OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 113 



comprehensive system of thought or life. Accordingly 6 2. 

 it has been not incorrectly remarked by some French 



tics. 



critics, that with Guyau a new epoch begins in the 

 history of aesthetics. The first epoch began with Plato : 

 his aesthetics are the aesthetics of the Ideal ; the second 

 began with Kant : his aesthetics are the aesthetics of 

 Perception ; the third starts with Guyau : his aesthetics 

 are the aesthetics of social sympathy. 1 Having de- 

 stroyed, in two separate works, the sociological value of 

 religion as well as of morals in the generally accepted 

 sense of the terms, Guyau exalts the importance of the 

 Beautiful and of Art inasmuch as it creates social sym- 

 pathy and produces a community of feeling and sentiment. 

 Without art the synergic sociale would be incomplete ; 

 we might have a community of ideas, an intellectual 

 alliance of human beings this being the object of meta- 

 physics of which religion is merely a figurative and 

 imaginative form ; or we might have a unity of practical 

 aims and efforts this is the task and object of morality ; 

 but we should not have a community of feeling and 

 sentiment. To give the latter is the aim of art; it 

 adds to the synergic sociale the sympathie sociale. Thus 

 the education of the intellect through science and phil- 

 osophy, the education of the will through morals, and the 

 education of the feelings through art, go hand in hand, 

 furthering the same end viz., co-operation and harmony 

 in human society. 



In the same degree as the doctrinal religion of the 

 churches and the ethical code of moral rigorists are 

 destroyed, the importance of Art and of the Beautiful 



1 See B. Croce, ' Esth^tique,' p. 399. 

 VOL. IV. H 



