OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 27 



sophers to whom I referred above, such as Shaftesbury is. 



Shaftesbury 



and Hutcheson, two questions presented themselves, and 



Hutcheson. 



First, the question as to the origin, in the human 

 soul, of the distinction which we make between the 

 Beautiful and its opposite ; and, secondly, the further 

 question : What distinguishes beautiful things from their 

 opposite ? The former was a psychological, the latter 

 a metaphysical, question. This distinction, which deals 

 with the psychological origin of the sensations of beauty 

 on the one side and with the definition of beauty on 

 the other the subjective and the objective aspect of 

 beauty, runs parallel with a similar treatment of the 

 ethical problem which also divided itself into the two 

 questions : How does the moral judgment arise in the 

 human soul ? and, What is the criterion of goodness ? 

 In the two cases we may say that a distinction was made 

 between the questions as to the moral or sesthetical 

 sense possessed by human beings and the question as to 

 the criterion of the good and the beautiful. The two 

 discussions, that referring to the beautiful or matters of 

 taste and that referring to the good or matters of duty 

 and obligation, were frequently mixed up, a clear dis- 

 tinction between the morally and the resthetically beauti- 

 ful being overlooked or wellnigh extinguished. This 

 led to a kind of sestheticism in morals and to moralising 

 in matters of taste, which did much havoc, especially 

 among many of the German writers of the 'Aufklarung.' 

 It was one of Kant's merits to have put an end to 

 this sensualism and sestheticism in morals, and to have 

 emphasised again the stern sense of duty not only as 

 the foundation of morality but also as the most im- 



