121 



AERONAUTICS. 



JESTHETICS. 



122 



obtained by having wind at various velocities acting upon the fixed 

 plate. Suppose that the pencil is one inch from the top of the paper 

 when the wind is blowing at the rate of ten miles an hour, two inches 

 when it is blowing at the rate of twenty miles an hour, and so on, and 

 that the paper is moving at the rate of one inch an hour, then every 

 square inch of surface included between the curve of force and the top 

 of the paper denotes that ten lineal miles of air have blown over the 

 instrument ; so that by measuring the area of any portion of this 

 surface included between any two ordinates, the absolute integral is 

 obtained in miles or the number of miles of air that have passed over 

 the place during the period in which that portion of the curve was 

 traced. Hence absolute values in miles may be assigned to all the 

 lines which form any type of wind, and measuring by the scale thus 

 obtained the length of the resultant or the line which joins the two 

 ends of the type, we obtain not only the direction but also the extent 

 in miles of the entire movement of air produced by the combined effect 

 of all the winds that have blown during the period for which the type 

 was constructed. " For instance, it was found that the resultant of all 

 the winds that blew over Greenwich, during 1841, was equivalent to 

 the passage of 47,900 miles of air towards E. 28 30' N. In the same 

 way the direction of the resultant for 1842 was found to be E. 27 N., 

 and it* length 36,750 miles. By dividing these numbers by the number 

 of hours in a year, we see that the total effect of the wind in 1841 was 

 equivalent to a constant current towards E. 28 30' N., at the rate of 

 5'4 miles an hour; and in 1842 towards E. 27 N., at the rate of 4'2 

 miles an hour ; or, in other words, as if there had blown during these 

 two years a constant wind from W.S.W.JS. at 4J miles an hour." The 

 average velocity of the wind at Greenwich during 1841 was 18'7, and 

 during 1842 18'3 miles an hour, while the whole integrals of wind for 

 those years, as shown by the length of their type-line measured along 

 all its windingsjwas in 1841 167,322 miles, and in 1842, 159,950 miles ; 

 showing that the whole movement of the air in this country, is about 

 four times as great as its resultant or effective movement. 



The resultant for any given period may, however, be obtained without 

 constructing such a type as Fig. 3. Such a figure maybe simplified by 



fig 4. 



ing and Humming up all the integrals that lielong to the same 

 v.-ind, and then drawing lines proportional to the 16 or 32 sums thus 

 i .btained, when, by arranging them in their proper directions, we may get 

 the same resultant as if the whole type had been drawn. The figure 

 may be still further simplified by taking the difference between parallel 

 lines, or subtracting each non-effective wind, or each one that is less 

 than its opp^itc from that opposite, and retaining only the remainder ; 

 thus, Fig 4 conUins all the effective lines of Fig. 3, and yet by a great 

 Caving of labour gives the direction and length of resultant. 



The resultant may also be found by calculation ; but for the method 



f fining so we refer to Sir W. Snow Harris's 'Report on the Working of 



\Vhewell'gand Osier's Anemometers, presented to the British Association 



for 1844,' and also to the ' Reports of the Meteorological Observatory 



t Greenwich. 'The working of Dr. Robinson's Anemometer at the Kew 



Observatory also presents some points of interest, which will be noticed 



under ANEMOMETER. We may also refer to Sir John Herschel's able 



ROI.OGV, recently published in the new edition of the 



;<-n. 



AKROHAUTK 



ABBOOTATICS. {[BALLOON.] 

 AEROSTATION. ) 



HKTICS (. /'.,///, /;/> in the designation given by Gennai 



riters to a branch of philo.i<ip|jii;al inquiry, the object of which is ; 



philosophical theory of the beautiful, or, more definitely expressed, a 



philosophy of itryand the fine arts, and which has by them been 



d to the rank of a separate science. The word ^sthetii: is derived 



rom the Greek verb aiVOcmi.uai I feel, or / am sensible, and was first 

 ised as a scientific term by Alexander Bauingarten, a disciple of Chris- 

 iau Wolf, who in his '^Esthetica' (Frankfort, 1750-1758, 2 vols. 8vo.) 

 iousidered beauty as a given property of objects, of which we are 

 ' becoming sensible." We perceive beauty, says Baumgarten, wherever 

 ve meet with perfection manifested in reality, and a thing is perfect if 

 t is adequate to its notion : beauty, accordingly, is the perfectness of 

 an object manifested in its appearance. The impulse to a deeper 

 research into the essence of beauty was given by Wiukelmann, who, 

 without embodying his views in a regular system, developed them 

 chiefly in reviewing and appreciating the remains of ancient sculpture. 

 He adopted neither Baumgarten's " adequateness of an object to its 

 lotion," nor the material principle of pleasing the senses, which had 

 jeen proposed in various times by other authors, and more elaborately 

 evolved by Edmund Burke as the criterion of beauty ; but considered 

 Jie idea of beauty as dwelling in the divine mind, and as passing over 

 Ironi that source into individual objects. Kant denied the possibility 

 of a strict science of beauty, inasmuch as beauty, according to him, is 

 not a property of objects, but has its origin in the disposition of our 

 mental faculties. We presuppose, says he, that some notion is con- 

 tained in the apparent object, though we are unable abstractedly to 

 express that notion ; we assume that a tendency towards some purpose 

 das presided over the formation of the manifold variety displayed 

 before us, though we cannot precisely define that purpose, and thi.s 

 supposition or assumption forms the basis of our perception of beauty. 

 Schelling's view of beauty and art it is difficult to state concisely. His 

 ' System of Transcendental Idealism,' establishes the principle, that 

 mind and nature, or conscious and unconscious existence, are primarily 

 identical ; that the laws discoverable in nature must accordingly be 

 traceable to the laws of consciousness, whilst, rice rersd, the laws of 

 consciousness must admit of being recognised as being likewise 

 the laws of nature : in the divine mind both exist in absolute 

 identity. The artist is to produce in his mind an intellectual 

 intuition analogous to this identity, and the expression which he 

 gives to the identity thus arrived at, is the work of art. This theory 

 was to some extent opposed by one of his most eminent scholars, 

 Heydenreich, who regarded the recognition of beauty or taste, as 

 dependent on an original disposition or condition of the mind, which, 

 elevated to a science, might educe canons of taste, at least so far as 

 related to the fitness of objects for giving pleasure or displeasure, or 

 as objects generally or necessarily considered as pleasing ; and which 

 might therefore be properly called icsthetical Laws. Beauty, .according 

 to Schelling, is that manifestation of the principle of art where the 

 infinite appears contained in or represented by the finite, or where, in 

 the very object, the difference between the conscious and the uncon- 

 scious (mind and nature) is annulled. 



But this formal definition of beauty, an objectiveness without the 

 representation of the object, was insufficient to satisfy the growing 

 desire for a more living and actual notion of the beautiful than that 

 which Kant seemed to recognise. The widening of the domain of art 

 through the exertions of men of genius made this want constantly 

 more felt. Gothe, Schiller, Lessing, Heinse, and others, partly through 

 their poetical works, and partly through their discussions of the prin- 

 ciples of poetry and art, gave a wider extent and a more genial feeling 

 U> the science, as it is called. The two Schlegels (but especially 

 Friedrich Schlegel, in his ' Philosophy of Life," lecture xii. and in his 

 various papers on Art, first began to form these views into a system, 

 .and they were followed by Solger, Trahndorff, and Lomniatsch, who 

 published ' Die Wissenschaft des Ideals, oder der Lehre vom Schouen,' 

 at Berlin in 1835. Hegel's views as to aesthetics were first published, 

 after his death, by Hotho, in 1835-1838, and they are distinguished by 

 the vast and varied richness of his illustrations, whilst they possess in 

 full measure his obscurity of expression. Hegel considers the Beautiful 

 as a representation of the Absolute, and indeed, as that which has only 

 philosophy and religion above it. Hegel's ' jEsthetik,' published from 

 his lectures by Hotho (Werke, b. 10), is divided into three parts : 



1. The Idea of the Beautiful, or the Ideal. 



2. The development of the Ideal in the peculiar forms of the Beau- 

 tiful in the Fine Arts Classical and Romantic Art. 



3. The system of the individual Arts ; concluding with Poetry, 

 classical and romantic. 



Hegel says, " It is an error to suppose that the Beautiful because it 

 is beautiful is an idea not to be seized and apprehended, but is to 

 remain, therefore, for the thought an intangible object." The Beautiful 

 is only another name for the True (and Schiller, in like manner, wished 

 it were possible " to banish the notion, and even the very word Beauty 

 from use, and, as is right, put Truth, in its complete sense, in its 

 place.") 



The finite spirit feels an irrepressible desire for the true, and 

 laboriously attains thereby to its infinity. This truth of the finite 

 spirit is the absolute. 



This is the basis 'for the beautiful in Art, is neither the logical idea, 

 the absolute notion as it is developed in the pure element of thought, 

 nor the merely natural idea, but it belongs to the internal or spiritual 

 dominion, without, however, being fixed by the perceptions and acts of 

 the finite spirit. 



Forms divide themselves into three classes : 1. A direct and, 

 therefore, a sensible (sinnlichen) perception, a knowledge of the form 



