OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 115 



or suggests the realisation, of the ideal state of things. 

 Lotze would see the complete realisation if a view of 

 the totality of things were given to us ; Guyau sees it in 

 the process of evolution in time. 



Guyau is one of the last original writers on Esthetics 

 who have attempted to solve the philosophical problem of 

 the Beautiful. He has tried to give an answer to the 

 two main philosophical questions : What is the essence of 

 the Beautiful, be it in nature or in art ? and further : 

 What position does the Beautiful occupy in the complete 

 scheme of human interests ? How is it related to 

 truth (the problem of Knowledge), to the actual (the 

 problem of Eeality), and to that which ought to be (the 

 problem of the Good) ? He has also made an attempt 

 to reduce these different aspects to a common term, to 

 unite them in one fundamental conception. This funda- 

 mental conception with Guyau is the principle of life : 

 but life in a spiritual, not in a merely physical sense. It 

 is an expression for the same immanent power which, in 

 the idealistic school of thought, goes variously under 

 other terms, such as mind, thought, or idea. We may 

 therefore say that he has approached the solution of the 

 highest philosophical problem, the problem of Eeality. 

 To this I shall revert again, in a later chapter, which 

 will deal with the problem of the Spirit. 



Being an evolutionist, Guyau tries to arrive at an 

 understanding of the highest manifestations of the pro- 

 pelling force or power which pervades everything by 

 fastening upon a phenomenon which we see everywhere 

 in nature, and of which we know something by actual 

 observation, by outer and inner experience : the familiar 



