CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGMENT 189 



process of comprehension is opposed to that of the productive process; both 

 cannot be carried on at the same time and together. . . . The science of nature 

 teaches us, as Kant put it, "to spell out phenomena, in order to be able to 

 read them as experiences"; the science of culture teaches us to interpret sym- 

 bols in order to decipher the contents which are locked up in them — in order 

 to make visible again the life whence they had originally sprung' 

 (P- 95. S. J. K.). 



"7 See Patrick Mullahy, Oedipus Myth and Complex^ which brings together in 

 one volume the Sophoclean trilogy and the various psychoanalytic inter- 

 pretations of the Oedipus myth. 



8 Thus, Herbert Read stresses the aesthetic distinctiveness of the artist's 

 will-to-form as an 'act of creative will', but also asserts the universality of his 

 intuitions: 'No one will deny the profound inter-relation of artist and com- 

 munity. The artist depends on the community — takes his tone, his tempo, his 

 intensity from the society of which he is a member. But the individual character 

 of the artist's work depends on more than these: it depends on a definite will- 

 to-form which is a reflection of the artist's personality, and there is no signi- 

 ficant art without this act of creative will. This might seem to involve us in a 

 contradiction. If art is not entirely the product of surrounding circumstances, 

 and is the expression of an individual will, how can we explain the striking 

 similarity of works of art belonging to distinct periods of history? 



'The paradox can only be explained metaphysically. The ultimate values of 

 art transcend the individual and his time and circumstance. They express an 

 ideal proportion or harmony which the artist can grasp only in virtue of his intuitive powers. 

 . . . The true artist is indifferent to the materials and conditions imposed upon 

 him. He accepts any conditions, so long as they express his will-to-form. Then 

 in the wider mutations of history his efforts are magnified or diminished, taken 

 up or dismissed, by forces which he cannot predict, and which have very little 

 to do with the values of which he is the exponent. It is his faith that those values 

 are nevertheless among the eternal attributes of humanity.' {The Meaning of 

 Art, pp. 223-224, our italics.) 



9 Personal Equation, p. 108. 



10 Cf. our Chapter X, 'What Does a Critic Analyze?' 



11 In Greene {op. cit.). Part II treats 'Artistic Form', Part III treats 'Artistic 

 Content'. 



12 Cf. Munro, op. cit., on 'Style in the Arts'. 



13 Cf. our Chapter XII, 'Type Analysis in Literature and Art', and Chapter 

 XI, passim. 



14 Lectures, First Series, p. 76. 



15 Op. cit., p. 248 (from Biographia Literaria, Chapter XIV). 



16 V. & C, II, 46-47. 



17 Consider, by way of comparison, the remarks on art of another scientific 

 philosopher who has done much to domesticate the organic principle in modern 

 thought, A. N. Whitehead. These occur in the context of a discussion of the 

 need for a balance betw^een the general and the special in education, as one of 

 the 'Requisites for Social Progress': '. . . There is no substitute for the direct 

 perception of the concrete achievement of a thing in its actuality. We want 

 concrete fact with a high light thrown on what is relevant to its preciousness. 

 What I mean is art and aesthetic education. . . . We must foster the creative 



