OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 



97 



ideal or spiritual attributes, which once clung even to 

 the scientific use of the words cause and effect, and which 

 common-sense still retains, were gradually stripped from 

 the formula by a lengthened process of logical analysis 

 which, in this country at least, started with Mill's 

 ' Logic' 



It was therefore highly significant and valuable that 

 at the same time a line of reasoning on things natural 

 should be started which aimed at pointing out and 

 analysing the artistic as distinguished from the scientific 

 aspect and representation.^ This analysis was in the 

 main inductively carried out through a study of the 

 numerous works of the new school of landscape painters 

 which had sprung up in this country in the first half of 

 the century. There does not seem to exist any well- 

 defined historical connection between discussions on the 

 Beautiful in the writings of Euskin and those of the 

 German Idealists a generation before him. But it has 

 been pointed out in the only comprehensive history of 

 -Esthetics ^ which British thought has produced that an 



^ We have seen {supra, vol. hi. 

 p. 378 sqq.) that Mill himself felt 

 the necessity of counteracting what 

 we should now term the purely 

 mechanical view of the world and 

 life by a poetical view which he, 

 with remarkable insight, found im- 

 pressively contained in the poetry 

 of Wordsworth. I am not aware 

 that Mill took special or adequate 

 notice of the writings of Ruskin, 

 which probably were for his taste 

 deficient in an understanding and 

 appreciation of the scientific spirit. 

 I can, however, remember no trace 

 in Mill's writings of a view of 

 poetry and art akin to that of 

 Lange or Vaihinger. The emo- 



VOL. IV. 



tional side of human nature was 

 to Mill, as it was also to Renou- 

 vier, a definite reality, though it 

 does not appear as if he ever 

 clearly defined to himself the im- 

 plications which such a view carries 

 with it. 



'•^ Bernard Bosanquet, ' History 

 of .Esthetic' (2nd ed., 1904). A 

 very useful and lucid historical 

 account of the various theories 

 of the Beautiful in ancient and 

 modern times, and prominently 

 also in literatures which the pres- 

 ent History of Thought has been 

 obliged to exclude from its survey, 

 is to be found in Prof. Wm. Knight's 

 'Philosophy of the Beautiful' (1st 



G 



