THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF ESTHETICS 443 



aspects of life. But the collections of data do not yet render it pos- 

 sible to settle the question in what manner the rhythm of work, 

 which runs on automatically, and is controlled by the idea of an end, 

 goes over into aesthetic rhythm. 



The aesthetic complication-feelings are bound up with the products 

 of the fusion of rhythm and harmony, form and color, rhythm and 

 form (in the dance). So long as all elements of association are 

 neglected, three characteristics remain to be noted: an increasing 

 valuation of the absolute quantity, the building-up of definite 

 form-qualities (Gestaltqualitateri) , and a reconciliation or harmony 

 of differences, wherein the quantitative element is wont to be the 

 unifying, the qualitative element the separating factor. I need not, 

 however, go any further into investigations so subtle, and even now 

 merely in their beginnings. 



This entire fabric of experience, from which but a few threads 

 have been drawn out 'to view, can now take on various shadings. 

 These we refer to as the aesthetic moods, or by a less psychological 

 name, as the aesthetic categories. The ideally beautiful and the 

 sublime, the tragic and the ugly, the comic and the graceful, are 

 the best known among them. Modern science has shown most 

 interest in the study of the comic and the tragic. According to Lipps 

 the specific emotion of the comic arises in the disappointing of a 

 psychical preparation for a strong impression, by the appearance of 

 a weak one. The pleasurable character of the experience would be 

 explained by the fact that the surplus of psychical impulse, like every 

 excess of inner energy, is felt as agreeable. The tragic mood is under- 

 stood no longer as arising in fear and pity, but in pathos and wonder. 

 Its objective correlate should not be forced to the standard of a nar- 

 row ethics. The demand for guilt and expiation is being given up 

 by progressive thinkers in aesthetics; but the constituents of tragedy 

 remain fast bound to the realm of harshness, cruelty, and dissonance. 



IV 



From a period more or less remote there have existed poetics, 

 musical theory, and the science of art. To examine the presupposi- 

 tious methods and aims of these disciplines from the epistemological 

 point of view, and to sum up and compare their most important results , 

 is the task of a general science of art; this has besides, in the pro- 

 blems of artistic creation and the origin of art, and of the classification 

 of the arts and their social function, certain fields of inquiry that 

 would otherwise have no definite place. They are worked, indeed, 

 with remarkable diligence and productiveness. Most to be regretted, 

 on the other hand, is that so little energy is applied to laying the 

 epistemological foundation. 



The theory of the development of art deals with it both in its 



