PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



3. 



^Esthetics 

 in the 

 eighteenth 

 century. 



Systema- 

 tised in 

 Germany. 



5. 

 Sociological 

 causes. 



his ' Scienza Nuova/ the discovery of the " Independence 

 of the reahn of ^^sthetics," though he has to admit that 

 Vico's ideas remained for a long time unknown and sterile. 



During the eighteenth century what we now term 

 ^sthetical problems or questions of taste had been 

 treated from a critical and psychological point of view 

 by several philosophical waiters in this country, among 

 whom Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Burke are 

 conspicuous. It is important to note that it is this 

 narrower psychological aspect and not the great meta- 

 physical systems of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz on 

 the Continent which renewed the philosophical interest 

 in the great problems of poetry, art, and the beautiful 

 that had played such a prominent part in the ancient 

 speculations of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. 



The speculations of German thinkers on art, poetry, 

 and the Beautiful, mark an epoch in the development of 

 modern conceptions regarding these subjects. Although 

 the external stimulus was probably given to them in 

 this region, as likewise in many others, by this country, 

 it must be admitted that they raised the subject to 

 an entirely different level, created for it a wider 

 and deeper interest, and established it once for all as 

 an integral and independent discipline in philosophical 

 teaching. The historical causes which brought this 

 about are many and complicated. The following are 

 some of the more important. 



To begin with, the theoretical interest in poetry and 

 art was closely allied in Germany with that great 

 movement under the influence of which other regions of 

 thought received a novel treatment and a new start. 



