THE RELATIONS OF AESTHETICS 419 



are not productive artists; he thus alternately creates and appre- 

 ciates, and with difficulty separates his diverse moods. 



We may well consider these two distinguishable mental attitudes 

 separately. 



a 



In asking what is the nature of the experience which we call the 

 sense of beauty, we are stating what may well be held to be the most 

 important problem in aesthetics that is presented to the psychologist. 



Man is practical before he deals with theory, and his first theo- 

 retical questionings are aroused by practical demands in connection 

 with his failures to reach the goal toward w r hich he strives. The de- 

 velopment of modern aesthetic theory has in the main quite naively 

 followed this course, and we may properly consider first the psycho- 

 logical inquiries which seem to have the most direct bearing upon 

 practical questions. 



The artist asks why his efforts so often fail, and he is led to inquire 

 what are the qualities in his work which he so often misses, but now 

 and again gains with the resulting attainment of beauty. 



It is thus that we naturally find the aesthetician appealing to the 

 psychologist, asking him what special types of impression yield 

 beauty, what special characteristics of our mental states involve the 

 fullest aesthetic experience. 



The psychologist is naturally first led to consider certain striking 

 relations found within the beautiful object which impresses us, and 

 to inquire into the nature of the psychic functioning which is in- 

 volved with the impressions thus given. He thus comes to consider 

 the relations of the lineal parts of pleasing plane-surface figures; and 

 the study of these relations has given to us such investigations as 

 the notable ones of Fechner in respect to the "Golden Section," 

 which have been supplemented by the more rigid tests of Dr. Witmer 

 and Doctors Haines and Davies in our own day. In similar manner 

 the basis of the beauty found in symmetry and in order, and the 

 problems related to rhythm, have been closely studied, especially 

 in late years by Lipps; and the fundamental principles of tonal 

 relation, and of melodic succession, by Helmholtz, Stumpf, and 

 later writers. 



But all these studies of the striking characteristics found in the 

 object are for the psychologist necessarily involved with the study 

 of the distinctly subjective accompaniments in the sense of beauty 

 aroused by the objective forms thus brought to our attention, and 

 he is led to dwell upon the active part the mind takes in connection 

 with aesthetic appreciation. We see this tendency in Berenson's 

 emphasis, and perhaps on the whole over-emphasis, of the import- 

 ance of the interpretation of works of art, in the group of what I 

 would call the arts of sight, in terms of the tactile sensibilities. But 



