98 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



idea, much dwelt upon by the latter, received a fuller ex- 

 pression in Euskin's expositions than it had received 

 in Goethe, Hegel, or Schelling. This is the idea of the 

 characteristic in nature. In both cases the aim was 

 to penetrate to the underlying thought which enlivens 

 genuine artistic creation — i.e., the creation of the artistic 

 or poetical genius. Now, both schools of art criticism — 

 that surrounding Goethe in Germany, and that centred 

 in Euskin in England — founded their analysis and de- 

 ductions largely, though not wholly, upon the creations 

 of contemporary art.^ Of the two, the great world of 



part), ' Outlines of the History 

 of Esthetics ' (1891). In contra- 

 distinction to the work of Prof. 

 Bosanquet and the critical history 

 of modern aesthetics, which forms 

 the larger portion of Signer Croce's 

 work referred to above (p. 15), 

 Prof. Knight treats at greater 

 length of aesthetics in France 

 and Britain than of aesthetics 

 in Germany. The fact that he 

 comprises under the term Esthetics 

 not only the philosophical discus- 

 sion of the problem of beauty and 

 the Beautiful, but emphasises with 

 Jouffroy (p. 114) the existence of 

 a science of the Beautiful as dis- 

 tinguished from the philosophy, 

 and that he includes in his account 

 much that is quite unsystematic, 

 belonging to what the French 

 term Critique and English writers 

 Criticism, gives to his Manual a 

 special value. It may counteract 

 a partiality for the exclusively 

 metaphysical treatment of the 

 subject, which starts with a def- 

 inition of beauty or of art, and 

 it may open the eyes of students 

 — especially in Germany, where 

 Esthetics has frequently been con- 

 sidered to be peculiarly a German 

 science — to the enormous mass of 

 valuable thought on subjects of 



beauty and the beautiful which ig 

 scattered in the general polite 

 literatures of modern times all 

 over Europe. And in this respect 

 his] Manual has not become super- 

 fluous through the publication of 

 Bosanquet's larger work, as he 

 himself modestly suggests it might. 

 For those who, like myself, search 

 for the beginnings of philosophical 

 thought in the general litera- 

 ture, the poetry, and the spiritual 

 writings of individual, and fre- 

 quently secluded, thinkers, Knight's 

 Manual would prove a very useful 

 guide on their paths of explora- 

 tion. 



^ It is well to remark that Ger- 

 man .Esthetics, with the exception 

 of Kant, started by a study of the 

 classic in VVinckelmann, enlarging 

 its field of view by taking in the 

 art of the Renaissance, that of 

 Shakespeare and that of other 

 periods and nations, gradually 

 recognising the originality and 

 peculiar breadth and depth of 

 Goethe's creations. On the other 

 side, we learn from the biographer 

 of Ruskin that the aesthetical and 

 historical interest of Ruskin began, 

 as it were, with what was near at 

 hand, and underwent considerable 

 change and enlargement in the 



