THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF ESTHETICS 69 



To the writer these facts and reflections seem very strong evidence 

 that the principles of esthetics, like those of the psychology from which 

 they spring, are fundamentally an outgrowth of physiological and 

 anatomical factors and phenomena. The belief seems to prevail among 

 psychologists that the general states of pleasure and pain are referable 

 to functional nutritive metabolisms of the sensory apparatus which, on 

 the one hand, tend to restore and, on the other, to destroy it. 



There is experimental evidence that the emotion of fear and the 

 sensations of pain, at least the sensations resulting from trauma, have 

 a physical basis, manifested by histological alterations in the nerve cells 

 of the brain. 11 It might be plausibly argued that the scheme of useful- 

 ness which is the basis of organic evolution accounts for the origin and 

 development of an esthetic sense. 



But the peculiar mechanical substratum of the esthetic faculty as 

 far as it is related to the visual apparatus seems to be seated in idiosyn- 

 crasies of the sense organ which have, at first view, no important re- 

 lation to its usefulness as a physical instrument; which, on the con- 

 trary, would seem to be impediments to the perfection of its main 

 function. This is suggestive of the thought of Herbert Spencer that 

 the distinguishing mark of esthetic sentiments is their separableness 

 from life-serving functions. 



Curious it is, and still stranger if a matter of chance, that where the 

 utility of a sense organ ends its glory may begin. 



11 Geo. W. Crile, " Phylogenetic Association in Eelation to Certain Medical 

 Problems," Ether Day address, Mass. Genl. Hosp., October 15, 1910. 



