OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 123 



articulated sound capable of the expression of thought," ^ 

 and although Humboldt does not penetrate to the really 

 correct view which identifies language and art, he never- 

 theless approaches that idea. Humboldt's pupil, Stein- 

 thal, notices clearly the linguistic as distinguished from 

 the logical process, maintaining that language produces 

 its forms independently of logic, and that the problem 

 of the origin of language is identical with that of the 

 nature of language. There is no " real difference be- 

 tween the original creation of language and that which 

 repeats itself daily." But Signor Croce also notices how 

 more recent writers on the philosophy of language, " con- 

 founding the historical appearance with the nature and 

 internal genesis of language, fail to recognise the spiritual 

 nature both of language and art." ^ 



As this conception of art as a larger language has not 69. 



Art a larger 



so far held a prominent position in philosophical thought, language. 

 and as it discards altogether the metaphysical problem 

 of the Beautiful, with which we have been occupied in 

 this chapter, it seems sufficient to have drawn attention 

 to its gradual appearance, implicitly rather than ex- 

 plicitly, in the writings of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, 

 and others. So far as the metaphysical problem itself 

 is concerned, we may now try to sum up and answer the 

 question : What has been its fate in the course of the 

 nineteenth century ? 



The first answer we have to give to this question is 

 that the philosophical problem of the Beautiful — i.e., 

 the question regarding its essence and that regarding its 



^ Quoted from Humboldt's tract, ; menschlichen Sprachbaues,' p. 327. 

 ' Ueber die Verschiedenheit des | '^ Ibid., p. 331. 



