440 AESTHETICS 



phrase or thesis. Still, nothing is gained by such a general formula 

 in presence of the richness of the reality; and just as little as an 

 exhaustive treatment would have to prove by the concise ex- 

 positron of a single method for our science. 



The specially approved method of procedure at the present day 

 is that of psychological description and explanation. It seems, 

 indeed, very natural to see in psychical processes the real subject- 

 matter of aesthetics, and in psychology, accordingly, the science to 

 which it is subordinate. Some philosophers, however, among 

 whom I may instance Jonas Cohn, wish to make of aesthetics a 

 science of values, and demand that on the basis of this pretension 

 the mutually contradictory judgments of taste and types of art be 

 tried and tested. They will have no mere descriptive and explan- 

 atory aesthetics, but a normative, precept-giving science. In truth, 

 the opposition of the schools is complete at every point; in the 

 writings of Volkelt and Groos we have the proof of it. 



Ill 



The special research in the narrower field of aesthetics is at present 

 almost entirely of the psychological type. Our survey can touch 

 upon only the salient points. 



The aim of the extended and highly detailed study consists in 

 fixating by means of psychological analysis the course of develop- 

 ment, the effective elements, and the various sub-species of the 

 aesthetic experience. Certain philosophers seek a point of departure 

 for this undertaking in the aesthetic object. Thus Volkelt's system 

 of aesthetics finds, for the chief elements of the aesthetic enjoyment, 

 corresponding features in the object; in the special field of poetry 

 Dilthey has undertaken an analysis along the same lines. For the 

 most part, however, such dissection is limited to the subjective side. 

 In Wundt's psychology, for instance, the aesthetic state of mind is 

 shown to be built up of sense-feelings, feelings from perceptions, in- 

 tellectual and emotional excitements; the most important, that is 

 to say, the pivotal feelings, which are bound up with space- and 

 time-relations, become in turn the condition and support of the 

 higher emotions, because they lead over from the field of sense to 

 that of the logical and emotional. 



If we limit ourselves to the psychological, we must first ask in what 

 order the elements of the aesthetic impression are wont to follow 

 each other. The phases of this development, however, are as yet not 

 completely studied, although they are of great significance for the 

 differences in enjoyment. The second problem concerns the con- 

 stitution (taken as timeless) of the experience. All formulas which 

 attempt to fix in two words the totality of the impression fail com- 



