270 THE FACT OF BEAUTY 



For double the vision my eyes do see, 

 And a double vision is always with me, 

 With my inward eye, 'tis an old man grey, 

 With my outward a thistle across my way." 



While venturing to lay some emphasis on the objectivity 

 of beauty and on the physiological as well as psychological 

 side of the aesthetic emotion, we recognise that the higher 

 factors may come to mean much more than the primary ones. 

 As Professor Bosanquet says, " Man is not civilised, aestheti- 

 cally, till he has learned to value the semblance above the real- 

 ity. It is indeed, as we shall see, in one sense the higher 

 reality." 



A third factor in our aesthetic delight is conceptual. Ex- 

 perts maintain that nothing which does not appear can count 

 in the aesthetic impression, but it seems to us impossible to 

 shut off the effect of associations and the influence of con- 

 cepts on percepts. There is, for instance, the influence of 

 the concept of adaptiveness which is always in the back- 

 ground of the naturalist's mind, as is, indeed, true of most 

 of us. That thoughtful physiologist, Sir John Burdon 

 Sanderson, was firmly persuaded that an appreciation of 

 adaptiveness bulks very largely in our aesthetic enjoyment 

 of animal form and structure. Canon Hannay speaks of the 

 delight of watching the flight of birds : " Above the rocks 

 hovered the gulls with outstretched wings. Sometimes they 

 slid down the wind till they almost touched the sea. Then 

 with slow strong beatings of their wings they rose high again, 

 slanted seaward against the breeze, swept in wide circles, 

 lazily indifferent as it seemed to destination, but bent on 

 satisfying themselves with exquisite smooth motion." As 

 we watch this everyday sight we have purely aesthetic ad- 

 miration of the grace of the creatures and of the music 



