OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 5 



Be this as it may, writings about art, whether purely 

 critical or scientific or metaphysical, sprang up in 

 great number about the end of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, and have continued to increase in quantity and 

 bulk all through the nineteenth century ; pre-eminently 

 in Germany, but latterly also in the other countries of 

 Western and Southern Europe. 



The term " Esthetic " was first introduced, as de- 2. 



p 1 -r> • o 1 '^'^^ term 



noting a theory of the Beautiful or a treatise on Art, by -Esthetic 

 the Leibnizian professor, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, 

 in his ' ^sthetica,' which was published, in Latin, in the 

 year 1750. He had already used the term in an earlier 

 thesis from the year 1735. Thirty years later Kant 

 introduced the same term in a larger sense, co-ordinating 

 in the first of his ' Critiques ' the word " J^^sthetic " with 

 the word " Logic," as referring respectively to the two 

 sides of the intellectual process — viz., perception and con- 

 ception. It has, however, been correctly remarked that, 

 as Baumgarten's treatise contained nothing new, except 

 the term which he invented, and as this term itself did 

 not become general till much later, his contribution to 

 the solution of the ffisthetical problem or the problem of 

 the Beautiful was not in any way of much importance. 

 Quite recently the Italian philosopher, Benedetto Croce, 

 has claimed for his countryman, Giambattista Vico, in 



on Art and Literature in France subjective thought which, in the 



and, to a large extent also, in this plan of this History, should form 



country. Some of these writings an independent third section. That , 



are highly original and important, a large portion of the most valu- 



indicating sometimes quite novel able methodical — philosophical and 



aspects of thought. As their scientific — thought has its origin in 



authors, however, have rarelj^ de- this region is a truth with which 



fined their method, they belong to I desire to impress my readers, 

 the great region of individual or 



