Ethics and Aesthetics are one.
Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold.
Nothing is more easy to handle with inartistic or pseudo-classic effectiveness than the opposition between a brilliant solo player and an orchestra; and, as the inevitable tendency of even the most artistic concerto has been to exhaust the resources of the solo instrument in the increased difficulty of making a proper contrast between solo and orchestra, so the technical difficulty of concertos has steadily increased until even in classical times it was so great that the orthodox definition of a concerto is that it is "an instrumental composition designed to show the skill of an executant, and one which is almost invariably accompanied by orchestra." This idea is in flat violation of the whole history and aesthetics of the form, which can never be understood by means of a study of averages. In art the average is always false, and the individual organization of the greatest classical works is the only sound basis for generalizations, historic or aesthetic. (D. F. T.) Entry: CONCERTO
_Aesthetics_ elaborates the "ideas" involved in the expression of taste called forth by those relations of object which acquire for them the attribution of beauty or the reverse. The beautiful ([Greek: kalon]) is to be carefully distinguished from the allied conceptions of the useful and the pleasant, which vary with time, place and person; whereas beauty is predicated absolutely and involuntarily by all who have attained the right standpoint. Ethics, which is but one branch of aesthetics, although the chief, deals with such relations among volitions (_Willensverhältnisse_) as thus unconditionally please or displease. These relations Herbart finds to be reducible to five, which do not admit of further simplification; and corresponding to them are as many moral ideas (_Musterbegriffe_), viz.: (1) _Internal Freedom_, the underlying relation being that of the individual's will to his judgment of it; (2) _Perfection_, the relation being that of his several volitions to each other in respect of intensity, variety and concentration; (3) _Benevolence_, the relation being that between his own will and the thought of another's; (4) _Right_, in case of actual conflict with another; and (5) _Retribution_ or _Equity_, for intended good or evil done. The ideas of a final society, a system of rewards and punishments, a system of administration, a system of culture and a "unanimated society," corresponding to the ideas of law, equity, benevolence, perfection and internal freedom respectively, result when we take account of a number of individuals. Virtue is the perfect conformity of the will with the moral ideas; of this the single virtues are but special expressions. The conception of duty arises from the existence of hindrances to the attainment of virtue. A general scheme of principles of conduct is possible, but the subsumption of special cases under these must remain matter of tact. The application of ethics to things as they are with a view to the realization of the moral ideas is moral technology (_Tugendlehre_), of which the chief divisions are Paedagogy and Politics. Entry: HERBART
He was to find his richest vein in prose. He himself, avowing his preference for a simple, or seemingly simple, style as compared with the _artistic_ style, vaunted by the Goncourts--a style compounded of neologisms and "rare" epithets, and startling forms of expression--observes: "A simple style is like white light. It is complex, but not to outward seeming. In language, a beautiful and desirable simplicity is but an appearance, and results only from the good order and sovereign economy of the various parts of speech." And thus one may say of his own style that its beautiful translucency is the result of many qualities--felicity, grace, the harmonious grouping of words, a perfect measure. Anatole France is a sceptic. The essence of his philosophy, if a spirit so light; evanescent, elusive, can be said to have a philosophy, is doubt. He is a doubter in religion, metaphysics, morals, politics, aesthetics, science--a most genial and kindly doubter, and not at all without doubts even as to his own negative conclusions. Sometimes his doubts are expressed in his own person--as in the _Jardin d'épicure_ (1894) from which the above extracts are taken, or _Le Livre de mon ami_ (1885), which may be accepted, perhaps, as partly autobiographical; sometimes, as in _La Rôtisserie de la reine Pédauque_ (1893) and _Les Opinions de M. Jérôme Coignard_ (1893), or _L'Orme du mail_ (1897), Le Mannequin d'osier (1897), _L'Anneau d'améthyste_ (1899), and _M. Bergeret à Paris_ (1901), he entrusts the expression of his opinions, dramatically, to some fictitious character--the abbé Coignard, for instance, projecting, as it were, from the 18th century some very effective criticisms on the popular political theories of contemporary France--or the M. Bergeret of the four last-named novels, which were published with the collective title of _Histoire contemporaine_. This series deals with some modern problems, and particularly, in _L'Anneau d'améthyste_ and _M. Bergeret à Paris_, with the humours and follies of the anti-Dreyfusards. All this makes a piquant combination. Neither should reference be omitted to his _Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard_ (1881), crowned by the Institute, nor to works more distinctly of fancy, such as _Balthasar_ (1889), the story of one of the Magi or _Thaïs_ (1890), the story of an actress and courtesan of Alexandria, whom a hermit converts, but with the loss of his own soul. His ironic comedy, _Crainquebille_ (Renaissance theatre, 1903), was founded on his novel (1902) of the same year. His more recent work includes his anti-clerical _Vie de Jeanne d'Arc_ (1908); his pungent satire the _Île des penguins_ (1908); and a volume of stories, _Les Sept Femmes de la Barbe-Bleue_ (1909). Lightly as he bears his erudition, it is very real and extensive, and is notably shown in his utilization of modern archaeological and historical research in his fiction (as in the stories in _Sur une pierre blanche_). As a critic--see the _Vie littéraire_ (1888-1892), reprinted mainly from _Le Temps_--he is graceful and appreciative. Academic in the best sense, he found a place in the French Academy, taking the seat vacated by Lesseps, and was received into that body on the 24th of December 1896. In the _affaire Dreyfus_ he sided with M. Zola. Entry: FRANCE
Human myology was his strong point; no one had laboured harder at the dissecting-table; and he strongly emphasized the necessity of practice as a means of research. He believed that anatomy, physiology and pathology could never be properly advanced without daily consideration and treatment of disease. In 1848 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the same year he joined the Highland and Agricultural Society, acting as chairman of the veterinary department, and advising on strictly agricultural matters. In 1847 he delivered a series of systematic lectures on the comparative anatomy of the invertebrata; and, about this period, as member of an aesthetic club, he wrote papers on the natural principles of beauty, the aesthetics of the ugly, of smell, the approbation or disapprobation of sounds, &c. Owing to the failing health of Professor Robert Jameson, Goodsir was induced to deliver the course of lectures on natural history during the summer of 1853. Entry: GOODSIR
In 1745 Hogarth painted that admirable portrait of himself with his dog Trump, which is now in the National Gallery. In a corner of this he had drawn on a palette a serpentine curve with the words "The Line of Beauty." Much inquiry ensued as to the meaning of this hieroglyphic; and in an unpropitious hour the painter resolved to explain himself in writing. The result was the well-known _Analysis of Beauty_ (1753), a treatise to fix "the fluctuating ideas of Taste," otherwise a desultory essay having for pretext the precept attributed to Michelangelo that a figure should be always "Pyramidall, Serpent like and multiplied by one two and three." The fate of the book was what might have been expected. By the painter's adherents it was praised as a final deliverance upon aesthetics; by his enemies and professional rivals, its obscurities, and the minor errors which, notwithstanding the benevolent efforts of literary friends, the work had not escaped, were made the subject of endless ridicule and caricature. It added little to its author's fame, and it is perhaps to be regretted that he ever undertook it. Moreover, there were further humiliations in store for him. In 1759 the success of a little picture called "The Lady's Last Stake," painted for Lord Charlemont, procured him a commission from Sir Richard Grosvenor to paint another picture "upon the same terms." Unhappily on this occasion he deserted his own field of genre and social satire, to select the story from Boccaccio (or rather Dryden) of Sigismunda weeping over the heart of her murdered lover Guiscardo, being the subject of a picture in Sir Luke Schaub's collection by Furini which had recently been sold for £400. The picture, over which he spent much time and patience, was not regarded as a success; and Sir Richard rather meanly shuffled out of his bargain upon the plea that "the constantly having it before one's eyes, would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas to arise in one's mind." Sigismunda, therefore, much to the artist's mortification, and the delight of the malicious, remained upon his hands. As, by her husband's desire, his widow valued it at £500, it found no purchaser until after her death, when the Boydells bought it for 56 guineas. It was exhibited, with others of Hogarth's pictures, at the Spring Gardens exhibition of 1761, for the catalogue of which Hogarth engraved a Head-piece and a Tail-piece which are still the delight of collectors; and finally, by the bequest of Mr J. H. Anderdon, it passed in 1879 to the National Gallery, where, in spite of theatrical treatment and a repulsive theme, it still commands admiration for its colour, drawing and expression. Entry: A
FECHNER, GUSTAV THEODOR (1801-1887), German experimental psychologist, was born on the 19th of April 1801 at Gross-Särchen, near Muskau, in Lower Lusatia, where his father was pastor. He was educated at Sorau and Dresden and at the university of Leipzig, in which city he spent the rest of his life. In 1834 he was appointed professor of physics, but in 1839 contracted an affection of the eyes while studying the phenomena of colour and vision, and, after much suffering, resigned. Subsequently recovering, he turned to the study of mind and the relations between body and mind, giving public lectures on the subjects of which his books treat. He died at Leipzig on the 18th of November 1887. Among his works may be mentioned: _Das Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode_ (1836, 5th ed., 1903), which has been translated into English; _Nanna, oder über das Seelenleben der Pflanzen_ (1848, 3rd ed., 1903); _Zendavesta, oder_ _über die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits_ (1851, 2nd ed. by Lasswitz, 1901); _Über die physikalische und philosophische Atomenlehre_ (1853, 2nd ed., 1864); _Elemente der Psychophysik_ (1860, 2nd ed., 1889); _Vorschule der Ästhetik_ (1876, 2nd ed., 1898); _Die Tagesansicht gegenüber der Nachtansicht_ (1879). He also published chemical and physical papers, and translated chemical works by J.B. Biot and L.J. Thénard from the French. A different but essential side of his character is seen in his poems and humorous pieces, such as the _Vergleichende Anatomie der Engel_ (1825), written under the pseudonym of "Dr Mises." Fechner's epoch-making work was his _Elemente der Psychophysik_ (1860). He starts from the Spinozistic thought that bodily facts and conscious facts, though not reducible one to the other, are different sides of one reality. His originality lies in trying to discover an exact mathematical relation between them. The most famous outcome of his inquiries is the law known as Weber's or Fechner's law which may be expressed as follows:--"In order that the intensity of a sensation may increase in arithmetical progression, the stimulus must increase in geometrical progression." Though holding good within certain limits only, the law has been found immensely useful. Unfortunately, from the tenable theory that the intensity of a sensation increases by definite additions of stimulus, Fechner was led on to postulate a unit of sensation, so that any sensation S might be regarded as composed of n units. Sensations, he argued, thus being representable by numbers, psychology may become an "exact" science, susceptible of mathematical treatment. His general formula for getting at the number of units in any sensation is S = C log R, where S stands for the sensation, R for the stimulus numerically estimated, and C for a constant that must be separately determined by experiment in each particular order of sensibility. This reasoning of Fechner's has given rise to a great mass of controversy, but the fundamental mistake in it is simple. Though stimuli are composite, sensations are not. "Every sensation," says Professor James, "presents itself as an indivisible unit; and it is quite impossible to read any clear meaning into the notion that they are masses of units combined." Still, the idea of the exact measurement of sensation has been a fruitful one, and mainly through his influence on Wundt, Fechner was the father of that "new" psychology of laboratories which investigates human faculties with the aid of exact scientific apparatus. Though he has had a vast influence in this special department, the disciples of his general philosophy are few. His world-conception is highly animistic. He feels the thrill of life everywhere, in plants, earth, stars, the total universe. Man stands midway between the souls of plants and the souls of stars, who are angels. God, the soul of the universe, must be conceived as having an existence analogous to men. Natural laws are just the modes of the unfolding of God's perfection. In his last work Fechner, aged but full of hope, contrasts this joyous "daylight view" of the world with the dead, dreary "night view" of materialism. Fechner's work in aesthetics is also important. He conducted experiments to show that certain abstract forms and proportions are naturally pleasing to our senses, and gave some new illustrations of the working of aesthetic association. Fechner's position in reference to predecessors and contemporaries is not very sharply defined. He was remotely a disciple of Schelling, learnt much from Herbart and Weisse, and decidedly rejected Hegel and the monadism of Lotze. Entry: FECHNER
AST, GEORG ANTON FRIEDRICH (1778-1841), German philosopher and philologist, was born at Gotha. Educated there and at the university of Jena, he became privat-docent at Jena in 1802. In 1805 he became professor of classical literature in the university of Landshut, where he remained till 1826, when it was transferred to Munich. There he lived till his death on the 31st of October 1841. In recognition of his work he was made an aulic councillor and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He is known principally for his work during the last twenty-five years of his life on the dialogues of Plato. His _Platon's Leben und Schriften_ (1816) was the first of those critical inquiries into the life and works of Plato which originated in the _Introductions_ of Schleiermacher and the historical scepticism of Niebuhr and Wolf. Distrusting tradition, he took a few of the finest dialogues as his standard, and from internal evidence denounced as spurious not only those which are generally admitted to be so (_Epinomis, Minos, Theages, Arastae, Clitophon, Hipparchus, Eryxias, Letters and Definitions_), but also the _Meno, Euthydemus, Charmides, Lysis, Laches, First and Second Alcibiades, Hippias Major and Minor, Ion, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito_, and even (against Aristotle's explicit assertion) _The Laws_. The genuine dialogues he divides into three series:--(1) the earliest, marked chiefly by the poetical and dramatic element, i.e. _Protagoras, Phaedrus, Gorgias, Phaedo_; (2) the second, marked by dialectic subtlety, i.e. _Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Parmenides, Cratylus_; (3) the third group, combining both qualities harmoniously, i.e. the _Philebus, Symposium, Republic, Timaeus, Critias_. The work was followed by a complete edition of Plato's works (11 vols., 1819-1832) with a Latin translation and commentary. His last work was the _Lexicon Platonicum_ (3 vols., 1834-1839), which is both valuable and comprehensive. In his works on aesthetics he combined the views of Schelling with those of Winckelmann, Lessing, Kant, Herder, Schiller and others. His histories of philosophy are marked more by critical scholarship than by originality of thought, though they are interesting as asserting the now familiar principle that the history of philosophy is not the history of opinions, but of reason as a whole; he was among the first to attempt to formulate a principle of the development of thought. Beside his works on Plato, he wrote, on aesthetics, _System der Kunstlehre_ (1805) and _Grundriss der Aesthetik_ (1807); on the history of philosophy, _Grundlinien der Philosophie_ (1807, republished 1809, but soon forgotten), _Grundriss einer Geschichte der Philosophie_ (1807 and 1825), and _Hauptmomente der Geschichte der Philosophie_ (1829); in philology, _Grundlinien der Philologie_ (1808), and _Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und Kritik_ (1808). Entry: AST
ESCHENBURG, JOHANN JOACHIM (1743-1820), German critic and literary historian, was born at Hamburg on the 7th of December 1743. After receiving his early education in his native town, he studied at Leipzig and Göttingen. In 1767 he was appointed tutor, and subsequently professor, at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. The title of "Hofrat" was conferred on him in 1786, and in 1814 he was made one of the directors of the Carolinum. He is best known by his efforts to familiarize his countrymen with English literature. He published a series of German translations of the principal English writers on aesthetics, such as J. Brown, D. Webb, Charles Burney, Joseph Priestley and R. Hurd; and Germany owes also to him the first complete translation (in prose) of Shakespeare's plays (_William Shakespear's Schauspiele_, 13 vols., Zürich, 1775-1782). This is virtually a revised edition of the incomplete translation published by Wieland between 1762 and 1766. Eschenburg died at Brunswick on the 29th of February 1820. Entry: ESCHENBURG
ECONOMY, a word ranging in application from the careful thrift of an individual to the systematic arrangement of an organization. It is derived from the Gr. [Greek: oikonomia], the management ([Greek: nemein], to control) of an [Greek: oikos] or house, extended in meaning to the administration of a state. Of its original sense, the art or science of managing a household, the expression "domestic economy" survives, but the principal use in this sense is confined to the thrifty management of the financial resources of a household or of an individual. It is thus used as equivalent to "saving," not only of money, but of time, labour or effort, and, generally, of the least expenditure of means to attain a required end. It is on the principle of "economy" that many phonetic changes occur in the development of languages, and, in aesthetics, the name has been applied to a principle or law that effects are pleasant in proportion to the smallness of the effort made, and of the means taken to produce the result. The phrase "economy of truth" is due to an invidious application of the use, in patristic theology, of the word [Greek: oikonomia] for the careful presentation of such doctrine as would be applicable to the hearer (see J.H. Newman, _History of the Arians of the 4th Century_). "Economy" is also used in theology in such expressions as "Mosaic" or "Christian economy" as a synonym of "dispensation," for the administration of the world by God at particular times or for particular races. From the meaning of organization or administration of a house or state the word is applied more widely to the ordered arrangement of any organized body, and is equivalent almost to "system"; thus the "economy" of nature or of animal or plant life may be spoken of. The most common use, however, of the word is that of "political economy," the science dealing with the production, distribution and consumption of wealth (see ECONOMICS). Entry: ECONOMY
We have still to mention that aesthetics formed a principal and favourite study of Lotze's, and that he has treated this subject also in the light of the leading ideas of his philosophy. See his essays _Ueber den Begriff der Schönheit_ (Göttingen, 1845) and _Ueber Bedingungen der Kunstschönheit_, ibid. (1847); and especially his _Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland_ (Munich, 1868). Entry: LOTZE
According to the popular and established distinction between art and nature, the idea of Art (q.v.) only includes phenomena of which man is deliberately the cause; while the idea of Nature includes all phenomena, both in man and in the world outside him, which take place without forethought or studied initiative of his own. Art, accordingly, means every regulated operation or dexterity whereby we pursue ends which we know beforehand; and it means nothing but such operations and dexterities. What is true of art generally is of course also true of the special group of the fine arts. One of the essential qualities of all art is premeditation; and when Shelley talks of the skylark's profuse strains of "unpremeditated art," he in effect lays emphasis on the fact that it is only by a metaphor that he uses the word art in this case at all; he calls attention to that which (if the songs of birds are as instinctive as we suppose) precisely makes the difference between the skylark's outpourings and his own. We are slow to allow the title of fine art to natural eloquence, to charm or dignity of manner, to delicacy and tact in social intercourse, and other such graces of life and conduct, since, although in any given case they may have been deliberately cultivated in early life, or even through ancestral generations, they do not produce their full effect until they are so ingrained as to have become unreflecting and spontaneous. When the exigencies of a philosophic scheme lead some writers on aesthetics to include such acts or traits of beautiful and expressive behaviour among the deliberate artistic activities of mankind, we feel that an essential distinction is being sacrificed to the exigencies of a system. That distinction common parlance very justly observes, with its opposition of "art" to "nature" and its phrase of "second nature" for those graces which have become so habitual as to seem instinctive, whether originally the result of discipline or not. When we see a person in all whose ordinary movements there are freedom and beauty, we put down the charm of these with good reason to inherited and inbred aptitudes of which the person has never thought or long since ceased to think, and could not still be thinking without spoiling the charm by self-consciousness; and we call the result a gift of nature. But when we go on to notice that the same person is beautifully and appropriately dressed, since we know that it is impossible to dress without thinking of it, we put down the charm of this to judicious forethought and calculation and call the result a work of art. Entry: I
1. _In Art-theory._--According to Plato all artistic production is a form of imitation ([Greek: mimêsis]). That which really exists is the idea or type created by God; of this type all concrete objects are representations, while the painter, the tragedian, the musician are merely imitators, thrice removed from the truth (_Rep._ x. 596 seq.). Such persons are represented by Plato as a menace to the moral fibre of the community (_Rep._ iii.), as performing no useful function, drawing men away from reality and pandering to the irrational side of the soul. All art should aim at moral improvement. Plato clearly intends by "imitation" more than is connotated by the modern word: though in general he associates with it all that is bad and second-rate, he in some passages admits the value of the imitation of that which is good, and thus assigns to it a certain symbolic significance. Aristotle, likewise regarding art as imitation, emphasizes its purely artistic value as purging the emotions ([Greek: katharsis]), and producing beautiful things as such (see AESTHETICS and FINE ARTS). Entry: 1