104 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



the narrower sense — and those which are inevitably 

 accompanied by the feeling of obligation, namely, the 

 ethical judgments. 



From this we see that Herbart does not approve 

 of the divisions and definitions which were introduced 

 by Kant. Kant had employed the practical principle, 

 which he termed the Categorical Imperative, to define 

 for practical if not for theoretical purposes the essence 

 of the truly Eeal. This had been further elaborated by 

 Fichte, who placed the active principle at the entrance 

 of his system. Combined with Kant's doctrine that all 

 empirical knowledge refers only to appearance and not 

 to the truly Keal, this meant that the principle of action 

 or the rule of practice would necessarily turn out to be 

 a purely formal and abstract precept without any in- 

 telligible sense or meaning through which this abstract 

 principle recommends itself to our approval. Against 

 this Herbart maintains that the practical — i.e., the 

 sesthetical and the ethical — has our approval not through 

 its form but through its content, inasmuch as it con- 

 tains something which is valuable in our estimation. 



The sesthetical view of Herbart has been stigmatised 

 as formal ^ in opposition to the metaphysical conception 



' Herbart proposed to investigate 

 both Eesthetical and moral questions 

 by a combined process of analysis 

 and synthesis not unlike, and no 

 doubt influenced by, similar dis- 

 cussions which abound in the philo- 

 sophical literatui-e of this country 

 since the time of Shaftesbury. 

 Considering that the epithet of the 

 Beautiful belongs only to the re- 

 lations of single sensuous elements 

 which, in themselves, do not de- 

 serve this epithet, Herbart aimed 



at discovering those fundamental 

 relations which call forth jesthetical 

 approval, and which in their com- 

 bination produce the very comjilex 

 works of nature and art forming 

 the world of the Beautiful. His 

 aesthetics, therefore, proposed to 

 take, what Fechner (' Vorschule der 

 ^Esthetik,' introduction) more em- 

 phatically urged, a way "from be- 

 low " in contradistinction to the 

 metaphysical way "from above." 

 The latter starting from a compre- 



