THE RELATIONS OF AESTHETICS 423 



The jesthetician thus demands urgently of the psychologist an 

 analysis of the nature of pleasure; and an analysis of this so- 

 called "feeling," which shall show the relation between the two 

 experiences. 



Concerning the latter problem I hope some day to have something 

 to say. 



Those of you who happen to be familiar with my published works 

 will realize that my efforts in this field in the past have been given 

 largely to the study of the former problem. My own view may be 

 succinctly stated thus. 



While all aesthetic experiences are pleasant, very evidently much 

 that we call pleasant is not aesthetic. We must look then for some 

 special differentiation of aesthetic pleasure, and this I find in its 

 relative permanency. 



This view is led up to by a preliminary study of the psychological 

 nature of pleasure. 



Pleasure I find to be one phase of a general quality Pleasure- 

 Pain which, under proper conditions, may inhere in any emphasis 

 within the field of attention, or, to use more common language, may 

 belong to any element of attention. 



Now pleasure, as we have said, is notably evanescent, but this 

 does not preclude the existence of pleasurable states of attention 

 which are relatively permanent. This permanency may be given by 

 the shifting of attention from one pleasurable element to another; 

 by the summation of very moderate pleasures, etc., etc. 



Any pleasant psychic element may become an element of an 

 aesthetic complex: and any psychic complex which displays a relative 

 permanency of pleasure is in that fact aesthetic. Our aesthetic states 

 are those in which many pleasant elements are combined to produce 

 a relative permanency of pleasure. 



Our "non-aesthetic pleasures," so called, are those states which 

 have been experienced in the past as vividly pleasant, and to which 

 the name pleasure has become indissolubly attached: but they are 

 states which do not produce a relatively permanent pleasure in 

 revival; and correctly speaking, are not pleasures at the moment 

 when they are described as such, and at the same time as non- 

 aesthetic. 



I am glad to feel that this view of mine is not discrepant from that 

 of Dr. Santayana, as given in quite different terms in his book en- 

 titled The Sense of Beauty. For what is relatively permanent has 

 the quality which I call realness; and that in experience which has 

 realness we tend to objectify. Hence it is quite natural to find Dr. 

 Santayana defining beauty as objectified pleasure. 



You will not blame me I believe for thinking that my own defini- 

 tion cuts down closer to the root of the matter than Dr. Santayana 's. 



