These arbitrary constructions reappear in the works of positivist metaphysicians in the shape of an evolutionary or progressive history of art. Spencer dreamed of writing some sort of treatise on the subject, and in the published programme of his system (1860) we read that the third volume of his Principles of Sociology was to contain amongst other things a chapter on æsthetic progress "with the gradual differentiation of fine arts from primitive institutions and from each other, with their increasing variety in development, their progress in reality of expression and superiority of end." No grief need be felt that the chapter was left unwritten when we remember the samples of it preserved in the Principles of Psychology and already reviewed in these pages.[51]
The strong historical sense of our own day is leading us further and further away from the evolutionary or abstractly progressive theories which falsify the free and original movement of art. Fiedler remarked not without justice that unity and progress cannot be introduced into a history of art, and that the works of artists must be judged discretely as so many fragments of the life of the universe.[52] In recent times a remarkable student of the history of figurative art, Venturi, has tried to bring evolutionism into fashion, and has illustrated it in a History of the Madonna, in which the presentment of the Virgin is conceived as an organism which is born, grows, attains perfection, grows old and dies! Others have claimed for artistic history its true character, intolerant of outward curb and rule, drawing her ever-varied productions from the well-head of the infinite Spirit.[53]
Conclusion.
These hurried notes may suffice to show in how narrow a circle has hitherto moved the scientific criticism of the errors we have called "particular." Æsthetic needs to be surrounded and nourished by a watchful and vigorous critical literature drawing its life from her and forming in turn her safeguard and strength.
[2] Das Naturgefühl nach Verschiedenheit der Zeiten und Volksstämme, in Cosmos, ii.
[3] V. Laprade, Le Sentiment de la nature avant le christianisme, 1866; also chez les modernes, 1867; Alfred Biese, Die Entwicklung des Naturgefühls den Griechen und Römern, Kiel, 1882-1884; Die Entwicklung des Naturgefühls im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1892.
[4] Kritische Gänge, v. pp. 5-23.
[5] Dtsche. Ästh. s. Kant, pp. 217-218; cf. Philos, d. Schönen, bk. ii. ch. 7.