The interest which we take in natural and artistic forms, and which has for thousands of years prompted men to reproduce the former in the latter, depends for the most part, if not altogether, on their beauty—that is to say, on the feeling of pleasure we experience in looking at them. The causes of this pleasure and joy in the beautiful and the naturalness of its development are explained in æsthetics. When we combine this science with the results of modern cerebral physiology, we may distinguish two classes of beauty—direct and indirect. In direct or sensible beauty the internal sense-organs, or the æsthetic neurona or sense-cells of the brain, are immediately affected with pleasure. But in indirect or associational beauty these impressions are combined with an excitement of the phronetic neurona—the rational brain-cells which effect presentation and thought.
Direct or sensible beauty (the subject of sensual æsthetics) is the direct perception of agreeable stimuli by the sense-organs. We may distinguish the following stages of its perfection: 1. Simple beauty (the subject of primordial æsthetics); the pleasure is evoked by the direct sense-impression of a simple form or color. Thus, for instance, a wooden sphere makes an agreeable impression as compared with a shapeless piece of wood, a crystal as compared with a stone, a sky-blue or golden-yellow spot as compared with a greenish-blue or dull-yellow one (in music a simple pure bell-tone as compared with a shrill whistle). 2. Rhythmic beauty (the subject of linear æsthetics); the æsthetic sensation is caused by the serial repetition of some simple form—for instance, a pearl necklace, a chainlike community of monera (nostoc) or of cells (diatomes, A-f, 84, figs. 7 and 9): in music a tasteful series of simple notes. 3. Actinal beauty (the subject of radial æsthetics); the pleasure is excited by the orderly arrangement of three or more homogeneous simple forms about a common centre, from which they radiate; for instance, a regular cross or a radiating star, the three counter-pieces in the iris-bloom, the four paramera in the body of the medusa, the five radial-pieces in the star-fish. The familiar experience of the kaleidoscope shows how amply the simple radial constellation of three or more simple figures may delight our æsthetic sense (in music we have the simple harmony of several simultaneous notes). 4. Symmetrical beauty (the subject of bilateral æsthetics); the pleasure is caused by the relation of a simple object to its like, the mutual completion of two similar halves (the right and left parts). When we fold a piece of paper over an ink-stain in such a way that it is equally impressed on both halves of the fold, we get a symmetrical figure which makes an agreeable impression on our natural sense of space or equilibrium.
The æsthetic impressions in indirect associational beauty (the subject of associative or symbolical æsthetics) are not only much more varied and complex than those we have described, but they also play a much more important part in the life of man and the higher animals. The anatomic condition for this higher physiological function is the elaborate construction of the brain in the higher animals and man, and particularly the development of the special association-centres (thought-centres, reason-sphere) and their differentiation from the internal sense-centres. In this millions of different neurona or psychic cells co-operate, the sensual æstheta acting in conjunction with the rational phroneta, and thus, by complex associations of ideas, much higher and more valuable functions arise. We may indicate four chief groups of this associational or indirect beauty. 5. Biological beauty (the subject of botanical and zoological æsthetics): the various forms of organisms and their organs (for instance, a flower, a butterfly) excite our æsthetic interest by association with their physiological significance, their movements, their bionomic relations, their practical use, and so on. 6. Anthropistic beauty (the subject of anthropomorphic æsthetics): man, as "the measure of all things," regards his own organism as the chief object of beauty, either morphologically considered (beauty of the whole body and its various organs—the eyes, mouth, hair, flesh-tint, etc.), or physiologically (beauty of movements or positions), or psychologically (the expression of the emotions in the physiognomy). As man transfers to the objective world this personal gratification he experiences from self-consideration, and anthropomorphically regards other beings in the light of them, this anthropistic æsthetic obtains a far-reaching significance. 7. Sexual beauty (the subject of erotic æsthetics): the pleasure is caused by the mutual attraction of the sexes. The supreme importance of love in the life of man and most other organisms, the powerful influence of the passions, the sexual selection that is associated with reproduction, have evoked an infinite number of æsthetic creations in every branch of art relating to the antithesis of man and woman. The special pleasure which is caused by the bodily and mental affinities of the sexes can be traced phylogenetically to the cell-love of the two sexual cells, or the attraction of the sperm-cell to ovum. 8. Landscape beauty (the subject of regional æsthetics): the pleasure which is caused by the sight of a fine landscape, and that finds satisfaction in modern landscape-painting, is more comprehensive than that of any other æsthetic sensations. In point of space the object is larger and richer than any of the individual objects in nature which are beautiful and interesting in themselves. The varying forms of the clouds and the water, the outline of the blue mountains in the background, the woods and meadows in the middle-distance, and the living figures in the foreground, excite in the mind of the spectator a number of different impressions which are woven together into a harmonious whole by a most elaborate association of ideas. The physiological functions of the nerve-cells in the cortex which effect these æsthetic pleasures, and the interaction of the sensual æstheta with the rational phroneta, are among the most perfect achievements of organic life. This "regional æsthetics," which has to establish scientifically the laws of landscape beauty, is much younger than the other branches of the science of the beautiful. It is very remarkable that absolute irregularity, the absence of symmetry and mathematical forms, is the first condition for the beauty of a landscape (as contrasted with architecture, and the beauty of separate objects in nature). Symmetrical arrangement of things (such as a double row of poplars or houses) or radial figures (a flower-bed or artificial wood) do not please the finer taste for landscape; they seem tedious.
A comparative survey of these eight kinds of beauty in natural forms discovers a connected development, rising from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. This scale corresponds to the evolution of the sense of beauty in man, ontogenetically from the child to the adult, phylogenetically from the savage to the civilized man and the art critic. The stem-history of man and his organs, which explains to us in anthropogeny the gradual rise from lower to higher forms by the interaction of heredity and adaptation, also finds an application in the history of æsthetics and ornamentation. It teaches us how feeling, taste, emotion, and art have been gradually evolved. On the other hand, we have corresponding to this evolutionary series the scale of the typical forms which lie at the root of the real forms of bodies both in nature and art.
Seventh Table
THE MORPHOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF ORGANISMS (1869)
Division of living things (plants and animals) into two kingdoms (protista and histona) on the ground of their cell-structure and body-structure.
| First organic kingdom: Unicellular, protista. Organisms which as a rule remain unicellularthroughoutlife (monobia), less frequently theyform loose cell communities (cœnobia) byrepeated cleavage, but never real tissues. Sub-kingdom of the protista. | |
| A. Primitive Plants (protophyta). A. Character: Plasmodomous. Unicellulars with vegetal metabolism: Carbon-assimilation. Chief Groups:I. Phytomonera Protophyta without nucleus (monera) Chromacea II. Algariæ. Unicellular algæ with nucleus, without ciliary motion: Paulotomeadiatomea. III. Algettæ.Unicellular algæ withnucleus, and with ciliary motion: Mastigota, melthallia, siphonea. | B. Primitive Animals (protozoa). B. Character: Plasmophagous. Unicellulars with animal metabolism: Albumin-assimilation. Chief Groups:I. Zoomonera. Protozoa without nucleus (monera). Bacteria. II. Sporozoa. Nucleated protozoa without mobile processes: Gregarinæ, chytridinæ. III. Rhizopoda.Nucleated protozoa with pseudopodia: Labosa, radiolaria. IV. Infusoria.Nucleated protozoa with cilia or lashes: Flagellata, ciliata. |