them by the only technique with which anything has ever been successfully investigated would be remote. On any ‘identity’ or ‘participation’ theory, communication becomes an ineffable and irremovable mystery. There may, of course, be any number of strange events occurring about which we cannot know, but to discuss such events is unprofitable.
†Henry Head, ‘The Conception of Nervous and Mental Energy’ in theBritish Journal of Psychology, Oct. 1923, Vol. XIV, p. 126.
†Vision and Design, p. 194.
†What is Art, Sect. XV.
†Biographia Literaria, Vol. 11, Ch. XIV, p. 12.
*The degree of racial difference is peculiarly difficult to estimate. In view of the extent of mixture which has taken place it may be of great importance in considering even the art of one culture or tradition alone. Cf. F. G. Crookshank,The Mongol in our Midst.
*These types if they must be admitted, have not yet been described satisfactorily. The defects of such attempts as those of Jung, for example, are shown by the fact that individuals change so readily and so freely from ‘type’ to ‘type’, being extrovert one hour and introvert the next, rationalist and intuitive from moment to moment. This is of course denied by the Zurich School but not by the majority of observers. To point it out is not to overlook much that is valuable in these distinctions. A satisfactory classification would doubtless be very complex, and perhaps of the form: An individual of Type A is extrovert under these conditions, introvert under those, etc.
*Biographia Literaria, Ch. XIII. “The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.” The luminous hints dropped by Coleridge in the neighbourhood of this sentence would seem to have dazzled succeeding speculators. How otherwise explain why they have been overlooked.
*Coleridge’s distinction between IMAGINATION and Fancy was in part the same as this. But he introduced value considerations also, Imagination being such combination or fusion of mental elements as resulted in certain valuable states of mind, and Fancy being a mere trivial playing with these elements. The discussion of this distinction will be postponed to Chapter XXXII, where the different uses of the term ‘imagination’ are separated.
*It is useful in this discussion to distinguish between the artist’s personality as involved in his work and such other parts of it as are not involved. With these last we are not here concerned.
*A weakness of the modern Irish school (even at its best, in Mr Yeats) or of the exquisite poetry of Mr De la Mare, may be that its sensibility is a development out of the main track. It is this which seems to make it minor poetry in a sense in which Mr Hardy’s best work or Mr Eliot’sThe Waste Landis major poetry.
*A specimen: “The thoughtful man, the man on business bent, wends his way to Wembley with definite purpose. He seeketh knowledge, desireth increase of commerce or willeth to study new epoch-making inventions.”—Official Advertisement.
*For another instance see Browning,Parting at Morning.
†The Keys of the Gates: To the Accuser who is the God of this World.
*We must, of course, distinguish art of this kind from the Christmas party or magazine kind of production, in which the author provides something (different and in a different place) for everybody. The works of Dickens might be cited as examples.
*Cf.Prometheus Unbound, Act 1:
‘the air around them
looks radiant as the air around a star’;
alsoTriumph of Life:
‘as veil by veil the silent splendour drops
From Lucifer’.
†Paradise Lost, Bk. II, line 672.
*A very interesting contemporary example in connection with which the problem arises perhaps more acutely than ever before is Mr Eliot’sThe Waste Landalready mentioned. The impatience of so many critics and the fact that they have complained of the presence and necessity of notes well illustrates the confusion which prevails upon this question. A more reasonable complaint would have been that Mr Eliot did not provide a larger apparatus of elucidation. (See Appendix).
*E.g. ‘When lovely woman stoops to folly,’ Heraclitus, The Millers Daughter, Alexander Selkirk, and (its best known parts at least)The Skylark.
*Difficulties even here arise, e.g. the poet may be dissatisfied without reason. Coleridge thoughtKubla Khanmerely ‘a psychological curiosity’ without poetic merits, and may have been justified in some degree. If he was not, it is his dream experience which we should presumably have to take as our standard.
*Even Coleridge was not exempt from this failing. Cf. his comments on Gloster.
†Essay on Casanova, inAffirmations, p. 115.
†Affirmations, p. 115.
*Coleridge’s debt here to Schelling has been over-estimated. Such borrowings as he made were more hampering to him than helpful.
†Biographia Literaria, II, pp. 12, 14.
*It may perhaps be desirable to point out that this description of the effects of art follows from the theory of value outlined in Chapter VII. They are the most valuable experiences because they are the least wasteful. Thus the place assigned to them is not a mere personal expression of preference.
*May I assume that references here will not distress the reader? Tennyson, Scott, Landor, Shelley, Keats, Scott, Anon; Marvell, Donne, Peacock. I am anxious to facilitate the actual detailed comparison of these poems.
*This topic is discussed from a slightly different angle inThe Foundations of Æsthetics(Allen and Unwin, 1922).
*I will quote the familiar passage for the reader’s convenience:
I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts: a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:A motion and a spirit that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thoughtAnd rolls through all things.
I have feltA presence that disturbs me with the joyOf elevated thoughts: a sense sublimeOf something far more deeply interfused,Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,And the round ocean and the living air,And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:A motion and a spirit that impelsAll thinking things, all objects of all thoughtAnd rolls through all things.
Not itself an instance of imaginative utterance, although some instancescanbe found in the poem.
†Shooting Niagara.
†Sartor Resartus.
†Essay on Style.
*A discussion of Croce’s doctrines might seem advisable at some point. But all that is strictly necessary has already been said inThe Foundations of Æsthetics. It may be repeated here in the vigorous terms of Giovanni Papini (Four and Twenty Minds): “If you disregard critical trivialities and didactic accessories, the entire æsthetic system of Croce amounts merely to a hunt for pseudonyms of the word ‘art’, and may indeed be stated briefly and accurately in this formula: art = intuition = expression = feeling = imagination = fancy = lyricism = beauty. And you must be careful not to take these words with the shadings and distinctions which they have in ordinary or scientific language. Not a bit of it. Every word is merely a different series of syllables signifying absolutely and completely the same thing.” When you are not careful the amalgam of confusions and contradictions which ensues is very remarkable. It is interesting to notice that Croce’s appeal has been exclusively to those unfamiliar with the subject, to the man of letters and the dilettante. He has been ignored by serious students of the mind. How many of those for example who have been impressed by his dicta as to expression and language have been aware of how the problem has been discussed before, or have ever heard of the ‘imageless thought’ controversy? Upon the ways in which Croce’s strategy has inveigled the guileless into supposing him to be saying something, Papini is excellent. ‘The Barabbas of art, the Thug of philosophy, the Apache of culture’—Papini so describes himself—has here rendered a notable service to those who have been depressed by the vogue of ‘Expressionism’.
*ὅμοιον. This word is variously translated ‘resemblance’ (Twining), and ‘truth to life’? (Butcher). Its usual meaning in thePoeticsis ‘the quality ofbeing like ourselves’, ‘averagehumanity’.
*Cf. Eastlake,Literature of the Fine Arts.“The elephant with his objectionable legs and inexpressive hide may still be supposed to be a very normal specimen and may accordingly be a fit object for artistic imitation.”
†Preface toLyrical Ballads.
*Compare Thomas Rymer,A Short View of Tragedy.“A little preparation and forecast might do well now and then. For his Desdemona’s Marriage, he might have helped out the probability by figuring how that some way or other a Blackamoor woman had been her nurse and suckled her; or that once upon a time someVirtuosohad transfused into her veins the Blood of a Black Sheep.” We may take it such are not the secret laws of nature to which Goethe was alluding.
†On Poesy or Art.
†‘Literature and Religion’ inThe Necessity of Art, published by The Student Christian Movement, p. 155.
*The reader who is a psychologist will notice many points in this statement at which elaboration and qualifications are required. For example, when we are ‘introspecting’ factors normally belonging to the second set may enter the first. But he will be able, if he grasps the general theory, to supply these complications himself. I did not wish to burden the text with unnecessary intricacies.
*Revelation Doctrines when once given a foothold tend to interfere everywhere. They serve as a kind of omnipotent major premise justifying any and every conclusion. A specimen: “Since the function of Art is to pierce through to the Real World, then it follows that the artist cannot be too definite in his outlines, and that good drawing is the foundation of all good art.”—Charles Gardner,Vision and Vesture, p. 54.
†Essay on Style, p. 19.
†Short View of Tragedy.
†Cf. A. Clutton-Brock,The Times, 11th July 1922, p. 13.
*No merit, that is,in this connection. There may be some exceptions to this, cases in which the explicit recognition of the truth of a statement as opposed to the simple acceptance of it, isnecessaryto the full development of the further response. But I believe that such cases will on careful examination be found to be very rare with competent readers. Individual differences, corresponding to the different degrees to which individuals have their belief feelings, their references, and their attitudes entangled, are to be expected. There are, of course, an immense number of scientific beliefs present among the conditions of every attitude. But since acceptances would do equally well in their place they are notnecessaryto it.
*In view of a possible misunderstanding at this point, compare Chapter X, especially the final paragraph. If a belief in Retributive Justice, for example, is fatal toPrometheus Unbound, so in another way is the belief that the Millennium is at hand. To steer an unperplexed path between these opposite dangers is extremely difficult. The distinctions required are perhaps better left to the reader’s reflection than laboured further in the faulty terminology which alone at present is available.
*Cf. Gurney,The Power of Sound, p. 126. “A splendid melodic phrase seems continually not like an object of sense, but like an affirmation; not so much prompting admiring ejaculation as compelling passionate assent.” His explanation, through association with speech, seems to me inadequate. He adds that the use of terms such as “expressivenessandsignificance, as opposed to meaninglessness and triviality, may be allowed, without the implication of any reference to transcendental views which one may fail to understand, or theories of interpretation which one may entirely repudiate.”
†Percy Dearmer,The Necessity of Art, p. 180.
†A.W. Pollard,ibidem, p. 135.