Kant's Critique of aesthetic judgement

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KANTS AESTHETICS

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE

KANT’S CRITIQUE OF
AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

TRANSLATED, WITH SEVEN INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS
NOTES, AND ANALYTICAL INDEX

BY

JAMES CREED MEREDITH

M.A. (N.U.I.), SEN. MOD. (T.c.D.)

Yea, what were mighty Nature’s self?
Her features, could they win us,
Unhelped by the poetic voice
That hourly speaks within us?
WORDSWORTH.

OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
IgII

KB

PREFACE

Ir seems a strange fact that the works which have exerted
the greatest and most permanent influence are those of which
it is most difficult to give a final and conclusive interpretation.
Is it that the philosophic mind merely amuses itself looking
for the answers to riddles the solucon of which destroys the
interest, so that it is not so much misinterpretation as explana-
tion that great philosophers have to fear? Or is it that
philosophers propose questions which depend upon higher
categories than those of common understanding, with the
natural resuit that their point of view is but imperfectly
comprehended by lesser minds? Or is it simply that the
works that have exerted most influence are those which are
most comprehensive and many-sided, and that different critics
seize upon different aspects of the whole, and throw the
emphasis on different points ?

It is not necessary to attempt to answer these questions
generally, or further than affects Kant’s Aesthetics. Certainly
no work has exerted an equal influence on the subsequent
history of aesthetics, and yet it has been most variously
interpreted. However, while critics differ as to Kant
meaning on many essential points, they seem to be mostly
agreed that the chief source of strength in the work lies in its
comprehensiveness and its method. How they have been
able to arrive at this conclusion in the face of their own
criticisms, is a different matter. For they have for the most
part attempted to show that the work as a whole involves an
important modification of Kant’s fundamental position of
critical idealism, and that in its different parts it betrays
considerable hesitation and vacillation of opinion on vital
questions, and, moreover, frequently falls into flagrant incon-
sistency.

vi Preface

The present volume, in seeking to give some assistance to
students in so much of Kant’s Critigue of Judgement as deals
with the problems of aesthetics, aims particularly at suggesting
interpretations which may help to free Kant’s argument from
such charges—-without, however, in any way implying that
Kant is likely to be followed entirely on all points on which
his meaning is understood.
Certainly the comprehensiveness of Kant’s account is one of
its most striking features. Its chief merit does not lie in the
number of interesting and illuminating observations which are
made—for in the great majority of these Kant was anticipated
' —but in the number of different points of view which are co-

ordinated, and the divergent rays of thought which are brought
‘into a common focus. It is not so much Kant’s views on this
or that question that are calculated to impress the reader, as
their systematic connexion, and the feeling that behind each of
them lies the entire strength of his whole critical philosophy.
It is this that makes a sympathetic critic especially anxious to
reconcile apparent inconsistency between positions of any
importance.

Kant is, further, frequently charged with begging the point
at issue. But he neither begged the points which most of his
critics suppose to be those in issue, nor did he attempt to
prove them in the usual manner. The originality of his method
consisted in the way in which he changed the issue from
a question of fact and actuality to one of mere possibility. Thus
in his aesthetics he never begged the question that there are
pure aesthetic judgements in the peculiar sense in which he
uses the term. He adopted the course of formulating the
conception of a pure aesthetic judgement and of proving that
such a judgement is possible. If it was objected that no one
had ever laid down a pure aesthetic judgement as conceived
by him, then he was willing to take the credit of having
invented such judgements. It would not, for instance, affect
his argument if we were to suppose, let us say, that Whistler

Preface vii

was the first artist that painted a picture deliberately addressed
to a pure aesthetic judgement as defined in the Analytic of
the Beautiful,

But the above is only the most striking and significant
feature of Kant’s method. In the elaboration of details, and
even the construction of the edifice which he raised on the
original foundations laid down, he was able, like some others
among the greatest philosophers, to strike upon a method
which endowed his works with a sort of independent life that
enabled them to grow and develop in import after quitting his-
hands. The secret of this method seems to lie in the composi-
tion itself taking the form of a gradual unfolding of meaning.
The ambition of most writers seems to be to tell the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the moment they put
pen to paper. They are too impatient to keep anything in
reserve, and struggle to say the last word before they have
said the first. But with Kant it is quite different. He makes
sure of saying the first word first. He tries to tell the truth
and nothing but the truth, but seems reluctant to allow more
of the truth to escape his lips than answers the particular
question with which he is dealing at the time. He never
imagines that a fluent pen can overtake great truths by
sheer speed. His advance is a steady progress. In each step
forward he seems borne along with the momentum of his
previous progress. This momentum is never checked. The
work is finally let go with all its accumulated force. Hence,
after a century, Kant’s critical philosophy seems to have
gathered strength and developed in meaning in its descent to
us.—That Kant consciously pursued this method of advancing
his inquiry only gradually, is not alone clear from a general
study of his works, but is also occasionally apparent in passages
that almost savour of affectation.

Closely associated with and largely dependent upon Kant’s
method is his peculiar manner of exposition. He is, of all
philosophers, with the possible exception of Plato, the most

viii Preface

dramatic. He writes his critiques as if they were plays; the
books being acts and the sections different scenes. He intro-
duces faculties upon the stage as if they were so many dramaiis
personae, and lets them betray their character chiefly by the
part they play. He raises problems, complicates them, and
withholds the solution, awaiting some unexpected dénouement,
He seeks to sustain interest by always leaving an outstanding
difficulty, and delights in working his way out of apparently
inextricable situations. However artistic such a mode of exposi-
tion may be, however suitable in the case of a critique such
as Kant’s; which is offered as the only avenue of escape from the
difficulties which beset the theories of others, it is naturally a
source of difficulty to the reader,

What-is meant may be made clearer by an illustration. In §40,
Kant starts a problem as to how it comes about that when we’
lay down a judgement of taste we exact agreement from every
one else as if it were a sort of duty. An empiriéal interest—the
natural inclination of men towards society—is first brought on
the stage and bids fair to solve the whole problem in a very
simple manner. It is particularly successful in explaining the
course of the evolution of art. Then it is curtly dismissed just
because itis empirical. In the next scene an intellectual inter-
est is introduced. Bad things are at once said about the artist .
behind his back ; he is confused with mere virtuosi; and the
intellectual interest, whose high character is beyond question,
begins to confide in us on the subject of hints it has heard,
and suggestions that have been given to it, of the objective
reality of the ideas of reason. Having, apparently, solved the
problem by reference to these hints and suggestions, the
intellectual interest takes its leave of us ; impressing upon us
that its only concern is with the beauty of nature, and that it
has nothing whatever to do with the beauty of art, which only
attracts the empirical interest—the villain of the play. The
scene is then changed, and, to our amazement, art is discovered
calm and self-confident, and occupies the boards for the remain-

Preface ix

der of the act. But before the curtain falls we get one most impor-
tant clue—Beauty, whether it be beauty of nature or of art, is the
expression of aesthetic ideas. The beauty of nature and of art
stand on the same footing—except in respect of an admittedly
rare feeling for the beauty of nature, which is akin to the
emotion aroused by the sublime. The intellectual interest only
discredited itself by its disparagement of art. When the curtain
rises for the next and last act, the great problem of the antinomy
of taste engages attention. Aesthetic ideas and genius, the
source of art, make an important entry and leave no doubt as
to the character of the solution. Then, ina thrilling scene (§ 58),
a completely different complexion is given to the evidence that
was adduced by the intellectual interest, and a neat compliment
is paid to art. In the next scene the problem which the em-
pirical and intellectual interests both attempted to solve is
expressly solved without regard to either. The true explana-
tion of the reference to duty is to be found, not in any super-
vening interests, empirical or intellectual, but only by means of
transcendental criticism, which finds in the judgement of taste
an a priori bearing of the practical upon the theoretical faculty.
Then, in the next and final scene, the critique of taste is made
to reveal a transition from the whole Critical Philosophy to
the Anthropology ; for taste, as a common sense of mankind,
is shown to look to a standard which can only be set by a
concrete human society in which the moral and intellectual
basis of man’s nature is realized empirically. This denowement
finally explains the entry of the empirical and intellectual
interests. On the one hand, neither taste nor art is to be
explained empirically. Their foundations are laid in what is
the true dynamic of man’s evolution. On the other hand, the
intellectual interest was wrong in looking to nature as a mere
given external thing. But then, art is not an art destined
merely to produce symbols of luxury for the possession of the
few. It is an art that is to be the heritage of the human
brotherhood, and a bond of union between the more and less

x Preface

cultured sections of the community. Art must become @
second nature.

The above illustration has been selected because it serves
to explain the source of the number of inconsistencies which
hasty readers, and some deliberate critics, discover in Kant's
account. Ignoring his peculiar style, they perstst, despite all
consequent difficulties, in supposing that the above-mentioned
problem was solved by the intellectual interest. As a result
they find that art is introduced in quite an irrelevant manner,
that the definition of beauty which places that of nature and
of art on the same footing cannot be reconciled with previous
statements, and that the references to the ‘hints’ and ‘sugges-
tions’ as to the objective reality of ideas of reason show that
Kant almost completely abandoned his position of critical
idealism. But a critic who believed in Kant’s sanity would
surely be compelled to look round for another interpretation,
were he to develop the further inconsistencies which he would
have to admit. For besides the inconsistencies that would be
involved in solving the problem in two different ways—first by
a supervising intellectual interest, and then by an underlying
unity of all our faculties—and of solving it in the first case by
reference to an interest that excites a feeling that has only the
same sort of modality as that of judgements upon the sublime,
it would be quite impossible that the fundamental reference to
duty admitted to exist in a// judgements of taste—whether they
refer to objects of nature or of art—could be explained by refer-
ence to an interest which is expressly stated only to attach to the
beauties of nature. Thus we see the irony involved in making
the intellectual insist on being wholly unconcerned with the
beauty of art.

In the second of the introductory essays I have ventured
upon a conjecture which is opposed to current assumptions,
Kant is thought to have written the Critique of Judgement from
the first section to the last in a continuous, straightforward, and
regular manner. The only sections that any of the critics have

Preface xi

suspected of being due to an after-thought are those devoted
to the consideration of art—a supposition which seems to depend
upon a complete misinterpretation of the work, and which has
been finally disposed of by the historical researches of Dr. Otto
Schlapp and the materials of investigation which he has brought
under notice in his excellent work. There seems to be, how-
ever, considerable ground for supposing that the entire form of
the Analytic of the Beautiful, with its analysis of the judgement
of taste into four co-ordinate moments of quality, quantity, re-
lation, and modality, was an after-thought that only occurred to
Kant after he had written $ 59,—and possibly only after he had
completed his draft of the whole Critique.—It is not, however,
suggested that disinterestedness, universality and necessity were
not recognized from the first, but only that finality, apart from an
end, was originally regarded as ¢He principle of the judgement
of taste, that disinterestedness was treated in the same way as
independence from charm and emotion, and that universality
and necessity were regarded as the logical peculiarities of the
judgement that showed its dependence uponan a riort principle
and made a deduction necessary. It is suggested that the
change made the addition of §§ 2 to8 and 18 to 22 necessary,
with the result that §§ 30-38 appear full of mere repetitions.

I am afraid that the introductory essays are hardly intro-
ductory in the usual sense of the word. They suppose that
the reader has some general knowledge of Kant’s critical
philosophy, and that he has not alone read the Critique of Judge-
ment but has advanced sufficiently far to have encountered
difficulties in its interpretation. Consequently they deal chiefly
with points open to some difference of opinion. I would,
therefore, ask the reader who has not already made a study of
Kant’s Aesthetics to read the translation and notes before
reading the essays.

I have experienced considerable difficulty in keeping the
notes within reasonable limits. That being so, the space
devoted to extracts from Kant’s British predecessors may be

xii Preface

thought excessive. But I have no sympathy whatever with the
tone adopted towards British philosophers by most of the English
adherents of the Kantian and Hegelian schools. It seems to
me absurd to dismiss an English philosopher of the Association
school, for instance, with a wave of the hand, just because he
happens not to be occupied with what, from a transcendental
point of view, is zke question. Thus a recent, and in the main
excellent, English work devoted to the history of aesthetics
seems to treat Alison’s Essays on Taste as a joke. It is, there-
fore, with particular pleasure that I give, in one of the notes,
an extract from Alison’s work in which he carefully distinguishes
the agreeable from the beautiful, and appropriates the word
delight to signify the pleasure in the latter. Doubtless the
historian above referred to fully appreciates the merit of the
sections in Kant’s Critique in which the same distinction is
elaborated.—It is, of course, one thing to ask, why any particu-
lar object is considered beautiful instead of the reverse. It
is another thing to inquire, what is the significance for the
mind of the predicate ‘ beautiful’. The former is concerned
with the quality of the copw/a in actual judgements : the latter
with the import of the predicate in possible judgements. If
the majority of British writers were more successful in dealing
with the former question than with the latter, those who have
been most successful in their treatment of the latter have
generally left considerable difficulties outstanding in respect of
the former. Hence the student of the history of aesthetics
should impartially hear all sides.

The translation was originally made from Hartenstein’s
edition, but was subsequently revised from the new edition of
Kant’s works published by the Kéniglich Preussische Akademie
der |Vissenschaften—of the existence of which I, unfortunately,
only became aware shortly before sending the work to press.
Where I have departed from the reading given in this edition
I have called attention to the fact in the notes. Through this
edition I also learned of the existence of Dr. Schlapp’s valuable

Preface xiii

work, and was further induced to procure a copy of the extremely
suggestive work of Hermann Cohen, whom previously I had only
known by name. Had I become acquainted with these works
at an earlier date I should have devoted less attention to critics
with whose writings—however valuable in themselves—I feel
less in sympathy. Iam indebted for much assistance to the
English translation of the Critigue of Judgement by Dean
Bernard, and the French translation by M. Barni. For a copy
of the latter work, which I found it difficult to procure, I am
indebted to the courtesy partly of Dean Bernard and partly of
Dr. O’Sullivan, F.T.C.D.

My thanks are due ina very special manner to my friend
Professor H. S. Macran, F.T.C.D., whom I consulted on any
emendations of the text which occurred to me (most of which,
however, the new edition of Kant’s works showed to have been
anticipated) and who, for the time, laid his own work aside to
read over the proof of the translation. I am indebted to his
careful reading for the correction of many errors and for many
useful suggestions. Mr. H. H. Joachim kindly read a large
part of the translation in manuscript, and has read the proofs
of the essays and notes ; I owe much to his judicious criticisms.
For various criticisms, information and suggestions, I must also
thank Mr. A. C. Meredith, K.C., Herr Otto Krautwurst,
Dr. J. R. O'Connell, and Dr. Petchell. In preparing the work
for the press, and in revising the Index, I have been greatly
assisted by my wife.

Where Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason or his Ethics are
referred to, the pages given are those of the translation of the
former by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, and of the latter (the Critzque
of Practical Reason, &c.) by Dr. Abbott (fourth edition). In
each case the volume and page of the new German edition of
Kant’s works are also given in brackets.

JAMES CREED MEREDITH.

16 HERBERT Prace, DUBLIN.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS

Essay I. PROBLEM OF THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGE- m
MENT : ; ‘ xvil
Essay II. LAST STAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF
Kant’s CRITIQUE OF TASTE . XXXVii
Essay III. THE BEAUTIFUL. : i ; li
Essay IV. THE SUBLIME. . 7 ‘ ‘ Ixxi
Essay V. INTEREST IN BEAUTY. : XCix
Essay VI. ART AND THE ARTIST . . exvli
Essay VII. Tue DiaLecric . i ! cxlv
THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT
PREFACE : . 3
INTRODUCTION. ; h ; : : : 8
First Part. CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGE-
MENT : : 41
First SECTION.” ANALYTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGE-
MENT. 2 i i . 4l
First Book. ANALYTIC OF THE BEAUTIFUL 41
SECOND Book. ANALYTIC OF THE SUBLIME . wv 490
SECOND SECTION. DIALECTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGE-
MENT . . 204
Notes : ö : : : ; 228
ANALYTICAL INDEX (to translation) . : ; ae es

InDEXx (to Essays and Notes—names only) 331

ESSAY I

PROBLEM OF THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT

‘ PHILOSOPHY—unless it be in an historical manner—cannot
be learned; we can at most learn to philosophize.’! This
remark has more or less truth according to the conception
which we form of philosophy. But, at all events, it has always
this minimum of truth, that there is no method that can teach
us how to devise a new method of philosophical investigation,
or raise a new problem. The points of view from which
philosophies originate are not deduced by any mere logical
process of reasoning. They spring up from the man himself—
from that se/f in which the intellectual and moral faculties are
united. They express his critical attitude—his reaction against
the world of thought in which he finds himself: in short, his
personality.

But the fact that the art of devising new standpoints is one
that cannot be learned, does not absolve the student of a
philosophical system from the duty of seeking the fundamental
standpoint of the system before him. On the contrary, it
is against this that he must himself react ; or, at least, if he is
not to be himself the author of a new system, it is this that he
has to appreciate and adopt as his own. It must be the especial
and primary object of his critical reflection.

But the student, unfortunately, is not generally favoured by
philosophers themselves with much assistance in the task of
discovering the dominant point of view, or motive, of their
systems. Philosophies are staged, and the public are allowed
to witness the performance from their seats, but no facilities
are given to those who would penetrate behind the scenes.
This may seem unreasonable. But the unreasonableness lies
in the way the grievance is stated. The ideas that operate at
the back of the minds of philosophers, when working out their
systems, are rather the sources than the proper objects of
their criticism. The power of standing back from those ideas,

1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 507; Werke, vol, iii, p. 542.
1193 b

xviii Introductory Essays

and evaluating them, is what gives birth to new systems. Thus
it is that the history of philosophy is a process of criticism.
Kant, however, might be thought to be more than usually
obliging in this respect. For certainly he seems to give us the
fullest instructions as to the method and object of his criticism.
He seeks for those fundamental presuppositions of the mind

which are synthetic, or constructive, a friort._ He discovers,
in this way, how far our knowledge has its source in the mind
a en engen
enables hım establish science, aesthetic sensibilities, and
ethics on secure foundations.

But what we have to look for is the presupposition which
underlies all this criticism—the conviction which was too dear
to the mind of Kant to permit of his calling it in question. To
find this out, we must inquire what position always satisfied
Kant, i.e. when he thought he had completely made out his
case—notwithstanding that he had stated no explicit premiss
assigning to such a position the value which he allowed it.

Now the central position which obviously satisfied Kant, in the
above manner, in the Critique of Pure Reason, was that the

categories of understanding were justified or deduced on being
own to be the conditions of the Zossibility of experience.
Kant thought ROT ORO SCS Oe Re Tad Sho that
the Ep uen mere te Only means by wich the mind, 2
concerned with knowledge, could exercise its appropriate func-
tion of making the material given 20 it Somethin for it. At
Teast the above was the positive side of Kant’s case. But the
negative side is even more instructive. Having shown that,
the categories enabled understanding to eRCTEISE Kr anprapmhte'
function, the only other point that he sought to make good
was that the exercise of this function did not conflict with th
“exercise of any other proper function of the mind. With thi
“object in view Fe Sought ts Show that InOWIsdge was something
distinct and completely sei generis. For this purpose he proved
that knowledge was restricted to phenomena. Hence it did not
touch things-in-themselves, which were thus saved to provide
scope for the exercise of the appropriatc function of the practi:
cal faculty. This latter function, again, was su7 generis—it in no
way concerned our knowledge of things. hus, function plus
restriction was always Kant’s ultimate test of validity.

Now, the conception which obviously underlies all this
analysis, 1s that of the mind as a system with various special

I. Critique of Judgement xix
faculties, all combining harmoniously in a teleological unity.
us, as Kant says, ‘reason Is, in regard to the principles of _
cognition, a perfectly distinct, independent unity, in which, as
in an organized body, every member ests To The sake of the
others, and all for the sake of each, so that no principle can be
viewed, with safety, in one relationship, unless it is, at the
same time, viewed in relation to the total use of pure reason ’.'
Kant is nowhere more explicitly himself than in this remark””

But we have not to look beyond the Introduction to the
Critique of Judsemenrttselt to Ind abundant evidence of the

teleological point of view from whith Kant regarded the mind.
Non What Mrculty -RCCOPMME To Kant does THE Tereotogfen!
conception belong? It belongs to judgement. The standpoint or
Kant’s Critique was (consistently enoughythe a priori standpoint
of the evttica/ faculty, Itis with the reflective judgement, there"
ore, rather than with reason, that Kants critical philosophy is
most intimately connected. This 1s not alone true of the
“Critique, but of the transcendental philosophy as a whole. Its
point of view (as opposed to its subject-matter) is as obviously
that of judgement and the conception of teleological unity
(which /ooks out towards reason) as Hegel's is that of reason
„und the unify of the syTogiem. Further, T-Tudgement may be the_syMogism.__ Further, 7 Jadasment may be
regar äs intermediate between understanding and reason,
then cnucal philosophy may be regarded, by analogy, as standing
“Between science and morals. While wih Met as with the
Greeks, philosophy occupies a most exalted position, with Kant
its position is comparatively humble. Hence the obtrusive

modesty of Kant’s philosophy that is so irritating to many
"readers. 7

These facts invest the Critigue of Judgement with a very
special interest. But, despite its importance, that Critique
was only an after-thought. We must, therefore, consider how
Kant was able to recognize any teleological unity in our
faculties, a friori, before he saw the necessity for a Critique of
Judgement.—Now the radical distinction which Kant had
drawn between the faculties of the mind, was that between the
theoretical and the practical faculty. This is a distinction
between the Subject which is known in its external manifestation
in a system of relations, and the Subject as the ultimate source
of action, and, therefore, as in antithesis to the mere system of
relations, and, accordingly, as a swöstantia noumenon. For the

1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. xxxii; ! Verke, vol. iii, p. 15.
2

xx Introductory Essays

mind as a whole, it takes the place of the distinction between
a particular faculty and that through which the principles of
that faculty acquire a specific content. Now, for the theoretical
faculty concepts of nature are legislative, and these belong to
the understanding. For the practical faculty the concept of
freedom alone is legislative, and this concept has its abode in
reason. Each of these legislations were represented as perfectly
distinct. How, then, was Kant able to recognize any teleo-
logical unity whatever between our faculties a friorz, or to regard
them as constituting a system of faculties? Were they not
simply negatively related ? .

Where two things are so related that each in turn presupposes
the other, then this mutual presupposition indicates that the
distinction is not ultimate. There must be some underlying
unity, whether we can definitely conceive that unity or not.
Now, it would appear that the worlds of nature and of freedom
presuppose each other in this way. Foxthe Critique of Pure
„Reason shows that_the theoretical faculty only escapes self-
contradiction, on the assumption that the world of nature is
a mere phenomenal world. Further, ideas of reason were
shown to have a_regulative function in experience, and so far

to belong to the theoretical faculty, and yet these ideas_point
€ limits of experience to a supersensible world,

which is theworld with which the concept of freedom is
concerned. “Then, looking at the matter broadly, ıt appeared
“Imposstbte to see how the theoretical faculty could legislate for
objects that had to be known, unless these were only to be
known as phenomena. But, besides all this, the concepts

: 2 q al Once presupposes something to
„be realized, and this presupposes a nature in which it is to be
realized. Also the Critigue of Practical Reason showed that

our free will would be a will that c ill nothing, unless
nature was used as the Zyde of the moral law which foun son
freedom. itis, ii short, onlyıin nature edom can give

itself any meanin j
— Thus we see how Kant, before he saw the necessity of the

Critique of Judgement, was able to recognize the systematic

1. Lritique of Judgement xxi

connexion between the theoretical and the practical faculties.
But could he now discover some capacity of the mind which
essentially owes its existence to the connexion of those facul-
ties, some capacity, that is to say, which only belongs to the
mind because it is a mind which possesses a theoretical
and a practical faculty between which harmony prevails?
Could he further discover that the mind, in that capacity, has
a.faculty which, by virtue of the very conception of the
harmonizing and reconciliation of the differences that for the
other faculties were ultimate (even though criticism might show
that the harmony was presupposed), is able to make something
its own, i.e., to be constitutive a Zriori? It is obvious that
if he could the critique of that faculty would itself exhibit the
systematic cONTESIOM of our THEMIS priortettre-afstimetion
betweeff which it presupposed, and at the same time complete
the work, and substantiate the point of view, of the whole
critical philosophy. The required discovery was made as
the result of an analysis of the nature of reflective or critical
judgement. :

But Kant does not seem_to have been prompted towards
this discovery by the perception of any /acuna in his system,
or by any abstract consideration of the course taken by his
previous critiques. It was due to the converging results of
different lines of thought, arising from the consideration of
different concrete problems, viz. those of aesthetics and of
organic life. Kant would never have discovered the /acuna
if he had not had the means of filling it ready at hand.

Now the Critiques of Pure Reason and of Practical Reason
had only dealt with the faculties of cognition and desire. But
there is yet another faculty of the mind, that, namely, of the
feeling of pleasure and displeasure. To the latter belongs all
that gives warmth and colour to the world. Is this nothing
for us as rational beings? Once we pass out of the cold
regions of science and morality, do we find ourselves merely on
the level of the lower animals ?

This depends on the possibility of discovering some intellec-
tual presupposition capable of giving the rule to the feeling of
pleasure. It is in the light of this idea, and as an investigation
of this problem, that Kant approached the study of aesthetics.

Here now lies the secret of the success of Kant’s treatment
of aesthetics. We have seen that a philosophy, to be worthy
of the name, must have a standpoint of its own from which its

xxii Introductory Essays

criticism is directed. It must be the source of the meaning of
the problem which it creates. In the same way aesthetics must
discover for itself some point of view from which it can make
its analysis. The supreme merit of Kant’s aesthetics lies in
the fruitfulness of his point of view, the comprehensive survey
which it enabled him to take of the subject, and the systematic
connexion of his account as a whole. As for particular observa-
tions on the subject, there is hardly a single one which it is not
possible to parallel from earlier works even in our own language.
But no one writer was able to say more than a fraction of what
Kant said, for they lacked a comprehensive point of view from
which to co-ordinate the different aspects of the subject and
bring them to a common focus.

There is probably no subject in which the construction of
the problem is more difficult than in the case of aesthetics, or
which reminds us more forcibly of the fact that it is harder to
ask questions, that are worth asking, than to answer them.
Even the selection of the subject here seems difficult. Why
make aesthetics the object of investigation, instead of the
beautiful and sublime, or taste and genius, or art? We are at
once conscious that we must approach the subject with a pre-
judice in order to definitely mark it out. But, until we have
done this, how can we state its problem ?

From what has been said it may be inferred at once that
Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement is not a contribution to
concrete criticism as conceived, for instance, by such a writer
as Walter Pater. According to the latter: ‘To define beauty,
not in the most abstract, but in the most concrete terms
possible, to find, not a universal formula for it, but the formula
which expresses most adequately this or that special manifesta-
tion of it, is the aim of the true student of aesthetics.’ It
would be difficult to say whether such concrete criticism can
be anything more than a mere criticism of one art by another.
Certainly the most concrete and most intimate criticism of
a work of art is a better work. Apart from such criticism,
which could not constitute aesthetics, it would appear that all
criticism must be to some extent abstract. If, as Plato said,
art is but a third remove from the truth, then, in the same
sense, the criticism that says that it is so, would seem at least
a fourth remove. At all events, Walter Pater’s statement as to
what is the ‘true aim of the student of aesthetics’ would, if
fortified by argument, be a contribution rather to abstract

I. Critique of Judgement xxiii

than to concrete criticism, and one may be pardoned for
regarding the Foreword to the Studies in the Renaissance as
more germane to the problems that come under the considera-
tion of the true student of aesthetics, than the Studies them-
selves—however admirable these may be in other respects.

It follows, also, that the primary value of any work on
aesthetics lies in the way it handles the philosophic problem
which it sets before itself. If, in any particular case, it aspires
to have an intimate bearing on art, then let the artists give
their verdict. If artists are entitled to be indifferent to philo-
sophies of art, then this indifference is a recognition of the
independent ¢éocus standi of such philosophies. As far as
a philosophy of art is concerned, its philosophic value is more
important than any influence it may have upon art.

All this is frankly admitted by Kant. His investigation of
the faculty of taste, he says, is not ‘undertaken with a view to
the formation or culture of taste (which will pursue its course
in the future as in the past independently of such inquiries)’,
but is ‘merely directed to its transcendental aspects’.

But ought we not to look for a standpoint from which results
might be obtained capable of exerting an influence upon art,
provided such a standpoint is possible? Every school of art
seems to have its theory of the meaning and function of art.
Hogarth, Reynolds, Goethe, Schiller, Wagner, William Morris,
and Whistler are all men whose views upon art come under
the consideration of a history of aesthetics. Did not their
theories influence their art? Or was not their art, at all events,
associated with their theories? An artist enters into art as a
man, whole and entire, and, therefore, as something of a
philosopher. Art is, in fact, itself a kind of criticism of nature.
Does not the point of view of such criticism stretch back from
presupposition to presupposition into the domain of philosophy?
If so, must not a theory of art be possible in which philosophers
and artists can meet on common ground and to their mutual
advantage ?

Kant makes no attempt to answer this question. He neither
seeks to furnish such a theory of art nor to inquire whether
any such theory is possible. It may be remarked, however,
that the greatest monuments of German literature rose amid
the flames of critical controversy, and, further, that much of
what Kant says in the course of his Critique is such as, if true,
must be of interest to art. But, doubtless, the artist will weigh

U Introductory Essays

hi$ truth for himself—a process which he hates performing
nder the eye of the philosopher. ;

Such being the general character of Kant’s Aesthetios we
may return to the consideration of his special manner of

approaching the subject. e have seen “that he did not
advance upon it directly. He began with the iny ation of
‘problem the bearing of _whith=wes-onb-shown in 22 sequel,

em of finding a ort principle that was con-
stitutive in respé eeling. How, now, was he to find a,
clue to the disc €-such principle ?

In search of such a clue Kant adopted the natural course of
comparing the two earlier Critiques. As what was desired was
some intellectual presupposition, he looked back to see which
logical faculties had already contributed a prior? principles, and
whether there was any spare logical faculty remaining over, and,
as it were, awaiting some special employment. Now while the
Critique of Pure Reason dealt with the whole rational faculty,
so as to provide for negative as well as positive results, it turned
out that the only faculty that was constitutive a priori
in respect of what is theoretical, i. e. what can be known by us,
and that was thus capable of establishing science in a positive
or constructive manner, was understanding. In the Critique
of Practical Reason Kant found that reason alone was constitu-
tive a prior? in the practical sphere. What, then, about judge-
ment? Without going very deeply into the matter—merely
beating about for a suggestion—it seemed to Kant as if judge-
ment stood in much the same relation to understanding and
reason as the feeling of pleasure and displeasure stands to
the faculty of cognition on the one hand and the faculty of
desire on the other. So far it had not appeared as constitutive
a priori in any respect. It had been dealt with, no doubt, in
the Critique of Pure Reason as a logical faculty of subsumption.
Its employment had been considered in the case where a uni-
versal is given, and its function is to subsume a particular under
it—where, in other words, it was simply determinant, If, how-.
ever, it is the particular that is given, then jud t would seem
to stand i f some principle of its_ozen to ou in
a search for the proper universal.

' In the latter case judgement is not determinant but reflect-
ive. is reflective judgement cot a ial principle
of its_own? That it has seems implied by the commonest
critique. We see everywhere the importance of the attitude

I. Critique of Judgement XXV

of mind with which questions are approached, or which even
originates the question itself. This attitude which determines
the line of thought, this cast or frame of men’s minds, is some-
thing quite different from the stock of their available conceptions.
It is not itself a conception that affords knowledge of anything,
but it is rather something that makes men have recourse to
certain conceptions. It is essentially a prejudice—and pre-
judice makes the man. Is there, then, any prejudice in the
nature of an original and underlying principle of general critical
reflection, which, as such, may be justified ?

Kant approached the consideration of this question by look-
ing back on the Critigue of Pure Reason and contemplating the
magnitude of the task of building up a scientific world-picture.

Now, for anything that the Crrtigue of Pure Reason had said,
a concrete body of science, containing a vast multiplicity of
particular empirical laws subordinated one to another and
arranging themselves in a system, might be impossible for us.
Nature could easily get the better of us by means of an irre-
ducible heterogeneity. True, the Critigue of Pure Reason had
dealt with a system of laws, and with the regulative employment
of ideas of reason, but it had not justified us in assuming that
we should find nature such as to give us scope for such employ-
ment. It had furnished us with no principle that would lead
us to employ the ideas regulatively, but only showed us how we
might employ them in that way, supposing there was anything
to make us believe that such employment would be attended
with success. Kant had not recognized the presupposition of
judgement under which ideas are regulatively employed.

Now Kant does not here undertake to prove that nature
must be such, or that it is such, that we may be able to know
it, not alone as nature in general and in what concerns its,
mere possibility, but as a system containing a may-be endless
multiplicity of particular laws. He merely shows that we are

entitled to set to work on the assumption that nature>in its
particular laws, is ordered according to a plan adapted to our
faculties of cognition, because only in this wa
Hope To bath up the concrete body oF science, and because
dis principte “does of determine anything, but is a mere
iding—principle.—itts—a_principle that is completely sur
Dea for it oe wether a concept of nature nor of freedom,
since it attributes nothing at all to the Object, i.e. to nature,
but only represents the unique mode in which we must proceed

xxvi Introductory Essays

in our reflection upon the objects of nature with a view to get-
ting a thoroughly interconnected whole of experience, and so
is a subjective principle, i.e. maxim, of judgement. For this
reason, too, just as if it were a lucky chance that favoured us,
we are rejoiced (properly speaking relieved of a want) when we
meet with such systematic unity under merely empirical laws:
although we must necessarily assume the presence of such
a unity, apart from any ability on our part to apprehend or
prove its existence’.! For ‘only so far as that principle applies
can we make any headway in the employment of our under-
standing in experience, or gain knowledge’.” As above re-
‚marked, we see function Plus restriction regarded as the
guarantee of valıdity.

‘Now the concept of_an Object, so far as it contains at the
same time the ground of the actuality of this Object, is called
its end, and the agreement of a thing with that constitution o
things which 1s only ossible x to ends, is called the
Spore age the DR ot ae
in respect of thé form of the things of nature under empirical
laws generally, is the inality of nature in its multiplicity.’ *

Now it is precisely because this principle of the ymality of
nature is the principle of a merely reflective judgement, that we
look upon it, as above stated, ‘as if it were a lucky chance that
favoured us,... where we meet with such systematic unity under
merely empirical laws’ and so ‘are rejoiced’. It is, in other
words, ‘contingent, so far as we can see, that the order of
nature in its particular laws, with their wealth of at least
possible variety and heterogeneity transcending all our powers
of comprehension, should still in actual fact be commensurate
with these powers ;’° and, therefore, the discovery of that
order, being the business of our understanding, the attainment
of our aim is coupled with a feeling of pleasure.

Having thus discovered the special principle of judgement,
and having shown how its successful application in the study
of nature, in the interests of concrete science, is attended with
a feeling of pleasure, Kant found himself in a position to turn
to a direct consideration of the aesthetic problem. But before
doing so he thought it advisable, to prevent all possibility
of misinterpretation, to reiterate in the strongest terms the
essential ideality of the principle. ‘Yet this presupposition of

1 Infra, p. 23. 2 Infra, p. 26. 3 Tıfr
if h en fra, p. En a Pp. To.

I. Critique of Judgement XXVii

judgement is so indeterminate on the question of the extent
of the prevalence of that ideal finality of nature for our cogni-
tive faculties, that if we are told that a more searching or
enlarged knowledge of nature, derived from observation, must
eventually bring us into contact with a multiplicity of laws that no
human understanding could reduce to a principle, we can recon-
cile ourselves to the thought.’? A ‘pluralistic universe’, to use
Professor James’s phrase, is conceivable. Still, of course, we
listen more gladly to others who hold out a more hopeful view.

We have seen above that the concept of the finality of nature,
exhibited in the systematic connexion of its empirical laws, is
attended with a feeling of pleasure. But in this case the feeling
of pleasure is not i representail Nality. e

tainment of a certain aim. But suppose that a Te
of pleasure were immediately bound up with the apprehension
of the form of an object, so as to constitute an aesthetic
representation of its finality, we should then have a mode of
representation that was quite unique. Now the way in which
the representation of an object stimulates our cognitive faculties
is essentially bound up with the apprehension of the form of
the object. It is, in fact, the mere subjective side of the
apprehension, i.e. the way we receive the object in respect of
our cognitive faculties. It is the finality of the form of the
Object for our cognitive faculties—-our sense, in other words,
of the way in which our cognitive faculties are stimulated to
lively and harmonious activity. But such a sense is just what

of their form. The possibility of such an estimate merely pre-
supposes (apart from the adoption of the requisite standpoint)
that there are objects which excite our faculties to a lively and
harmonious activity ; and, as the harmonious activity of imagi
nation and understanding is a general prerequisite of know-
ledge, it follows that if nature is such that it can be known, it
must at the same time afford a field for the exercise of such
an aesthetic judgement. Now, if the beauty of nature be just
what is meant by such an aesthetic representation of finality,
then the representation of the beauty of nature is something
1 Infra, p. 28.

XXVili Introductory Essays

which, if we choose to attend to the mere form of the representa-
tion of objects, we can at once build up for ourselves out of
data necessarily to hand. Nothing that any scientist can say
as to the causes of the particular forms which we consider
beautiful can prevent our exercising such a mode of pure
aesthetic judgement and looking at the forms just as they
strike the eye, and without any thought of how they were pro-
duced, or how they are connected with other forms; and
nothing that any moralist can say can prevent our contem-
plating those forms without any reference to actual ends.

The conception of finality, therefore, lays the foundation of
a distinctive pleasure which has meaning for us, not alone as
ani Dei but as rational also —a _pteastre that springs into
existence Upon our paying attention to the mere form of the
representation of objects.

The distinction between the reflective and the determinant
judgement is what determines the nature of the transition
which Kant effected from pure theoretical to pure practical
reason, and the critical character of this transition, which in no
way disturbed the fundamental distinction between concepts
of understanding and ideas of reason, gives the key to the
character of Kant’s whole critical philosophy. But as the
effect of that transition is to show, and show more clearly than
was shown in either of the earlier Critiques, that the result of
the Critique of the whole province of the mind is to make
critical philosophy point beyond itself to a unity to which it
never completely attains, it has naturally happened that critics
who have laid more stress on the unity indicated than on the
critical restrictions placed on the employment of the concept of
such a unity have regarded the Critigue of Judgement simply
as a stepping-stone to Hegel. Ignoring the importance of the
work for the consistent interpretation of Kant’s philosophy from
his own standpoint, and utterly neglecting the independent value
which it possesses by reason of its treatment of the specific
problems with which it deals, they have practically labelled it
‘Transition from Kant to Hegel’. A prevalent belief that this
estimate is substantially correct seems to account for the com-
parative neglect of the work in England—for those who are not
Hegelians naturally do not much care about a mere transition to
him, and those who are Hegelians are not sufficiently so to have
freed themselves from the national love for ‘net results ’_ or to
trouble themselves about mere transitions, further than to know

I. Critique of Judgement xxix

that they are there, as the ‘net result’ of the system seems to
require. Probably it was with the idea of counteracting this
tendency that the author of Zhe Critical Philosophy of Kant,
who seems to have been an excellent Hegelian, devoted his
entire labours to the transition, and left Hegel himself to his
brother professors—a unique example of division of labour
among philosophers.

If the object of the present volume were to hold a brief for
Kant’s system as against that of Hegel, perhaps the most
judicious course to adopt, would be to rely entirely on
Mr. MeTaggart’s recent Commentary on Hegel's Logic, and to
urge that the acknowledged errors of Hegel lead inevitably
back to Kant. For, strange to say, if, as was said above,
Professor Caird, who wrote on Kant, was a devoted admirer
of Hegel, Mr. McTaggart, who writes on Hegel, is at heart
a Kantian.

One of the many criticisms of a distinctly Kantian flavour to
be found in Mr. MeTaggart’s lucid and suggestive work is
directed to the important point of the absoluteness of Hegel’s
Absolute Idea. ‘In this category the dialectic ends, and we
reach, according to Hegel, the absolute truth, so far as it can
be reached by pure thought. The proof that this is the final
form of pure thought must always remain negative. The
reason why each previous category was pronounced not to be
final was that in each some inadequacy was discovered, which
rendered it necessary, on pain of contradiction, to go beyond it.
Our belief in the finality of the absolute idea rests on our
inability to find such inadequacy. Hegel’s position will hold
good, unless some future philosopher shall discover some
inadequacy in the absolute idea which requires removal by
means of another category.’'

Here we plainly see the subjective misgivings of the true
Kantian. Kant would not deny an absolute idea capable of
effecting the reconciliation which Hegel requires. On the
contrary he would say that his antinomies, and the whole ten-
dency of his critical philosophy, pointed in that direction, but
then he would draw a distinction between that idea itself and
what it is for us. He would say that for us (except in a prac-
tical way) it is incapable of effecting any reconciliation, Now
Mr. McTaggart’s criticism involves the admission that the
absolute idea, as it is for us, may not be adequate to what it 1s

1 Commentary on Hegel's Logic, p. 308.

XXX Introductory Essays

for some future philosopher—and, presumably, a possible super-
man may attain to what is still further beyond our reach.
this view be accepted it certainly necessitates a considerable
abatement of the claims of Hegel’s absolute idea. It means
that the absolute idea may only be absolute in name and on
paper. All that we can be sure of having definitely reached is
the idea which for ws is the ultimate reconciling idea. The
true absolute idea is turned into a mere Aorizon of pure thought
—an horizon which may retreat before the advances of some
future philosopher.

However, it may still be urged that, even with these quali-
fications, Hegel’s absolute idea is far more concrete than any
idea of unity attained by Kant. Whether it is or not would,
apparently, depend upon whether the absolute idea has a content
in which the inadequacy of the preceding categories is actually
transcended, or whether it does no more than merely posit
a content that would transcend that inadequacy. As Mr.
McTaggart is not satisfied with Hegel’s account of the content
of the absolute idea, and further objects that he does not
indicate ‘any concrete state known to us’ in which the absolute
idea is ‘exemplified’, it would seem that the point is one upon
which a Kantian could put up a good fight.

Mr. McTaggart, however, makes a suggestion of his own
as to the state of consciousness which would exemplify the
absolute idea. He says it is love. By this he does not mean
that love which is generally said to be blind, but a love in which
both the ideas of the true and the good are absorbed. It seems
to be something even more than that of which the poet speaks
as ‘harmonizing this earth with what we feel above’. But,
whatever is meant by the term, it hardly contains such a clear
reconciliation of Kant’s kingdoms of nature and of freedom as
would put the critical philosophy out of court.—As for the
remarks in Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion upon which Mr.
MeTaggart relies, the fact that they occur in that work, and that
Hegel places Philosophy above Religion, clearly show how
Hegel himself would have viewed the suggestion.

The various criticisms which Mr. M¢Taggart passes on
Hegel’s absolute idea, viz. that the content of the absolute
idea cannot only be ¢he method, that the proof that it is the
final form of pure thought must always remain negative, and
that Hegel does not show in what state of consciousness it is
exemplified, are not three distinct and independent criticisms.

I. Critique of Judgement xXxi

The second and third are dependent upon the first. They all
proceed from the fact that Mr. MeTaggart’s modesty will
not allow him to recognize das absolute Wissen as a positive
state of his own consciousness. Hence, like a true Kantian, he
seeks to represent it to himself syanbolically as love.

But if we accept Hegel’s own statement as to the content
of the absolute idea, we must look at the question somewhat
differently. He says, ‘It is certainly possible to indulge in
a vast amount of senseless declamation about the absolute idea.
But its true content is only the whole system of which we have
been hitherto studying the development.’ If, therefore, we
would form an estimate of the difference between Hegel’s
absolute idea and the supersensible unity of which Kant speaks,
it is necessary for us, instead of starting off with senseless
declamation about the absolute idea, to observe, first of all,
the dialectical movement of the lower categories, as dealt with
by Hegel, towards the absolute idea, and to contrast this, not
so much with the distinctions emphasized by Kant, which are
generally quite valid within the limits which he was entitled to
assign them, as with his refusal to reconsider those previous
distinctions in the light of final results issuing from the review
of the whole province of the mind, and also with that deliberate
restriction of the significance and application of such unifying
principles as his original analysis had brought to his notice,
which was bound to stultify any such reconsideration and
render it quite abortive. The method of Hegel’s Logic is such
that the absolute idea can afford to be simply ‘the specific
consciousness of the value and currency of the moments of its
development’. The absolute idea has the strength of the whole
system of the Logic behind it as its content, and it is only the
final illumination of that content. But the moment Kant’s
supersensible unity is reached it turns its back on all that has
gone before, and has, therefore, to postulate some unknowable
content to perform the miracle of reconciliation. For recon-
ciliation there must be ;—the whole effect of Kant’s Critique
is to show this, and the only question is whether this recon-
ciliation is beyond our powers of comprehension or not.

But, even admitting that such reconciliation is not beyond
our powers of comprehension, the critical philosophy must be
allowed a very large measure of validity by the true Hegelian.
For the true Hegelian will recognize the value of a system which
forbids our indulging in senseless declamation about the

xxxii Introductory Essays

absolute idea until we have thoroughly comprehended what it
means, until we have clearly followed the process by which it is
reached, and until we are fully alive to its content. He will
not be satisfied with describing Kant as a mere dualist and
entering upon prolonged controversies as to whether he consis-
tently maintained that position. But he will duly appreciate
the significance of a philosophy which, regarding the absolute
idea as out of the reach of our intelligence, treats-it for certain
purposes as a mere idea, and attempts no more than a critical
unification from a teleological standpoint. For he will ac-
knowledge the position which teleology occupies in the Logic,
and he will see how far it is capable of doing duty for the
absolute idea, in a system of philosophy which aims at pointing
to a reality beyond itself.

The critical philosophy of Kant has, in fact, certain im-
portant practical advantages over Hegel’s philosophy. These
advantages explain the great popularity of Hegel—for who
among the public are going to be serious with philosophy ?
From the writirzs of a number of novelists and essayists, who
probably never -cad a line of his works, through the press, and
down from the p. lpit, Hegelianism has descended upon the
masses. No matter how concrete the problem, or how small
the company present, there is sure to be at least one of the
number bent on evaporating the whole meaning of the discus-
sion in the flames of the Hegelian Dialectic. On the other
hand, the philosophy of Kant, while it has, no doubt, exerted
a vast influence on the progress of thought, and especially on
the development of philosophy, has never been popular. Of
the many men one meets who have studied Kant as part of
their university course, one finds many who admit that they
never understood him, or who say that they think his theories
attractive but quite untenable, or who regard the whole system
as absurd; but one never finds one who is heart and soul,
and without any reservation, a Kantian. But we can hardly
keep out of the way of Hegelians—Hegelians heart and soul,
and ready to devote their lives to him. The reason lies in the
fact that Kantian philosophy, which is difficult to understand
at all, does not readily lend itself to any misinterpretation that
is likely to be attractive. The study of Kant could hardly
lead any one to accept conclusions from his writings which are
not excellent so far as they go. Kant misunderstood is re-
pellent ; and partial understanding does not, merely because

I. Critique of Judgement xxxili

partial, lead one to adopt an attitude of mind the very reverse
of what Kant intended. Hegel, on the other hand, is still
more difficult to understand, but a misunderstanding is quite
easy and, unfortunately, most attractive. A person has only
to assent to the platitude that there are two sides to every
question—as there are to a railway station—to be delighted to
find he is a Hegelian and a very broad-minded man. He then
proceeds to work out the system by effacing all relative values.
But the philosophy of Hegel is essentially concrete. The true
Hegelian will, therefore, wish to see the distinction of certain
essential values clearly recognized. His desire will be that
Hegel may become most wzpopular. He will welcome the
demand for a return to Kant. For, if a true Hegelian, he must
have satisfied himself as to the meaning of that demand, and
the reason for it.

Let us, then, do what we can to make Hegel unpopular, at
least with the general reader. What then is to be said of
chains with weak links? All the links in the category of
quantity are alleged by leading Hegelians to be in an unsound
condition. Others are supposed to have completely rusted
away.

Or, what shall we say of Hegel’s Philosopiy of Nature? Why
has no translation of this work been offered to the English
public with whom, chiefly, Hegel is now popular? Mr. Wallace’s
apology affords an eloquent commentary. ‘This is a province
of which the present-day interest would be largely historical,
or at least bound up with historical circumstances.’ But, of
course, it is not the province itself that, at the present day, is
merely of historical interest. The only way we can now study
Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature is with the help of Herbert
Spencer. Hegel’s work might advisedly have been prefixed
with this warning: ‘Here the absolute idea has let itself go.
Now precisely because, first, it is the absolute idea that has let
itself go, and, secondly, because it has /¢ itsedf go, it follows
that any philosophy of nature, as I attempt to follow it out,
must only be regarded as tentative, provisional, and merely
illustrative of the true philosophy of nature. Should any
scientist happen to glance over these pages he may, perhaps,
find something in them to awaken in him a consciousness of
the meaning of his work and the result of his investigations,
but, once he has read the book, let him lay it aside—nay, even
as scientist entirely forget it—and plunge whole-hearted into

1193 c

XXxiv Introductory Essays

the study of the laws of nature.’ The most that Hegel’s
Logic can do is to supply that arrangement of the categories
which gives meaning to the reference to a higher and lower
implied in the very term evolution. But so little available is it
for deducing a priori any of the facts or laws of nature, that if
we are told that nature as a whole is not to be regarded as
advancing steadily forward, or even as advancing forward in
waves like the in-coming sea, but is either, as a whole, in
a constant state of equilibrium, or else only moving backwards
and forwards like a pendulum, the latter theories could be
quite as easily reconciled with Hegel’s Logic as the former.

But there does not seem any reason for supposing that Hegel
would not himself admit that his PAzdosophy of Nature was, for
the most part, tentative, provisional, and merely illustrative.
Just because his philosophy was essentially concrete, it was in
process of becoming obsolete while being written. We require
a succession of Hegels to keep his philosophy true. In fact,
so far is it from being a distinguishing feature of Hegel’s
philosophy that he supposed that a complete and adequate
philosophy of nature could.be worked out once and for all, that
it is rather Kant who seems to be chiefly distinguished both
from Aristotle and Hegel by his peculiar conception of a sort
of abstract Metaphysics of Nature and of Morals that could be
elaborated and definitely completed for all time.

Whether Hegel is in the main right as against Kant depends
on how his transition to the absolute idea, his account of its
import, and his conception of philosophy are to be regarded.
If the absolute idea itself may keep retreating before the
advances of future philosophers, then Kant was right in treating
it as a mere idea, i.e. a limit unattainable in the series to which
knowledge is confined, and he was amply justified in refusing
to go back and reconsider previous results in the light of that
idea. If, on the other hand, Hegel was substantially correct
in his account of the absolute idea and of das absolute Wissen,
then in theory he was right as against Kant, and the question
as to whether it is worth while attempting to keep his pro-
visional, tentative, and illustrative philosophy of nature up
to date, or whether it is sufficient to content ourselves with
science, a knowledge of the results of the Logic, and a glance
at Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature as an illustration of his

meaning, seems to be a question to be decided by extraneous
considerations.

I. Critique of Judgement XXXV

Science, art, and morals have, in any case, a long life to live
out in that apparent independence allowed them by their re-
spective categories. This is sufficient to justify the procedure
of a critical philosophy that keeps them distinct, examines
their fundamental presuppositions, and attempts no more than
a critical transition from nature to freedom and the mere
indication of a supersensible substrate of all our faculties. From
a practical point of view, at all events, Kant’s philosophy has
considerable advantages just because it is somewhat abstract.
It provides a point of view that presents a world-picture accurate
in all essentials. No doubt its mere police duties have been
much ridiculed, but there never was a time when those duties
better deserved to be appreciated. If critical philosophy
discharges those duties, then, if true so far as it goes, it is
sufficient to satisfy the general demand for a philosophy on the
part of men coming under the influence of modern enlighten-
ment. In fine, it is either sustainable, on the ultimate issue, as
against Hegel, or, if not, then it at least provides a valuable
substitute, as and when required, for the absolutely true philo-
sophy which, after all, is the world itself, in its whole compass
and evolution, thoroughly and clearly recognized as concrete
mind.

However, as these essays are solely concerned with the views
of Kant, and not with a comparison of his views and those of
Hegel, it may be advisable to conclude with an extract which
gives his own statement of his position on the subject we have
been considering :—

‘Philosophy is the system of all philosophical cognition. We
must use this term in an objective sense, if we understand by
it the archetype of all attempts at philosophizing, and the
standard by which all subjective philosophies are to be judged.
In this sense philosophy is merely the idea of a possible science,
which does not exist ir concreto, but to which we endeavour
in various ways to approximate, until we have discovered the
right path to pursue—a path overgrown by the errors and
illusions of sense—and the image we have hitherto tried to shape
in vain, has become a perfect copy of the great prototype.
Until that time we cannot learn philosophy—it does not exist ;
if it does, where is it, who possesses it, and how shall we know it ?

rWe can only learn to philosophize ; in other words, we can only

exercise our powers of reasoning in accordance with general

principles, retaining at the same time the right of investigating
c2

XXxvi Introductory Essays

the sources of these principles, of testing, and even of reject-
ing them. .

“Until then our conception of philosophy is only a scholastic con-
ception—a conception, that is, of a system of cognition which we
are trying to elaborate into a science; all that we at present know,
being the systematic unity of this cognition, and consequently the
logical completeness of the cognition for the desired end. But
there is also a cosmical conception (conceptus cosmicus) of philo-
sophy, which has always formed the true basis of this term, espe-
cially when philosophy was personified and presented to us in
the ideal of a philosopher. In this view, philosophy is the science
of the relation of all cognition to the ultimate and essential aims
of human reason (Zeleologia rationis humanae), and the philo-
sopher is not merely an artist—who occupies himself with con-
ceptions, but a law-giver—legislating for human reason. In
this sense of the word, it would be in the highest degree arro-
gant to assume the title of philosopher, and to pretend that we
had reached the perfection of the prototype which lies in the
idea alone.’!

1 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 507; Werke, vol. iii, p. 542.

ESsaiy 1]

LAST STAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF
KANT’S CRITIQUE OF TASTE

WHEN Kant determined to include a Critique of Aesthetic
Judgement as part of his critical undertaking he did not find
himself compelled to turn his attention to an uncongenial
subject. This is abundantly proved by his early essay entitled
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime But
although his interest was undoubtedly immediate and indepen-
dent, his personal knowledge and appreciation of art was almost
entirely confined to literature. Here hewas specially attracted by
the English poets, and, in particular, by Pope, Milton, and Young.

Whatever may be made of the admission in the above essay
that the standpoint was not that of a philosopher but merely of
an observer, Kant at first, and for a considerable time, regarded
the subject as one only to be treated empirically. This may
be seen from his note, in the first edition (1781) of the Critique
of Pure Reason, objecting to Baumgarten’s use of the word
aesthetics, ‘The Germans’, he says, ‘are the only people who
at present use this word to indicate what others call the critique
of taste. At the foundation of this term lies the disappointed
hope, which the eminent analyst, Baumgarten, conceived, of
subjecting the criticism of the beautiful to principles of reason,
and so of elevating its rules into a science. But his endeavours
were vain. For the said rules or criteria are, in respect to
their sources, merely empirical, consequently never can serve
as laws a priori, by which our judgement in matters of taste is
to be directed. It is rather our judgement which forms the
proper test as to the correctness of the principles.’* In the
second edition (April, 1787) Kant qualified this statement by

1 This essay was published in 1764—the same year as Winckelmann’s
History of Ancient Art, It contains four sections, headed : (1) The different
Objects of the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime; (2) The qualities of
the Sublime and Beautiful in Man in general ; (3) The difference of the
Sublime and Beautiful in the relation of the Sexes; (4) National
Characteristics in their relation to the different feelings of the Sublime
and Beautiful. The standpoint is anthropological. A translation of the
fourth section is to be found in De Quincey’s works.

2 Critique of Pure Reason, p. 22.

Xxxviii Introductory Essays

inserting the word ‘chief’ before ‘sources’ and ‘ determinate
before ‘laws’. This shows the turning-point in his views on
the subject. Shortly after, in a letter to Schütz dated June 25,
1787,! he states his intention of proceeding at once to the
consideration of the fundamental principles of the critique of
taste. A letter of December 28, 1787,?to Reinhold, announces
that this work, under the title of the Critique of Taste, was then
in manuscript, and expresses the hope that it will be ready by
the following Easter. In a further letter of March 7, 1788,
also to Reinhold, he hopes, despite his unaccustomed duties as
rector of the university, to deliver his Critégue of Taste by
Michaelmas, and thus to complete his critical undertaking.
Writing again to Reinhold on May 12, 1789,’ he refers to
the work as ‘the Critique of Judgement (of which the Critique
of Taste forms part)’, and the publication is deferred to the
Michaelmas following. The last postponement, to Easter,
1790, was made in a letter to Reinhold of December 1, 1789.5

The only one of the above letters that contains more than
a bare reference to the progress of the work is that of Decem-
ber 28, 1787, to Reinhold. The relevant portion of this letter is
aptly quoted by Caird. It reads: ‘I may now assert, without
making myself liable to the charge of conceit, that the further
I proceed in my course, the less apprehensive do I become
that I shall be obliged to renounce, or, to any important extent,
to modify my system. This is an inward conviction, which
grows upon me as, in my progress to new investigations, I find
it not only maintaining its harmony with itself, but also sug-
gesting ways of dealing with any difficulty that may arise.®
For, when at times I am in doubt as to the method of inquiry
in regard to an object, I only need to cast back a glance upon
my general list of the elements of knowledge, and of the
faculties of mind implied therein, in order to get new light
upon my procedure. Thus, I am at present engaged in
a Critique of Taste, and have been in this way led to the
discovery of another kind of a prior? principles than I had
formerly recognized. For the faculties of the mind are three;
the faculty of knowledge, the feeling of pleasure and pain,

1 Briefe, i, p. 467. 2 Ibid., p. 487. 3 Ibid., p. 505.

4 Ibid., ii. p. 39. 5 Ibid., p. 108,

6 This remark may be compared with the similar remark at the close
of the Analytic of Pure Practical Reason, (Ethics, p. 201; I Verke, vol. v,
Pp. 106.)

II. Critique of Taste XXXIX

and the will. I have discovered a friori principles for the
first of these in the Crrtigue of Pure Reason, and for the
third, in the Crizigue of Practical Reason; but my search for
similar principles for the second seemed at first fruitless.
Finally, however, the systematic connexion, which the analysis
of the theoretical and practical reason has enabled me to
discover in the human mind,—a systematic connexion which
it will be sufficient employment for the rest of my days to
admire, and where possible, to explain,—put me on the right
track ; so that now I recognize three parts of philosophy, each
of which has its own a Zrrori principles. We can now, therefore,
securely determine the compass of knowledge, which is possible
in this way, as including the three departments of theoretical
philosophy, teleology, and practical philosophy, of which, it is
true, the second will be found the poorest in a Avior? grounds
of determination. I hope by Easter to be ready with this part
of philosophy, under the name of the Critigue of Taste, which
is already in writing, but not quite prepared for the press.’ !

As we have already seen, the Critique of Judgement was not
published for nearly three years after the date of the above
letter. It would be interesting to know how far the later
Critique of Aesthetic Judgement corresponded with the Critique
of Taste which was then in manuscript, and how far Kant’s
conception of the third part of his philosophy was subsequently
enlarged. Caird remarks that in the three years the work
“had extended much beyond the scope which he here (in the
above letter) gives it, and had become not merely a Critigue of
Taste but a Critique of Judgement’,? and he speculates on the
reasons of the change. This seems to imply an under-estimate
of the significance of the letter. The letter shows that Kant
had recognized judgement as a separate faculty with a prior?
principles, had connected that faculty with the feeling of
pleasure and displeasure, and had regarded the work as
constituting a third part of philosophy, called Teleology. The
only remark in the letter which is inconsistent with the
subsequent Introduction to the Critique of Judgement is the
admission of three departments of philosophy. In Section III
of that Zxtroduction he allows no more than two, and it is only
transcendental Critique that is divided into three parts. It is
plain that Kant had already regarded his work as potentially

1 The Critical Philosophy of Kant, by Edward Caird, vol. ii, p. 406.
2 Ibid., p. 408.

xl Introductory Essays

a Critique of Judgement. According to the letter of March 7,
1788, it was to complete his critical undertaking. The work
must have recognized the connexion between the aesthetic
judgement and the teleological judgement, and also the applica-
tion of the principle of judgement to the multiplicity of the laws
of nature. The reflective judgement must have been distin-
guished from the determinant judgement. But, on the other
hand, despite the fact that the third part of his philosophy,
viz. Teleology, was to be furnished in the work, the reference to
it as a Critigue of Taste, and the change of the title to ‘the
Critique of Judgement (of which the Critique of Taste forms part),
mentioned in the letter of May 12, 1789, would seem to make
it clear that it did not contain a Critique of Teleological Judge-
nent. Further, although it may have contained an /nZroduction
dealing with most of what was dealt with in the subsequent
Introduction, that Introduction can hardly have been the one
preserved in part by Beck,’ for the latter expressly refers to
the Critigue of Judgement, and was thus presumably written
between the dates of the letters of March 7, 1788, and May 12,
1789. Still there seems a difficulty in saying that Kant
recognized the scope of the application of the reflective judge-
ment and yet regarded a mere Critique of Taste as competent
to furnish the third part of his philosophy.

Perhaps the solution to the difficulty may be found in the
remarks in the Preface and the Section VII of the Critique of
Judgement, and in the fragment of the original /nfroduetion,
which show that Kant regarded the Critique of Taste as the
one essential portion of a critique of judgement, on the
ground that it is only in respect of the feeling of pleasure and
displeasure that the faculty of judgement contains a principle
that is constitutive @ prior’. It is doubtful, therefore, that
Kant’s views greatly broadened after his letter of December 28,
1787. At that date he probably contemplated a work on the
teleological judgement, but intended to publish the Critique of
Taste separately. But, at the same time, his views on the
scope of the contemplated work on the teleological judge-
ment were probably imperfectly developed, and much of the
delay in the publication must certainly be attributed to the
elaboration of the second part of the Critique of Judgement.

1 Hartenstein, vol. vi, p. 375. This fragment will also be found at

the end of Erdmann’s edition of the Critique of Judgement—the edition
which the general student will probably find most convenient.

II. Critique of Taste xli

Kant’s views generally matured so gradually that it is difficult
to suppose that the Critigue of Taste, which Kant, when
writing the above letter, expected to be able to publish with
little alteration, did not contain most of what was subsequently
contained in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement. The de-
pendence of beauty on the representation of finality apart from
an end must certainly have been recognized. The peculiar
universality and necessity of the judgement of taste must have
been exhibited. Then, although the work is called a Critique
of Taste, the treatment of the sublime was almost certainly
included. Indeed, it would seem probable that the sections
on the sublime underwent very slight alteration. The analysis
which they contain is very much more psychological and less
critical than the Analytic of the Beautiful. Probably the general
character of the treatment of the beautiful originally bore
a much closer resemblance to the Analytic of the Sublime. ‘The
emphasis on the point that the sublime implies a Quantity of
the object, whereas the beautiful implies a certain Quality,
though not inconsistent with Kant’s later views, is a reference
to the categories of a kind that possibly dates back to the.
original Critigue of Taste. Then, asa Critigue to be compared
with the earlier Crizigues, the work must have included a
Deduction and an Antinomy of Taste.

In what direction, then, are we to look for a substantial and
material growth in Kant’s Critique of the Aesthetic Judgement?
Was the Critigue of Taste but slightly altered? Some critics
have suggested that the sections on ar? were an afterthought.
This seems to imply a complete misinterpretation of the work.
The sections on art must date from the same draft as the great
majority of the sections. Besides, an attack on the leaders of
the Szurm und Drang movement was almost certainly meditated
from the start, and it is only in the sections on art that this
attack is openly delivered. Also the ¢ad/e at the end of the
Introduction appears in the fragment of the original /rtroduction,
and Kant could hardly have allowed the prominent position
there given to art, and yet have omitted from his Critigue of
Taste all discussion of fine art. We are thus left with the
Analytic of the Beautiful, in respect of its general scheme and
arrangement, and the last few sections of the Dialeetic, as the
portions of the work which probably differ most from anything
contained in the original Critique of Taste.

That some of the last sections of the Dialectic of Aesthetic

xii Introductory Essays

Judgement were added to an earlier draft, whether it be that
to which Kant refers in the letter of December 28, 1787, or
a later draft, seems not at all improbable. It is noticeable
that the last paragraph of Remark II appended to §57 casts
retrospective glances and might quite appropriately have con-
cluded an earlier draft. A similar observation applies to the
last paragraph of §58. Very possibly $58 was added as a
concluding section to the Crifique of Aesthetic Judgement
during the progress of the Critique of Teleological Judgement.
Kant refers to it in the footnote in §67. Whether this foot-
note and § 58 were written after §67 or not, it would be hard
to say.

fe suppose that $$ 59 and 60 were added after a stage
when either Remark II to § 57 or $ 58 had formed the con-
clusion of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement, we should then
be led to infer a stage in the development of Kant’s views at
which he gave increased importance to the influence of the
moral faculty. It seems quite natural to suppose that his
attention was first directed to the reference to the theoretical
faculty, and that his earlier remarks on the relation of the
aesthetic judgement and of fine art to the moral faculty were
all of the kind that we find in $$ 16 and 52." But, when his
idea of representing the Critigue of Judgement as furnishing
a transition from the theoretical to the practical sphere
developed, Kant naturally sought to trace out a more intimate
and critical connexion, and thus came to regard the form of the
aesthetic judgement itself as the result of an a priord bearing
of the practical upon the theoretical faculty. The position
adopted in § 59 would naturally suggest to Kant that he ought
to treat the disinterestedness” of the judgement of taste as its
first moment. Then the two logical peculiarities, universality
and zecessity, might be regarded as the second and fourth
moments, with fzality apart from an end as the third. This
would give a correspondence with the table of the categories

1 Infra, pp. 73, 74, and ıgr.

2 In treating of beauty in the Anthropology (Werke, vol. vii, p. 239 et
seq.) Kant does not refer at all to disinterestedness, and does not refer to
necessity and universality as constitutive moments of the judgement of
taste, but only as marks of the a priori basis of taste. This work was pub-
lished in 1798, but Kant must have taken the material very largely from
the notes for his lectures. But in the Introduction to the Metaphysic of
Morals, published in 1797 (Ethics, p. 266 et seq.; Werke, vol, vi p. 212)
the full importance of disinterestedness is recognized. i :

Ll. Critique of Taste xliii

which would be very acceptable. The result would be that
most of what had appeared in the earlier draft would be incor-
porated under the head of the third moment. Certainly if Kant
had not already thought out the arrangement of the four
moments corresponding to the categories of Quality, Quantity,
Relation, and Modality, the points of the analogy which he
traces in § 59 would naturally suggest the idea.

However, the suggestion that the division of the Axalytic of
the Beautiful into four moments corresponding to the four
kinds of categories was an afterthought, is by no means one
that recommends itself at first view. As the work stands the
arrangement would suggest to us that it was part of Kant’s
original and ground plan. It forms such a prominent feature
of the Critique that it is what is chiefly—almost exclusively—
dealt with in the accounts of Kant’s Aesthetics to be found in
most Histories of Philosophy. The comparison of aesthetic with
logical judgements, and the reference to the table of categories,
are just what we should expect from Kant ; and a student of
Kant, especially if familiar with the Pro/egomena, naturally feels
that he could himself have anticipated it. Is it likely, then,
that what we could easily anticipate ourselves was with Kant
only an afterthought ?

There is a flaw in this argument. If a comparison of
aesthetic with logical judgements and a reference to the table
of categories could have enabled Kant at once to deduce the four
moments, then the argument would be unanswerable. But we
have only to look at the different definitions of the beautiful
framed in accordance with the four heads of categories, to see
that a mere regard to the logical functions of judgement could
not, of itself, have enabled Kant to discover the four moments—
whatever the footnote to §1 may suggest. A mere regard to
the logical functions of judgement would not, of itself, give the
point of view from which the connexion was to be effected.
But, if Kant had not at first recognized the four moments as
such, and if he was then led to consider the capital points of
the analogy of the judgement of taste, as he had already de-
scribed it, with the moral judgement, we can easily understand
how, at that stage, looking, as he naturally would, to the table
of categories, he was first able to recognize four of the charac-
teristics of the judgement of taste as constituting four moments,
and to speak of them as sought with the guidance of the
logical functions of judgement.

xliv Introductory Essays

Further, the objection in the argument under consideration
would appear much more convincing if it were not possible to
show that Kant was able to institute a comparison between
aesthetic and logical judgements, and to cast an eye on the
table of categories, quite independently of the arrangement of
the four moments. The comparison between aesthetic and
logical judgements, which a student of Kant would naturally
look for, may be found in the Deduction. In § 31 Kant states
that the judgement of taste has a double and, in fact, logical
peculiarity—a peculiar universality and necessity. This an-
nouncement sounds strange after the full discussion in the four
moments. Kant goes on to say: ‘The solution of these
logical peculiarities, which distinguish a judgement of taste
from all cognitive judgements, will, of itself, suffice for a Deduc-
tion of this strange faculty, provided we abstract at the outset
from all content of the judgement, viz. from the feeling of
pleasure, and merely compare the aesthetic form with the
form of objective judgements as prescribed by logic.’? These
peculiarities are nothing but those exhibited in the second and
fourth moments. Had they not already been arrived at by the
very comparison in question? It seems difficult to suppose
that Kant wrote this paragraph after he had elaborated the
four moments and written the footnote to §1. Hence, not
alone was it possible for Kant to institute the comparison with-
out any reference to the four moments as such, but he actually
did so, and did so in such a way that the complete disregard of
the earlier discussion is, of itself, sufficient to excite suspicion.

Then, as to a reference to the table of categories, we derive
some assistance by looking to the Analytic of the Sublime and
the Deduction—portions of the work suggested to be among the
earliest. In the Analytic of the Sublime Kant refers, in the
opening paragraph of § 24, to four moments of the judgement
upon the sublime, exactly corresponding to the four moments
of the judgement of taste (and which, by the way, were used to
define the beautiful specifically), but he merely, in this one
paragraph, superimposes this arrangement upon another arrange-
ment which underlies the whole exposition of the sublime as
actually given, and which follows the table of the categories
from quite a different point of view. What is more, Kant, in
several incidental remarks, looks back at the beautiful from
this different point of view. Thus he observes that the delight

1 Infra, p. 136.

Ll. Critique of Taste xlv

in the case of the beautiful is associated with the representation
of guality, whereas in the sublime it is associated with that of
quantity. If one were to read the Critique of Judgement for the
first time and begin with the Analytic of the Sublime, and to
pass over the first paragraph of § 24, and were to conjecture for
oneself what Kant had regarded as the characteristic of the
beautiful corresponding to the category of guality, one would
surely say that its gwaéity consisted in its being a feeling of
pleasure associated with the representation of a certain quality
of the object. We are, therefore, not justified in supposing
that a regard to the table of categories must have led Kant from
the first to recognize the four moments as eventually exhibited.

So much for the objections that immediately occur against
the assumption that the division of the Analytic of the Beautiful
into four moments may have been an afterthought. It may
now be worth while to examine more fully what arguments may
be brought forward in favour of the assumption. For it cannot
fail to be of interest to know what were the latest developments *
of Kant’s thoughts in the elaboration of his system; and,
further, the majority of any arguments that could be suggested
would naturally take the form of a reference to difficulties in
the work that would appear less serious if the hypothesis were
accepted, so that it would hardly be possible to make out a
good case for the assumption without at the same time giving
some assistance in the interpretation of the work.

In looking for such arguments we should first search for all
references to the moments appearing elsewhere than in the
Analytic of the Beautiful itself, and, having done so, we should
consider whether they are more than could be expected to have
been subsequently inserted. We should then look to see if
any of the positions adopted by Kant elsewhere than in the
Analytic of the Beautiful seem to pay regard to, or stand in any
systematic connexion with, the arrangement of the moments,
and, if not, we should then consider if Kant fails to pay regard
to that arrangement in any place where such a regard might

1 The development of Kant’s views up to the Critique of Judgement
is fully dealt with in Dr. Schlapp’s work. But he does not attempt to
indicate any traces of development during the progress of the Critique of
Judgement itself. However, had I seen his work earlier, I should have
endeavoured to show that the curve of the development that I have sought
to trace out in the Critique itself is only a continuation of that traced out
by Dr. Schlapp.

xlvi Introductory Essays

have been expected. After this we might consider what
additions to the early part of the work were necessitated by the
change, and whether this would have the effect of making any
of the later portions of the work appear surcharged with
repetition. In this connexion we should particularly look for
repetitions of the proof of what was, owing to the additions,
proved already, and for any casual indications in Kants
language suggesting the idea that he was approaching for the
first time what, in fact, had been dealt with previously. Then,
further, it would be likely that the changes introduced would
lead to some inconsistencies with older portions of the work.
Any such inconsistencies Kant would, of course, attempt to
remove. But if any escaped his notice their discovery would
be very suggestive. Next, the endeavour to utilize in the new
arrangement as many as possible of the original sections might
easily lead to a want of symmetry and balance, and we should
look to see if such a want is betrayed. Lastly, we should
consider whether the omission of any sections which would
have to be regarded as inserted in consequence of the new
arrangement would cause any unnatural breaks in the line of
thought, and leave gaps which in the original form could not
easily have been filled. It may be remarked that it would be
antecedently quite probable that we should obtain from the
above suggested inquiries results that, supposing the hypothesis
were false, would completely disprove it, whereas, supposing it
were correct, we could hardly expect any discovery that would
amount to a conclusive proof. Hence, in favour of the hypoth-
esis, merely negative as well as positive results may be taken
into consideration. However, we shall see that it is hardly
necessary to press this point, as all the results seem to converge,
to some extent at least, in the same direction. The different
points may now, at the expense of some slight repetition, be
mentioned in order.

(1) It is difficult to form an idea of the probable frequency
of references, outside the Axalytic of the Beautiful, to the
moments eo zomine. But the arrangement is so striking, and
the casual reference, either to the exposition of the moments of
the beautiful, or to a particular moment as such and such a
moment, would seem so natural, that we should at least expect
a few. But we find none, either in the fragment of the original
Introduction or in the Critique of Judgement—except that in the
first paragraph of $24. It is, then, a strange coincidence that

II. Critique of Taste xlvii

this solitary reference occurs in a passage which we have the
strongest independent reasons for supposing to have been
subsequently inserted.

(2) Nowhere outside the Azalytic of the Beautiful does Kant
adopt any position, or make any analysis, in which he seems to
have had the four moments, as such, present to mind. But in
several places where we might have expected him to have paid
some regard to that division he completely fails to do so.

(a) Thus, as the function of genius is to produce what taste
is to judge beautiful, and as it is genius that gives the rule to
art, we should have expected that a systematic writer, like Kant,
would have endeavoured to exhibit a certain parallelism between
his statement of the fundamental characteristics of genius and
his arrangement of the four moments of the judgement of taste.
But he makes no attempt to do so.

(2) The definitions of the beautiful given in the four moments
are all (as many critics have shown) in the nature of paradoxes.
Hence we should have expected Kant to exhibit four anzinomies
of taste. Not alone does he not do so, but he makes no effort
to anticipate the reader’s natural query as to why he should
look back to the two logical peculiarities ‚specified in the
Deduction instead of the four peculiarities given in the Analytic.

*(c) When in $ 59 Kant came to trace out the analogy between
judgements of taste and moral judgements the natural and
proper course for him to adopt would be simply to follow the
four moments accurately and faithfully. But what he does is
to pick up the points of resemblance from the work as it would
appear if what are here regarded as the added sections were
omitted. The first point, that the judgement is immediate,
looks back to § 1 and the remarks at pp. 69, 1. 16, and 135,1. 25.
The second point may be regarded as taken from whatever
section of the original draft first dealt with independence from
interest. This may have been a section including the first
paragraph in § 2 and appearing in close conjunction with §§ 11
and 13. It is noticeable that the second paragraph, which would
have to be regarded as added, calls attention to the extreme
importance of the proposition, and introduces the significant
change from independent of interest to disinterested, i.e. from a
reference merely to the category of negation to a reference to
the category of Amitation. Then, universality is mentioned
after the freedom of the imagination (which looks principally
to the General Remark on the First Section of the Analytic),

xlviii Introductory Essays

and thus corroborates the assumption that originally universadity:
was first dealt with in the Deduction. . ’

(3) If Kant only determined on the division of the Analytic
into four moments after he had made a complete draft of the
Critique of Taste, then the contents of the third moment could.
be provided from the sections of the original draft, but, for the
other moments, especially the second and fourth, he would
have to draw on the Deduction. The unusual amount of
repetition in the work has been pointed out by critics with no
particular theory to serve. This repetition will be found to be
almost entirely a repetition of the contents of the second and
fourth moments. Then, at the close of the General Remark
on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements, Kant
prepares for a discussion of universality and necessity in a
manner which would be almost inexplicable if the second and
fourth moments had been written at the time. Similarly, the
last paragraph of § 29, which is devoted to the modality of the
judgement upon the sublime, refers to the modality of aesthetic
judgements (in general) in a manner which suggests preparation
for a first discussion. Again, when Kant arrives at the dis-
cussion of universality in § 32 he completely ignores the second
moment, and gives illustrations which would have seemed more
appropriate in the second moment where the subject was actually
first discussed. Then, the whole argument in the Deduction,
from § 31 to § 38, is mere repetition. This is most important.
Kant states that the sublime requires no deduction, because
its exposition is a sufficient deduction, and that a deduction
is only necessary in the case of the beautiful. Doubtless the
exposition of the beautiful, as it originally stood, did not involve
the deduction, but the exposition of the four moments contains
every essential point to be found in §§ 31 to 38. This result of the
new division evidently escaped Kant. Or, did it altogether escape
him? When the work was sent to press § 30 was headed ‘ Third
Book. Deduction of Aesthetic Judgements’. Then, at the last
moment, Kant ordered the heading ‘ Third Book’ to be struck
out. This alteration was made so late that, in the first edition,
it could only appear in the table of evrata. This suggests that
Kant sought to minimize the importance of the deduction.

(4) There seem to be a few inconsistencies which may be
attributed to the change of plan.

(a) The discussion in $ı3 on chavym and emotion would
more appropriately fall under the head of the first moment:

II. Critique of Taste xlix

This is shown from its own reasoning, viz. that interest destroys
the judgement of taste, and that, /Aerefore, the judgement of
taste cannot be determined by charm or emotion. ‘That an
explicit definition of a pure judgement of taste should have been
first given in the third moment, and that this definition should
look to freedom from charm and emotion, instead of to freedom
from interest, seems strange.'

(4) The General Remark on the First Section of the Analytic
purports to give the result of the previous analysis. But it is
quite misleading in the exclusive emphasis which it throws on
the third moment. The first sentence, in particular, seems
inconsistent with the last of § 22.

(c) The statement that the exposition of the beautiful does
not contain its deduction is, as already indicated, inconsistent
with the fact that the deduction only contains repetitions.”

(d) The inconsistencies between the exposition of the sublime,
as given, and the opening paragraph of § 24 have already been
referred to, and will be dealt with more fully in the fourth
essay.

(5) (a) There is a want of symmetry and balance between the
third moment and the others. The contents of the third
moment, with the general Zxemplification in § 14, are just what
we might expect if it contains the whole substance of the
original exposition.

(6) The treatment of the sublime, even in its method, which
is mainly psychological, is quite out of keeping with the Axalytic
of the Beautiful. A similar remark applies to the treatment of
the laughable in § 54.

(6) If the headings to the moments are struck out, and also
the definitions of the beautiful following the different moments,
and, further, the different sections which, on the assumption
under consideration, must be regarded as added, viz. $$ 2 (part
of which might be reinserted in § 11), 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 18, 19,
20, 21, and 22, with, of course, the footnote to § 1, there would
be absolutely nothing in the exposition of the beautiful as it
would then stand, or (except for the opening paragraph of § 24)
in the rest of the work, to show the least trace of the removal.
Nowhere in the sequel would the argument fail for want of

1 Cf. infra, p. 152, 1. 3. ee

2 We see from §§ 29 and go why the exposition of the sublime involved
its deduction, and, at the same time, why the exposition of the beautiful
also involved its deduction as soon as it was made to contain §§ 19 to 22,

1193

l Introductory Essays

anything proved in these sections. Further, the sequence of
thought in the mutilated exposition would appear surprisingly
natural. In §1 (which is purely introductory and does not
belong specially to the first moment) the reference to the
‘regular and appropriate (Zweckmässiges) building’ would gain
by proximity to §§ 9 and 1o, and similarly, § 17 by closer
proximity to the Analytic of the Sublime. The General Remark
at the end of § 22 would also seem a more adequate summary.
That all this should be so is, certainly, an extraordinary
coincidence.

If, in addition, we further remove §§ 59 and 60, which, it is
suggested, were added some time previous to the remodelling
of the Analytic of the Beautiful, we should then get a work
which would still read quite naturally from beginning to end,
and which, while far less deep and worthy of the critical spirit
of Kant, would present decidedly fewer difficulties to his critics,

If no one of the above arguments, taken singly, is conclusive,
it is submitted that their cumulative effect is practically
coercive.

Essay 111

THE BEAUTIFUL
THE object of Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful is to formulate
the conception of a pure judgement of taste. His argument is
holy ndependentHt any pachological analysis. He relies on
the meaning ofa pure judgement of tase, and on the fact that
itS Significance Is what it 1s, whether any one should lay down

such a judgement or not. His concern is not with actual

judgements but with judgements that are Zossıöze—though he
does seek to show that a regard to such possible judgements is
implied in the claims commonly put forward on behalf of
judgements of taste.

With Kant the pure judgement of taste is, therefore, an ideal.
Here we see the essential distinction between his position
and that of his predecessors, and how in the Critique of the
Aesthetic Judgement he was able to effect a revolution similar
to that which he effected by the Crztigue of Pure Reason, and
which he compared to the revolution in astronomy brought
about by Copernicus. Wolff, and Baumgarten, as well as
many others, had seen that in the representation of beauty
there is a striving after an ideal. But they sought the ideal
outside judgement itself in some perfection of the object. As
against these philosophers Kant showed that there was nothing
distinctive in judgements of that kind. The proviso that the
perfection should be thought in a confused way was futile. A
judgement which concerns what is objective does not cease to
be logical (i.e. a cognitive judgement) by being confused.
Kant, accordingly, placed the ideal in the form of the judgement
itself, and changed the question from one of what the object
ought to be, to one of what judgement in respect of the beautiful
ought to be. Purity of judgement was substituted for perfection
of the object.

What Kant attempts, then, in the Analytic of the Beautiful,
is to formulate the conception of a pure aesthetic judgement as
one completely distinct and saz generis. Hence, when in the

d2

lii Introductory Essays

course of his argument he distinguishes the beautiful from the
agreeable and the good, we are not to regard the definition of
the beautiful as formulated independently of this distinction,
but we are to regard the beautiful as something which ought to
be defined so as to he distinguished in this way. ‚The distinction
proves the definition, provided the required judgement is at
least fossit/e. ‘The latter question, which is dealt with in the
Deduction, is, as stated in the last essay, completely disposed
of in the exposition, This may be seen by examining the
connexion of the moments. No doubt ¢ the first moment is
admitted the second may be deduced from it, and so on with
the succeeding moments. There is, however, a difficulty as
to the possibility of the first moment, and this difficulty is only
met by the sccond moment, which, in turn, raises a further
difficulty, and so on with the other moments. In other words,
each moment presupposes the succeeding moment, and so on
till we reach the idea of a sensus communis as the final pre-
supposition.

Thus the first moment emphasizes the disinterestedness of
the judgement of taste. But we can only free ourselves from
conditions of merely private validity by putting ourselves in
thought in the position of every one else and making the
voice with which we speak a universal voice. Again, the
universal standpoint which we adopt, and the universal voice
with which we speak, is only possible by our confining our
attention to what is communicable to others. A universal point
of reference for /ee/ing —since the judgement of taste is to be a
mere aesthetic judgement—must, therefore, be sought on the
cognitive side—for only what belongs in some way to cognition
can be communicated to others. ‘This can only be found in
the harmony of imagination and understanding, as a general
requisite for all cognition. It is only through the immediate
value which we set upon the universal communicability of the
feeling of the quickening of our faculties by their mutual accord,
that we are able to divest ourselves of the mediate interest that
attaches to what is agreeable to the senses. But, again, the
universal communicability of the above feeling presupposes a
common sense. ‘The judgement of taste is, accordingly, given
out as an instance of the judgement of a common sense, and
thus claims exemplary validity. But have we reason for pre-
supposing a common sense ? This is the question which Kant
undertakes to answer in §21. His argument is that in pre-

III. The Beautiful li

supposing a common sense we are presupposing no more than
is presupposed if we assume that knowledge of objects is
possible and communicable. If, then, knowledge of objects is
communicable, we have ready to hand all the data requisite for
judgements of taste, including a basis for a subjective preference
for different objects. For different objects must lend themselves
differently to the task of imagination which has to synthesize
the given manifold of sense, and this synthesis, again, may be
more or less stimulating to the understanding. Lastly, it is the
presupposition of a common sense that enables the subjective
necessity of the judgement of taste to be represented as
objective.

The foregoing observations will enable us to understand
another feature of Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful which might
otherwise occasion some difficulty. In considering the moments
of the judgement of taste, Kant regards the moments of that
judgement s¢a#cal/y and not dynamically, that is to say, he
merely considers the import and bearings of the estimate
formed of the object, and says nothing of the mental evolution
which leads to our adopting the standpoint from which alone
such an estimate is possible. The reason for this is that, as
already stated, he is merely formulating an ideal—the idea of a
possible pure judgement of taste—and so is only concerned
with the judgement in its final and perfect form. Thus the
evolution of actual judgements of taste from impure to pure
falls outside the scope of his inquiry.

After these few preliminary remarks we may deal more
specifically with the different moments. Probably, as already
suggested, Kant was first led to consider the aesthetic judgement
from the side of our cognitive faculties, and so began by
distinguishing it from a cognitive judgement, while showing at
the same time that it had a reference to our faculty of cognition
generally. The consideration of the analogy between the
beautiful and the morally good may, however, have influenced
him to make a change in his plan, and to regard the judgement
primarily from the point of view of the zw. At all events, as
the account stands, disinterestedness is the feature of which
Kant says the judgement upon the beautiful takes cognizance
in the first instance.

This important moment of the judgement upon the beautiful
was by no means an original discovery on the part of Kant. It
had been noted, more or less clearly, by Thomas Aquinas.

liv Introductory Essays

Moses Mendelssohn, as Ueberweg points out, drew attention
to the same characteristic in his Morgenstunden: ‘It is usual
to distinguish in the soul the cognitive faculty from the faculty
of desire, and to include the feelings of pleasure and displeasure
under the latter. It seems to me, however, that between
knowing and desiring lies approving, the satisfaction of the
soul, which is, strictly speaking, far removed from desire.
We contemplate the beautiful in nature and in art, without the
least motion of desire, with pleasure and satisfaction. It appears
the rather to be a particular mark of the beautiful, that it is
contemplated with quiet satisfaction, that it pleases, even
though it be not in our possession, and even though we be
never so far removed from the desire to put it to our use. It
is not until we regard the beautiful in relation to ourselves
and look upon the possession of it as a good, that the desire
to have, to take to ourselves, to possess, awakes in us—a desire
which is very widely distinguished from enjoyment of the
beautiful”? But certainly the clearest and most emphatic
statement of the disinterestedness of the delight in the beautiful,
previous to that by Kant, had been made by Hutcheson long
before the publication of Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden :
‘Many of our sensitive perceptions are pleasant and many
painful immediately, and that without any knowledge of the
cause of this pleasure or pain, or how the objects excite it, or
are the occasions of it; or without seeing to what farther
advantage or detriment the use of such objects might tend:
nor would the most accurate knowledge of these things vary
either the pleasure or pain of the perception, however it might
give a rational pleasure distinct from the sensible; or might
raise a distinct joy, from a prospect of farther advantage in the
object, or aversion, from an apprehension of evil.’? Again,
‘the pleasure does not arise from any knowledge of principles,
proportions, causes, or of the usefulness of the Object: but
strikes us at first with the idea of beauty: nor does the most
accurate knowledge increase this pleasure of beauty however it
may superadd a distinct rational pleasure from prospects of
advantage, or from the increase of knowledge. And farther,
the ideas of beauty and harmony, like other sensible ideas, are
necessarily pleasant to us, as well as immediately so; neither
can any resolution of our own, nor any prospect of advantage

! Ueberweg, Hist. of Philosophy, vol. ii, 528 (Engl. trans.).
2 Inquiry, sect, 1, subsec. 5.

Lil. Lhe Beautiful lv

or disadvantage, vary the beauty or deformity of an object : for
as in the external sensation no view of interest will make an
object grateful, nor view of detriment, distinct from immediate
pain in the perception, make it disagreeable to the sense ; so,
propose the whole world as a reward, or threaten the greatest
evil, to make us approve a deformed object, or disapprove
a beautiful one ; dissimulation may be procured by rewards or
threatenings, or we may in external conduct abstain from any
pursuit of the beautiful, and pursue the deformed; but our
sentiments of the forms, and our perceptions would continue
invariably the same’.' And again, ‘Had we no such sense
of beauty and harmony; houses, gardens, dress, equipage,
might have been recommended to us as convenient, fruitful,
warm, easy ; but never as Jeautiful.’* Other similar passages
might be quoted, but it is unnecessary, as Hutcheson is quite
as emphatic on the point as Kant. This moment was, in fact,
so familiar to British writers that in a philosopher of such
slight importance as Nettleton we find the observation :—‘ The
productions of nature and art, when they come under our survey
and contemplation, do many of them excite a pleasing admira-
tion: they are no sooner brought into our view, but they affect
us with pleasure directly, and immediately, without our reflecting
on the reason they do so, and without their being considered
with relation to ourselves; or as advantageous in any other
respect, even where there is no possession, no enjoyment or
reward, but barely seeing and admiring. These objects are
therefore called beautiful?

The originality of Kant, therefore, is not to be sought in
the discovery of this moment of the judgement upon the
beautiful, or, in fact, in the discovery of any other moment. It
is rather to be sought in the se¢éing of the account, and its
systematic connexion with the work as a whole. We must
even widen our view so as to look beyond the Critigue of
Judgement to the other Critiques, and see in this moment the
first indication of the judgement of taste as a judgement betray-
ing an influence of the practical upon the theoretical faculty,
resulting in an a prior? standpoint. It is quite easy to write
a work on aesthetics which merely catalogues a number of
interesting features to which attention must be paid, or which
fixes on one feature and subordinates everything else to it

1 Inquiry, sect, 1, subsecs. 13, 14. 2 Ibid., sect. 1, subsec. 16,
3 A Treatise on Virtue and Happiness, 3rd ed., p. 112.

lvi Introductory Essays

without any due regard to true proportions, but the difficulty
lies in preserving a correct perspective. So it 1s rather in the
co-ordination of the different moments than in the statement of
the moments themselves that we must look for the chief merit
of Kant. A similar merit, however, must not be altogether
denied to Hutcheson, whose /nguiry is a work admirably knit
together and constructed on a plan which Kant may have found
extremely suggestive. .

By way of explanation of the first moment of the judge-
ment of taste we may refer to a suggestive parallel to be found
in Aristotle’s account of Friendship in the Nichomachean Ethics.

“First there is the Spurious type of friendship that is based on
=utifity. Men may be well disposed towards one another on
“account of the advantage which each derives from the other.
Brought together by this or other means they may further
derive-pleasure from each other’s society. Here each is well-
disposed towards the other, because the other contributes to
his pleasure, and this is the second type of friendship. It is
spurious because, as Kant would say, it is determined by an
interest. But in truefriergtship-a man doesnot Tove his frien
“because of anything he derives trom his existence, but for him-
self alone and for what he is. A friend, in the true sense, may

"and his society will naturally give pleasure, but no
accounts are kept on either side in these matters. For the
friend is not loved decause of anything derived from him, but
simply as another self (an ale ego). Here it is to be observed
that it is not necessary for the friend originally to have been
useful or to have contributed to the other’s pleasure—though
these relations do often lead to true friendship. He may never
have been useful, and any pleasure derived from his society
may only have been derived-after he became a friend and as
the natural result of his being so—for however independent
true friendship may be of pleasure as a determining ground, all
will admit that true friendship is itself a seurce of the greatest
pleasure.

The meaning of disinterestedness is, however, perhaps no-
where more generally appreciated than in connexion with the
laughable. Here, although a joke may tell against a person,
and although something in which he has a lively interest forms
the subject-matter of the joke, still we expect him to be able
to dissociate himself from personal interests and enjoy it simply
as a joke. Hence nothing is regarded as giving greater

III. The Beautiful Wii

evidence of mental detachment than the ability to take a joke
against oneself good-humouredly. A man who can do this
at once gains our esteem, for he clearly separates his true self
from any mere external self that could become the object of
laughter. Thus Soctates rose up during a performance of the
Clouds to let the Athenians see what was being ridiculed on the
stage,—by that very act putting Aömse/f beyond the reach of
satire. =

Kant does not devote much space to illustrating what he
means by disinterestedness, and his definition of interest as
“the delight which we combine with the representation of the
existence of an object’ is too abstract to be suggestive to the
general reader—though, in the case of the laughable we all
recognize that a good story is a good story whether it is really
true or not. The definition was, however, necessitated, and-
appeared subsequently in the AMeiaphysic of Morals: ‘The
pleasure which is not necessarily cOmmected with the desire of
the object, and which, therefore, is at bottom not a pleasure in
the existence of the object of the idea, but clings to the idea
only, may be called mere contemplative pleasure or passive
satisfaction. The feeling of the latter kind of pleasure we call
taste’! However, the remark that a judgement which is in the
least tinged with interest is ‘very partial and not a pur
judgement of taste’ helps to bring out the significance of the
characteristic.

But the best way to understand what is meant by an
interested judgement is to go to a picture gallery in company
with an average woman or business man and to note the reasons
given for the preference of particular works.? Whenever a
work of art is approved on grounds that depend upon the
way in which the subject-matter of the work appeals to the
critic because of his character, the approval is obviously
partial. Similarly, not to be able to see beauty in a work of
art because the subject seems in itself mean or low betrays an

1 Ethics, p. 266; Werke, vol. vi, p. 212.

2 If Kant’s views as to the basis of a pure judgement of taste are correct,
it is impossible for a critic to defend his favourable estimate of a work by
adequate arguments, He may explain in general terms the aims of a
particular school, as, for instance, those of the Post-Impressionists, but,
in the last resort, his argument reduces itself to a mere statement that
he likes the work, which, perhaps, another considers a mere daub. But

it is quite possible for a critic to put himself completely out of court by
urging obviously interested grounds of approval.

iii Introductory Essays

interested judgement. The artist makes ‘all things beautiful
in their time’. j

The second moment further defines the beautiful as that
which, apart from a concept, is represented as the Object of
a universal delight. Kant shows that this moment may be
deduced from the preceding. For since abstraction has been
made from all private conditions the ground of the delight
must be sought in what is universal. If the judgement is
thought as disinterested it must also be thought as universally
valid.

But it is easy to see that a disinterested judgement as
a positive act, presupposes the adoption of a universal stand-
point. It is only by putting ourselves in thought in: the
position of every one else, and by substituting an impersonal
judgement for one that is merely personal, that our delight can
be disinterested.

Again, as our claim to universal validity is based on the belief
that our delight, being disinterested, must rest on what may be
presupposed in every one else, it is clear that this moment pre-
supposes the third and fourth, which determine this ground
more precisely. Thus, in characterizing the universality as
that of a universal voice, Kant expressly states that he is
reserving the question as to what it is upon which this voice:
relies.

The claim to universal validity is what alone explains why
beauty is referred to as if it were a property of the Object,
and as 7f the judgement by which it is asserted were logical.
Were it not for this claim everything that pleased apart from
a concept would simply be called agreeable. The great crux
for a purely empirical theory is the fact that it would be a con-
tradiction in terms to say of a beautiful object, ‘It is beautiful
to me. If I only mean to say that it pleases me, there is no
sense in my calling it beautiful.

- Hence our actual aesthetic judgements, whether they do in
fact i iversal agreement or not, must_rest_upon the
“ther ofthe Pp of an westhehre judgement capable of
“being-atthe-same time deemed valid for everyone’. How far

_we are justified in forming such an idea is a matter considered
in the subsequent moments, but for the present it is clear
that Pte ate 70 cstimate objects in respect of a pure dis
interested delight we can only do so by speaking with a

‚untversal voice, and by thus laying down our judgement as an

III. The Beautiful lix

instance of some rule, which, however, is not to be determined
by concepts.

The way in which the second moment presupposes the third
is indicated by Kant himself. If we are to speak with a uni-
versal voice the determining ground of our judgement must be

something which is universally communicable. _But ‘nothing

is capable of being univer: communicated but cognition

is only as thus appurtenant that the representation is objective,
and it is this alone that gives it a universal point of reference
with which the power of representation of every one is obliged
to harmonize’.’ Now if this point is clearly comprehended we
may at once, and apart from any psychological observations
whatever, deduce the next step of the argument. For we have
seen that there must be a reference to cognition, and, at the
samie time, the determining ground of the judgement, having
to be aesthetic, must be ‘merely subjective, that is to say, is to
be conceived independently of any concept of the object’.?
Hence there is nothing left for this determining ground to be
but ‘the mental state that presents itself in the mutual relation
of the powers of representation so far as they refer a given

representation to cognition in general’.

‘Now a representation, whereby an object is given, involves,
in order that it may become a source of cognition at all,
imagination for bringing together the manifold of intuition, „and

"understanding for the unity of the concept uniting the répre-
sentations’.» Hence—still remembering that the judgement
is to be aesthetic, ard that, therefore, no definite concept is to
be presupposed—the determining ground may be more clearly
expressed as ‘the mental state present in the free play of
imagination and understanding (so far as these are in mutual
accord, which is a requisite for cognition in general)’?

This position is obviously reached by purely abstract con-
siderations, and not from any assured fact that we are conscious
of the mutual accord of imagination and understanding engaged
in free play, and that it is this that we attend to in our judge-
ments of taste. Kant’s argument is that 7f the delight in the
beautiful is to be disinterested we must speak with a universal
voice, and if we are to speak with a universal voice the
determining ground must, somehow or other, be that above
described.

1 Injra, p. 57+ 2 Infra, p. 58.

ie: Introductory Essays

But how are we to become conscious in a judgement of
taste, of a reciprocal subjective common accord of the powers
of cognition? As the judgement of taste is to be aesthetic
this can only be indirectly through sensation. “The quickening
of both faculties (imagination and understanding) to an inde-
finite, but yet, thanks to the given representation, harmonious
activity, such as belongs to cognition generally, is the sensation
whose universal communicability is postulated by the judge-
ment of taste.’? ;

Here, however, we must be careful to guard against an
ambiguity in the expressions ‘a sensation of’ or ‘a feeling of’.
These sensations and feelings are commonly, and quite prop-
erly, specified and denominated by reference to representa-
tions which they accompany, or by reference to what is regarded
as producing them. In this way we may speak of a sensation
of the harmony of imagination and understanding, when all we
mean is an effect, in the way of sensation, regarded as produced
by such harmony. So, too, we may even speak of a feeling of
our ‘supersensible sphere’ when we mean the feeling that
accompanies the conviction that we have a supersensible
sphere. But by persons who do not think clearly these same
expressions are used in such a way as to elevate mere
indefiniteness of thought to the rank of a special faculty. Thus
we hear of ‘a sense of perfection’, a ‘felt unity,’ a ‘feeling
of harmony ’ and an ‘instinctive sense’ of this or that, where
something which could only be thought is, instead of being
recognized as only thought in an obscure or confused way,
supposed to be immediately revealed by sense or feeling as
a faculty of some sort of superior intuition. But, as Kant
points out on more than one occasion, the distinction
between clear and confused is merely logical, and an objective
judgement does not become subjective by its determining
ground being confused or obscure. So when Kant says
‘a sensation of’ or ‘a feeling of’ we must remember that he
never intends to throw upon sensation or feeling the burden
of immediately revealing an objective relation.

But while ‘an objective relation can, of course, only be
thought, yet in so far as, in respect of its conditions, it is sub-
jective, it may be felt in its effect upon the mind, and, in the
case of a relation (like that of the powers of representation to
a faculty of cognition generally) which does not rest on any

1 Infra, p. 60.

III. The Beautiful lxi

concept, no other consciousness of it is possible beyond that
through sensation of its effect upon the mind—an effect con-
sisting in the more facile play of both mental powers (imagin-
ation and understanding) as quickened by their mutual accord ’.!
Thus the relation of the powers of representation to a faculty
of cognition generally is one which cannot be revealed to us
through cognition at all, but only indirectly through feeling,
namely, by means of a sensation of its effect upon the mind.
But this sensation does not z¢se/f immediately testify to its
origin—and it is for this reason that we must be so careful that
in our judgement of taste we are attending only to the form of
the Object ; for it is only a consciousness that we have abstrac-
ted from everything else that enables us to determine the
significance and import of the sensation. If the sensation in-
volved an immediate consciousness of the harmony of imagin-
ation and understanding then the judgement about the beautiful
would depend upon an immediate intuition, and the complicated
questions considered by Kant would not arise at all.

If, however, for the expression ‘ the sensation of the effect upon
the mind’ of the harmony of imagination and understanding
we substitute the expression ‘consciousness of the harmony of
imagination and understanding’, understood in the most preg-
nant sense of which the words are capable, it is easy for us to
find in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement an abandonment by
Kant of his most fundamental positions.

Thus Professor Caird argues: ‘ Now knowledge results from
an activity of the understanding, which in the manifold brought
together by imagination, recognizes the unity of a definite
conception. To say, therefore, that we have a consciousness
of the harmony of these activities, is to say that, prior to the
judgement in which particular and universal,—image of percep-
tion, and general conception,—are distinguished and referred
to each other, we have a consciousness which cannot be said to
be distinctly either perception or conception, yet which contains
both implicitly in one; a consciousness of the particular as yet
undivided from the consciousness of the universal. The
judgement of taste thus issues out of an immediate conscious-
ness of the object, which is not mere perception, but has the
universality of the conception involved in it. Now, we know
how Kant repudiated the idea of a “ perceptive understanding”,
in which the difference of conception and perception either

1 Infra, p. 60.

Ixii Introductory Essays

does not exist, or is entirely transcendental and reconciled’,
&c, &c. : :

We may now considera problem the solution of which Kant
says is the key to the Critique of Taste. Ina judgement of
taste is it the feeling of pleasure or the estimating of the object
that is prior ? . :

Certainly the reader might have been excused for inferring
from some of the earlier passages in the Critique that the
pleasure in the object was the ground of the estimate of the
object as beautiful, and that all that the judgement has to do
is to declare this pleasure to be universally valid. Thus in
Section VII of the Zafroduction Kant says : ‘When the form of
an object (as opposed to the matter of its representation, as
sensation) is, in the mere act of reflecting upon it, without
regard to any concept to be obtained from it, estimated as the
ground of a pleasure in the representation of such an Object,
then this pleasure is also judged to be combined necessarily with
the representation of it, and so not merely for the Subject ap-
prehending this form, but for all in general who pass judgement.
The object is then called beautiful ; and the faculty of judging
by means of such a pleasure (and so also with universal validity).
is called taste.’? Here the expression ‘the faculty of judging dy
means of such a pleasure’ is somewhat ambiguous, and might,
at first, lead one to suppose that the pleasure was the ground
of the judgement, instead of being, as it really is, the adjudica-
tion of taste itself—which adjudication is merely expressed in
the judgement that the object is beautiful.

But we must remember that the problem of the Critique of
Taste was to find an a griord principle that gives the rule to the
feeling of pleasure. The object must please because it is beau-
tiful, instead of being judged beautiful because it pleases. - If
the pleasure were to be the antecedent, then the judgement of
taste would have nothing to do but to affirm its universal com-
municability. But such an affirmation would be self-contra-
dictory ; ‘for a pleasure of that kind would be nothing but the
feeling of mere agreeableness to the senses, and so, from its
very nature, would possess no more than private validity, seeing
that it would be immediately dependent on the representation
through which the object zs given,’ °

A passage in the original draft of the Ztroduction contains

1 The Critical Philosophy of Kan i ii

Ny eben phy of Kant, by en il, 456, 457.

III, The Beautiful Ixiii

in some ways, the clearest statement of Kant’s meaning. ‘If,
that is to say, the reflection upon a given representation precedes
the feeling of the pleasure (as the determining ground of the
judgement), then the subjective finality is howght prior to being
felt in its. effect, and the aesthetic judgement belongs to that
extent—that is, in respect of its principles—to our higher
faculty of cognition, and, in fact, to our power of judgement,
under the subjective, and yet, at the same time, universal con-
ditions of which the representation of the object is subsumed.’ !

Thus, where an object is considered beautiful, we have, first,
on the one hand, the given object, and, on the other, the reflec-
tive judgement—the four moments of which are the subject of
Kant’s analysis—directed to that object. Then we have, nega-
tively, an abstraction from everything but the form of the Object,
and, positively, the contemplation of this form. This contem-
plation strengthens and reproduces itself, and we have a sensa-

_ tion of a certain mental state, which sensation is at once
referred, as effect, to the harmony of imagination and under-
standing, and, being at once so referred, becomes at once
a feeling of pleasure—a sense of the bearing of the sensation
upon the whole state of the mind.

In the above account it should, of course, be understood
that the ‘sensation of the effect upon the mind’ does not first
exist in an indeterminate manner and then become subsequently
determined as a feeling of pleasure. Just because the finality
is thought before it is fe/¢ in its effect, the sensation is at once
a feeling of pleasure. The priority is only logical.

An object is, therefore, judged beautiful or not, according as
the reflexion upon it results in a feeling of pleasure or dis-
pleasure. Yetit is not this pleasure, but “the universal capacity
for being communicated incident to the mental state in the
given representation which, as the subjective condition of the
judgement of taste, must be fundamental, with the pleasure in
the object as its consequent’.? In other words the source of
the pleasure is the interpretation which we put on the sensation.

What was substantiated in the course of the above discussion
leaves little to be said to complete the statement of the third
moment. For pleasure is ‘ the consciousness of the causality of
a representation in respect of the state of the Subject as one
tending zo preserve a continuance of that state,’ * while displeasure

1 Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Erdmann’s edition, p. 358.

2 Infra, p. 57. 3 Infra, p. 61.

Ixiv Introductory Essays

is ‘ that representation which contains the ground for converting
the state of the representations into their opposite (for hindering
or removing them)’.! Now pleasure, as above defined, had to be
an aesthetic representation of the relation of the form of the
object to the harmony of imagination and understanding as
a general prerequisite of cognition. Hence beauty, as that in
which pleasure so defined, and restricted to such a reference
(in order that it may be universally communicable), is felt, can
only be ‘the subjective finality in the representation of the
object’. For the idea of such finality is no more than the idea
of the ground of pleasure, as above defined, in a case where
the causality has to refer to the relative bearing of the powers
of representation.

If in contemplating a beautiful object we have no imme-
diate consciousness of the harmony of imagination and under-
standing, a reference to this harmony, by way of an interpreta-
tion, may seem to be introduced into our estimate of the object
by a process of reasoning far too subtle and refined for the
reflective judgement. The reference to imagination may,
doubtless, seem quite natural, but it may be thought to be
exacting too much to ask the reflective judgement to work out
a reference to a harmony of imagination and wzderstanding in
the way Kant has done.

The answer to this criticism will explain why the harmony of
imagination and understanding seems so immediately e/¢, and
why the assumption of our immediate consciousness of it is so
readily attributed to Kant. We have seen that before finality is felt
in its effect, it is ¢hought. Now ‘ we only apply the term “final”
to the object on account of its representation being immediately
coupled with the feeling of pleasure: and this representation
itself is an aesthetic representation of the finality’? But, before
the feeling of pleasure is connected with the representation of
the object, zecessity is thought. The difficulty about the
reference to understanding arose from the fact that the fourth
moment, which was presupposed as far back as the second, had
not yet been considered.

Here an instructive passage from the Anthropology may be
quoted: ‘The universal validity of this pleasure, which is that
by which choice with taste (choice of the beautiful) is differen-
tiated from choice by means of mere organic sensation (choice
of what is merely subjectively pleasing), i. e. choice of what is

1 Infra, p. 61. 2 Infra, p. 30.

III. The Beautiful Ixv

agreeable—involves the concept of a law. For only on this
concept of a law can the validity of the delight for those who
estimate the object be universal. But the faculty of represent-
ing the universal is understanding ’.! Du

Hence, if a claim to universality and necessity liesat the very
root of the idea of a judgement upon the beautiful, the reference
to understanding is not fartoseek. It is this implied reference,
and this alone, that makes us refer what we feel to the object
as if it belonged to it as a logical predicate, and makes us
call the object beautiful instead of being content to speak for
ourselves individually.

Let us be clear on this point. Before we feel any pleasure
in the beautiful, we determine to adopt a disinterested attitude,
we intend to speak with a universal voice and to claim necessity
for our judgement, and we /kink a possible conformity of the
object to our faculties of cognition. Such is the reflective judge-
ment which we direct to the contemplation of the form of the
object, and with the trend of consciousness, as this contempla-
tion strengthens and reproduces itself, we get the feeling of
pleasure. This pleasure, being immediately felt on reflection
upon the mere form of the object, seems :nevtfable, and so
answers to our forethought necessity. And as we immediately
connect the pleasure with the object, we also transfer the
inevitability to the form of the object. Hence we seem to feel
a certain inevitability about the form of what is beautiful. It
seems to come to us charged with the meaning for us of which
we are immediately conscious—and, if we are philosophers, we
may even begin to think we have a perceptive understanding.

Hence we see that there is no difficulty as to the reference
to understanding. For in directing the judgement of taste to
the given object we are already prepared to regard its particular
form as one to be chosen out of an infinity of possible forms
according to some rule. But the only rule that can be present
—the only rule in respect of which the harmony of imagination
and understanding can be judged—is one which cannot be
formulated, and which, of course, cannot be immediately
felt as a rule. It is a rule which can only be exemplified.
aoe ee validity is what we claim for our judgement
ol taste. But how are we justi i imi
validity ? | justified in claiming exemplary

The claim to necessity put forward on behalf of the judgement

1 Werke, vol. vii, p. 241.

1193

Ixvi Introductory Essays

of taste is only put forward subject to a condition. To entitle
us to make the claim we have to assume a common sense as a
subjective principle that determines, by means of feeling only,
and not by concepts, and yet with universal validity, what
pleases or displeases. This is not to be taken as an external
sense of any kind but, as we have already seen, only as ‘the
effect arising from the free play of our cognitive faculties’.
Unless we refer the pleasure or displeasure to such a sense
there is no foundation whatever for our claim. The judgement
of taste can only be laid down, therefore, under presupposition
of a common sense. But, when once we do make this presup-
position, we are then entitled to regard the pleasure which we
immediately experience in contemplating the form of an object
(which in itself is only a pleasure recognized as experienced
under such circumstances) as a consciousness of the harmonious
working of imagination and understanding, and as depending
upon a relation which is necessarily valid for all men. All that
this judgement of taste has to go upon is the abstraction from
everything but the form of the object, and the sensation of the
stimulation of the mind—that this representation of the object
strengthens and maintains itself. All else consists of presuppo-
sition and of interpretation which we read into the facts.

Under the presupposition of this common sense the necessity
of the universal assent thought in a judgement of taste is,
although subjective, represented as objective. In_ itself
‘common sense is a mere ideal norm’. But ‘with this as
presupposition, a judgement that accords with it, as well as the
delight in an Object expressed in that judgement, is rightly
converted into a rule for every one’.! But this rule does not
mean ‘ that every one will fall in with my judgement, but rather
that every one ought to agree with it’? It must further be
remembered that, being justified in assuming this principle, no
number of mistakes as to the correct subsumption under it in
particular cases can do away with the general right of laying
down judgements as examples of its correct application.

‘But does such a common sense in fact exist as a constitutive
principle of the possibility of experience, or is it formed for us
as a regulative principle by a still higher principle of reason,
that for higher ends first seeks to beget in us a common sense?
Is taste, in other words, a natural and original faculty, or is it
only the idea of one that is artificial and to be acquired by us,

! Infra, p. 84.

III. The Beautiful Ixvii

so that a judgement of taste, with its demand for universal
assent, is but a requirement of reason for generating such
a consensus, and does the “ought”, i.e. the objective necessity
of the coincidence of the feeling of all with the particular
feeling of each, only betoken the possibility of arriving at some
sort of unanimity in these matters, and the judgement of taste
only adduce an example of the application of this principle ?
These are questions which as yet we are neither willing nor in
a position to investigate. For the present we have only to
resolve the faculty of taste into its elements, and to unite these
ultimately in the idea of a common sense.’* =

It is at this point that the real difficulties of the Critigue of
the Aesthetic Judgement may be said to begin. These difficulties,
however, do’not arise from the fact that Kant nowhere
directly answers the most important question above raised, but
rather from the fact that so many different points of view have
been opened to us that we may well feel at a loss to know
where to throw the chief emphasis.

This difficulty is at once brought home to us by the first
sentence of the ‘General Remark’ that immediately follows the
passage above quoted.

It says: ‘The result to be extracted from the foregoing
analysis is in effect this: that everything runs up into the
concept of taste as a critical faculty by which an object is
estimated in reference to the free conformity to law of the
imagination.’ Had we been left to ourselves, should we not
have been more inclined to say, ‘Everything runs up into the
concept of taste as a sensus communis’? If not, then, later
on, §§39 and 40 would strongly tempt us to take that view.
From these sections we learn that taste is a kind of common
sense, namely, the sezsus communis aestheticus and one which
more properly deserves the name of a common sense than does
sound understanding, as the sensus communis logieus. This
common sense is, further, a social faculty, a public sense. Then,
on finding taste defined (and in a position which makes the
definition most emphatic) as ‘the faculty of forming an a priori
estimate of the communicability of the feelings that, without the
mediation of a concept, are connected with a given representa-
tion’, we should naturally suppose that we had come upon
the definition that superseded all others. We might easily
think we had discovered the single point of view from which the

1 Infra, p. 85. 2 Infra, p. 154.
e2

Ixviii Introductory Essays

whole Critique was to be interpreted. From this point of
view we could quite understand the relevancy of the lengthy
discussion of art—for art and science as we know from the
Critique of the Teleological Judgement and from the Anthro-
pology, are the great humanizing influences. Further, the
statement in the solution of the Anzinomy of Taste, to the
effect that the determining ground of the judgement of taste
‘lies, perhaps, in the concept of what may be regarded as
the supersensible substrate of humanity’,' would be quite in
accordance with our expectations. Lastly, we should probably
feel finally assured that our interpretation had followed the
true lines when, in the concluding section, we read that
‘humanity signifies, on the one hand, the universal feeding of
sympathy, and, on the other, the faculty of being able to
communicate universally one’s inmost self— properties con-
stituting in conjunction the befitting socia/ spirit of mankind,
in contradistinction to the narrow life of the lower animals’?

None of the above passages, however, is stronger or more
suggestive than the following: ‘The empirical interest in the
beautiful exists only in society. And if we admit that the
impulse to society is natural to mankind, and that the suita-
bility for and the propensity towards it, i.e. sociability, is
a property essential to the requirements of man as a creature
intended for society, and one, therefore, that belongs to
humanity, it is inevitable that we should also look upon taste
in the light of a faculty for estimating whatever enables us
to communicate even our feeling to every one else, and hence
as a means of promoting that upon which the natural inclina-
tion of every one is set.’ ®

But then, the above passage is followed by this remark :
‘This interest indirectly attached to the beautiful by the
inclination towards society, and, consequently, empirical, is,
however, of no importance for us here. For that to which we
have alone to look is what can have a bearing a priort, even
though indirect, upon the judgement of taste.’ *

Hence we see that the definition which one might be tempted
to regard as one that superseded all the others, was, though
extremely important, framed mainly with a view to bringing
out the point of attachment for the empirical interest in the
beautiful. In one sense—as an actual faculty developed by

1 Infra, p. 208. 2 Infra, p. 226.
® Infra, p. 155. % Infra, p. 156.

III. The Beautiful Ixix

culture and as the means of judging beauty, taste is the product
of social evolution, and, in this sense, it is the above definition
which we must keep in mind. The aesthetic estimate of the
beautiful presupposes a common sense, and it is as a sensus
communis aestheticus that taste is the means of judging of the
beautiful.

If, on the other hand, we ask what is the meaning and
significance of beauty, and how it can become an object of
intellectual interest, then it is to the four moments of the
judgement of taste that we must look. Thus it is in respect
of these moments that beauty is ‘the symbol of morality ’—
These different moments, again, are of different importance
from further different points of view.

Thus it is the second and fourth moments that mark the
transcendental significance of the judgement of taste, and call
for a critical examination of that faculty.

The first moment indicates most clearly the influence of the
practical faculty. It shows what the judgement of taste zs zo
be, and defines its essential meaning for the self. If we con-
sider, solely on its own account, the attitude of mind adopted
by the aesthetic reflective judgement, then this moment is of
paramount importance, and the other moments appear as the
means by which this attitude gives effect to itself. Hence, as
Kant says, it is to this moment that the judgement of taste
‘pays regard in the first instance’. So in the concluding
sections of the Critique, when the ultimate significance of
beauty for man is considered, it is chiefly this moment that is
in view.

But if we look to what beauty is as something referred to the
object, as if it were a predicate belonging to it, then the third
moment is the most important. It is this moment that defines
what it is that is stated, though only as a subjective relation, about
the given object. Since all judgements of taste refer to a given
object, and as what seems to have objective import is of supreme
value to the popular mind, it is by this moment, generally
misinterpreted, that most readers are chiefly attracted. Thus
every one who knows anything about Kant is able to tell us that
he said that beauty was ‘purposiveness without purpose ’-—
supposing, all the while, that he meant a vague (beautifully
vague) sense of perfection—which is precisely what he did
not mean. Purposiveness without purpose, or, rather, finality
apart from an end, is only a pleasure projected into a given

Ixx Introductory Essays

object and depending upon a peculiar mode of interpreting the
sensation of its effect upon the mind. For these reasons the
examination of this moment is also of the utmost importance
for the critique of taste as a part of general critical philosophy.

If, now, we could understand how the empirical and
intellectual sides of the problem are related we should then be
able to see all the different points of view in their systematic
connexion. How far this is possible will be considered in the

later essays.

ESSAY IV

THE SUBLIME
(A)

RELATION OF THE SUBLIME TO THE BEAUTIFUL

In the early essay entitled Odservations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime, Kant clearly regarded beauty and
sublimity as standing on a level of perfect equality, and, as it
were, in polar opposition. All the familiar objects of our
aesthetic faculty were distinguished according as they partake
of the one character or of the other. Thus, the night is sublime,
the day beautiful. The sublime moves us, the beautiful charms
The sublime and the beautiful are as masculine and feminine.

The above account is easy to follow; but the same cannot
be said of that furnished in the Critique of Judgement. No
doubt in the last paragraph of Section VII of the Introduction,
Kant gives a succinct statement of the ground of the division
of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement into two parts corre-
sponding to the beautiful and sublime. But the statement,
unfortunately, is full of difficulty.

The one clear and unambiguous point which it contains, is
that the distinction corresponds to the distinction between a
finality on the part of objects in relation to the reflective
judgement in the Subject, and a finality on the part of the
Subject in respect of objects, and also to the distinction between
the concepts of nature and of freedom. But even the signifi-
cance of this one clear point is obscured by the fact that the
above distinctions seem to underlie the actual treatment, not
alone of the beautiful and the sublime proper, but of the
beautiful and the whole of the second book of the Analytic—
which latter includes the sublime proper, the Deduction of
judgements of taste, the sections on art, and the Remark
devoted to the laughable. It was suggested above that Kant’s
reason for insisting so emphatically upon the removal of the
heading ‘Third Book’, at the beginning of § 30, may have been

Ixxii Introductory Essays

due to a desire to minimize the importance of the Deduction,
which had become mere repetition. If this explanation is not
accepted, then it seems obligatory to find some strong bond of
connexion between the judgement upon the sublime and the
rest of the contents of the book entitled ‘Analytic of the
Sublime’; and, in any case, since Kant might have substituted
such a heading as ‘Appendix to the Analytic of Aesthetic
Judgement’, it seems advisable to do so. On the other hand,
it is difficult to weigh the exact force of the last sentence of the
Remark preceding § 30, which describes what follows as
constituting the remainder of the Analytic of Aesthetic Judge-
ment. This certainly separates what follows from the Analytic
of the judgement upon the sublime, or the sublime proper.
But then, it is only suggested that there is a connexion
between the sublime and the rest of the contents of the book
in which it is contained, and not that the treatment of art, for
instance, belongs to the Analytic of the sublime proper.

The next point of difficulty in the above-mentioned passage

_lies in the fact that the distinctions upon which the division
into the beautiful and sublime is based are stated to be implied
in ‘susceptibility to pleasure arising from reflection on the
forms of things (whether of nature or of art)’. As the sublime
is not a pleasure arising from reflection on the forms of things,
and, further, is not, according to Kant, to be sought in works
of art, this can only mean susceptibility to beauty. But if this
susceptibility suggests the distinctions upon which the division
into the beautiful and sublime is based, this can only be because
the pure judgement of taste and the feeling of the sublime
depend upon two factors, both of which are presupposed by
susceptibility to beauty.

Again, Kant speaks of the ‘ finality on the part of the Subject,
corresponding to the concept of freedom, in respect of the
form, or even formlessness of objects’. The words ‘in respect
of the form’ ought, strictly, to refer only to objects that are
beautiful. If it does, then Kant must have regarded the
sublime as an extension of the finality of the Subject to meet
even the case where the object is formless. No doubt Kant
does use such expressions as ‘even where it is regarded as
formless’ and ‘since it may be formless’, when speaking of
objects that occasion a feeling of the sublime. But that hardly
goes so far as to speak of a finality on the part of the Subject,
in the case of the sublime, z respect of the Jorm of objects.

IV. The Sublime Ixxiii

Lastly, Kant tells us that ‘the result is that the aesthetic’
judgement is referred, not merely as a judgement of taste to the
beautiful, but also, as springing from a higher intellectual
feeling (Geistesgefühl) to the sublime’. Of course the feeling
of the sublime is a Geistesgefühl, but does Kant refer to Geist
in a pregnant or in a colourless sense? He might have said
‘a feeling of respect’ or ‘a feeling of the supersensible sphere
of the mind’.

The passage which has been under consideration is
obviously more important, on the question of the systematic
relation of the beautiful and sublime, than any which occur in
the treatment. of the specific judgement upon the sublime,
where the points of resemblance and difference between the
beautiful and sublime proper are enumerated. But it is so full
of ambiguities that it leaves us in doubt as to whether the
distinction between the finality of Objects and the finality of
the Subject, and between concepts of nature and of freedom, is
intended merely to explain the distinction between the judge-
ment of taste and the feeling of the sublime, or between the
former and the whole contents of the second book of the
Analytic. The first is, doubtless, the more obvious interpreta-
tion, and that which suggests itself on a first reading. But the
result of its adoption is to leave the account of art, of beauty
as the expression of aesthetic ideas, and of the laughable, out
of all systematic connexion with what would then have to be
regarded as the only essential portions of the Analytic, viz. the
Analytic of the beautiful and the Analytic of the judgement
upon the sublime. The second interpretation may seem far-
fetched, but it has the advantage of introducing clearness into
Kant’s account as a whole. It leads to the inference that he
arrived at his distinction between the pure judgements upon the
beautiful and sublime by his usual process of abstraction and
refinement of analysis. First contemplating the concrete unity
of the beautiful work of art, in which all factors or elements
are presupposed, he seems to arrive at the distinction between
judging and producing. The artist must select out of the
many forms projected by his imagination that one which
accords with taste ; for the work has to be judged beautiful.
Relatively to the judgement of taste the object estimated is
always a given form. How it is produced, or what is the origin
of the content of the judgement, is another question. The
importance for Kant’s Critique of this distinction between the

Ixxiv Introductory Essays

given beautiful form and the productive activity of imagination
is obvious. For it is only so far as a finality on the part of the
given form of the objects is implied that a Deduction is
necessary. Hence in the Analytic of taste Kant not alone
abstracts from all content so far as it is the product of art, but
he selects as the typical cases of beautiful forms those that
relatively to art are given or immediate. These would include
fundamental or elementary art-forms, if such there be, like
Hogarth’s line of beauty. Here a finality of the given form for
the reflective judgement is supposed, and taste has merely to
interpret the object from its own standpoint in order to estimate
it as beautiful. Aesthetic ideas are not called into play at all,
except in so far as we regard the standpoint of the judgement
‚of taste, according to which the given form is interpreted after
‘the analogy of art, as the a priori form of the aesthetic idea.
But, looking now to the other side of the question, that, namely,
of production, it is apparent that the simplest case of production
is where the object is formless, and where, therefore, no finality
is supposed on its part; and where, on the other hand, the
finality is developed in a mere act of judgement. Such is the
‚ case with the judgement upon the sublime, which does not
imply ‘a representation of any particular form in nature, but
involves no more than the development of a final employment
by the imagination of its own representation’.’ So we get a
judgement upon the sublime which is the exact correlative of
the judgement of taste as a mere judgement in respect of the
finality of a given form for the reflective judgement. Both the
factors or elements thus suggested having been analysed, Kant
proceeds to a Deduction of the judgement of taste, and does
so as a preliminary to the consideration of those concrete cases
of beautiful objects which are complicated by the factor of a
finality of the Subject, answering to the concept of freedom, but
which are only thus complicated by combination with what
requires no Deduction in respect of its function.

Unless some such interpretation of Kant’s position is adopted
his account is open to serious objections. Thus, in particular,
it might be urged that previous to the Deduction of judgements
of taste Kant’s account of the beautiful is most formal and
abstract, but, as soon as he has succeeded in justifying the
judgement of taste, he proceeds to enrich his previously
poverty-stricken conception with an abundant content, and to

' Infra, p. 93.

IV. The Sublime Ixxv

make it as concrete as possible. This would mean that he only
succeeded in his deduction, because he undertook it at a point
when there was as yet nothing to deduce. It was easy to give
a Deduction of judgements of taste, it might be said, when taste
was only required to estimate the harmony of imagination and
understanding as the general pre-requisite of knowledge, but
could Kant have given an equally valid Deduction after beauty
had been described as the expression of aesthetic ideas? It is
submitted that this objection is unanswerable, unless we adopt
the view that the description of beauty as the expression of
aesthetic ideas is a fuller and more concrete description of
beauty, but one in which the additional reference is only to
freedom and the finality of the subject, in respect of which no
deduction is required.

But let us, for the present, lay the above question of inter-
pretation to one side, and consider what is perhaps the chief
difficulty in Kant’s account of the sublime proper. Perhaps its
solution may help us. The judgement upon the sublime
lays claim, like that upon the beautiful, to necessity and uni-
versal validity. Now it is clear that the necessity does not
attach to anything beyond the ground of the feeling aroused by
the ideas of reason. No account whatever is taken of the
occasion that excites the feeling. Does the same apply to the
universality? In the case of the mathematically sublime the
occasion is something estimated as an absolute measure, beyond
which no greater is possible subjectively (i.e. for the judging
Subject). Is the judging Subject here supposed to estimate
with universal validity? Is he to speak with a zziversal voice in
respect of the occasion? The difficulty may be put in another way.
Kant shows that sublimity only resides inthe mind, not merely
in the sense that the finality is subjective (which is also true in the
case of beauty), but in the sense that it is only the idea of reason
that can be called sublime, and that we only call an object of
nature sublime by a sudrveption. Now, does Kant mean that we
make no claim whatever, in our judgement, as to that subreption,
or as to that which, by the subreption, we call sublime? The full
force of the difficulty will be felt on considering the following pas-
sage: ‘The pleasure in the sublime in nature, as one of rational-
izing contemplation, lays claim also to universal participation,
but still it presupposes another feeling, that, namely, of our
supersensible sphere, which feeling, however obscure it may
be, has a moral foundation. But there is absolutely no

Ixxvi Introductory Essays

authority for my presupposing that others will pay attention to
this, and take a delight in beholding the uncouth dimensions
of nature (one that in truth cannot be ascribed to its aspect,
which is terrifying rather than otherwise). Nevertheless, having
regard to the fact that attention ought to be paid upon every
appropriate occasion to this moral birthright, we may still
demand that delight from every one; but we can do so only
through the moral law, which, in its turn, rests upon concepts
of reason”! Here it is obvious that the word ‘appropriate’
involves a difficulty. Does the faculty of estimating the
sublime ‘select’ or ‘choose’ the appropriate occasion? May
we differ as much as we like in respect of what is an appro-
priate occasion? When we claim universal agreement as to
our delight in the sublime can we claim it for that delight as
experienced fic e¢ nunc? It is to be observed that the phrase
‘universal farticipation’ differs from any previously used.
Does it mean the same as ‘universal communicability ’?

To say that no claim is made in respect of the implied judge-
ment ‘ 7%is is an appropriate occasion’, would seem to come to
this, that, when I give way to my emotion, and claim universal
participation for it, my whole claim is satisfied, so far as in-
dividual agreement is concerned, if the person to whom I
unburden my soul replies : ‘Well, personally, I think it a very
poor show ; but of course I quite understand what you mean—
I have often had the same feeling myself. The zdea you refer
to is most certainly sublime, but it does not thrust itself on
my consciousness just at the present moment.’

Either the particular occasion must drop out of count
altogether, or else we must claim universal agreement in

respect of it. This claim must be made unless I am prepared ;
merely to say the occasion is an occasion for me. Kant does

not suggest any such restriction.

Moreover, if the particular occasion is to drop out of count,
what becomes of the reflective judgement? Apart from the
particular occasion there is no particular instance subsumed
under the rule. Unless universal agreement is claimed as to
the occasion it is not claimed for the judgement upon the
sublime as an aesthetic reflective judgement.

It is, in other words, only the occasion that distinguishes one
judgement upon the sublime from another. Kant says that the
judgement upon the sublime is a singular judgement. If the

1 Dufra, p. 149.

IV. The Sublime Ixxvii

reférence to the occasion drops out, then it is certainly singular,
for there is only one such judgement in respect of the mathe-
matically sublime, viz. ‘The infinite is sublime’, and one in respect
of the dynamically sublime, viz. ‘Our moral nature is sublime ’!

Further, if Kant did not consider that universal agreement
was claimed in respect of the appropriate occasion, what is he
preparing for in § 25, when he says: ‘ But, despite the standard
of comparison being merely subjective, the claim of the judge-
ment is none the less one to universal agreement; the judge-
ments : “That man is beautiful” and “ He is tall” do not purport
to speak only for the judging Subject, but, like theoretical
judgements, they demand the assent of every one’? No doubt
what is simply asserted, without qualification, to be great is not
thereby asserted to be sublime, but is it not akin to it? Does
it afford a transition to the true sublime? If not, then why do
we always couple with this representation ‘a kind of respect’?

These appear to be the principal difficulties in the way of
supposing that no claim is made in respect of the occasion as
an appropriate occasion for all men. However, equally serious
difficulties present themselves if we suppose that such a claim is
made. For if the occasion is to be appropriate, not for me
alone, but for al/ men, then what is only an aesthetic reference
must be attributed to the object as if it were a logical predicate.
To say that the occasion is appropriate for all men involves the
immediate disp/easure, out of which the pleasure in the sublime
emerges, being connected with the representation of that occa-
sion in just the same way as pleasure is connected with the
representation of the object called beautiful. For the object is
not so devoid of form that we cannot refer to it as ‘it’. As it
was this immediate synthesis of pleasure, with the representation
of the object, that necessitated all the elaborate critical investiga-
tion undertaken in the case of the beautiful, Kant would have
had as much trouble with the displeasure in the case of the
occasion of the sublime as he had with the pleasure in the case
of the beautiful. He would have avoided no complication by
removing sublimity from nature to the ideas of reason.

But Kant believed that he escaped one very considerable
difficulty as the result of the position which he took up in the
case of the sublime. For, since in the case of the beautiful
there is an immediate synthesis of the feeling of pleasure with
the representation of the form of the object, which synthesis is
proclaimed to be universally valid, it follows that judgements

Ixxviii Introductory Essays

upon the beautiful require a Deduction. But no such Deduc-
tion is required for judgements upon the sublime. The reason
given is that ‘the sublime in nature is improperly so called, and
that sublimity should, in strictness, be attributed merely to the
attitude of thought, or, rather, to that which serves as basis for
this in human nature. The apprehension of an object other-
wise formless and in conflict with ends supplies the mere occa-
sion for coming to a consciousness of this basis ; and the object
is in this way put to a subjectively final wse, but it is not repre-
sented as subjectively final 0x its own account and because of
its form. (It is, as it were, a species finalis accepta, non data.)
Consequently the exposition we gave of judgements upon the
sublime in nature was at the same time their deduction. For
in our analysis of the reflection on the part of judgement in this
case we found that in such judgements there is a final relation
of the cognitive faculties which has to be laid a priorizatthe
basis of the faculty of ends (the will), and which is therefore 4
itself a priori final. This, then, at once involves the deduction,
i.e. the justification of the claim of such a judgement to univer-
sally necessary validity’.! Now, if the judgement upon the
sublime exhibits the two logical peculiarities exhibited by judge-
ments of taste, and set out in §§ 32 and 33, then it is bound to
require a deduction. Hence, if Kant was consistent, the judge-
ment upon the sublime must be distinguished from that upon
the beautiful in respect of at least one of these peculiarities.
It most certainly cannot be distinguished in respect of the
second. Further, it cannot be distinguished in respect of the
first if we go beyond the ideas of reason and make the occasion
so far relevant as to require agreement for a judgement declar-
ing that the delight should be felt Arc e¢ nunc. Hence it would
seem that when Kant says that-no deduction is required in the
case of judgements upon the sublime, this amounts to an
authoritative statement that any question of choosing an appro-
priate occasion, with universal validity, for experiencing a feeling
of the sublime does not belong to the analytic of the sublime.
Further, it is quite evident that ideas of reason and the
emotion accompanying the representation of sublimity are
incompetent to enable us to estimate the occasion with universal
validity. Kant has, no doubt, described with great minute-
ness the process by which a particular manifestation of nature
is made the occasion of a feeling of the sublime. But, to take

\ Infra, p. 134.

IV. The Sublime Ixxix

the case of the mathematically sublime, this process cannot be
regarded as of universal validity unless the power of compre-
hension by the imagination is the same for all men. If, when
I look at the Pyramids, my imagination gets over-strained at
the last tier, then I get a feeling of the sublime. But how can
I promise myself that the American at my side may not have
a power of comprehension that enables him to go one better?
In the case of the dynamically sublime the same is even more
apparent. Here judgements may be quite as pure as any
judgements upon the sublime can be, and yet to claim uni-
versal validity in respect of any judgement as to the appro-
priateness of the occasion would be too absurd to have been
required by Kant. A landsman will think the ocean sublime
when a seaman only thinks the water a bit choppy. Then in
this age we have all got so accustomed to getting safe out of
the wag of motor cars and electric trams and the like, that the
» mere Ir: of what would overpower our physical resistance
rarely $t¥€s us a thought. A hurricane which would merely
overwhelm zs is nothing—it should be able to blow trains over
bridges and lift up motor cars like bits of paper.

We have seen that Kant’s view, that judgements upon the
sublime require no deduction, forces us to suppose that the
claim to universal agreement in the case of such judgements
must be confined to the ground of the delight, and cannot be
extended to the occasion. We arrive at a similar result by
considering the statement in the opening paragraph of § 24, in
which Kant says that the Analytic of the sublime will follow
the same course as that of the beautiful. ‘ For, the judgement
being one of the aesthetic reflective judgement, the delight in
the sublime, just like that in the beautiful, must in its Quantity
be shown to be universally valid, in its Qua/ity independent of
interest, in its Relation subjective finality, and the latter, in
its Modality, necessary. But now, if we look back to the
Analytic of the beautiful we find that these moments were not
used to define the aesthetic reflective judgement generically,
but the judgement upon the beautiful secifically. If, then,
the moments which defined the beautiful are also to be the
moments of the judgement upon the sublime, how is the sub-
lime to differ in respect of its form from the beautiful? If we
examine both cases we shall see that the marked distinction
lies in the fact that the necessity in the case of judgements in
respect of the beautiful presupposes a sensus communis. But

Ixxx Introductory Essays

a similar presupposition will be involved in the case of the
judgement upon the sublime, unless the import of the judge-
ment stops short with the ideas of reason. Once the appro-
priate occasion is supposed to be chosen as appropriate for
all men, then a sensus communis is required, and, therefore,
taste.

It is quite evident, however, that the task of such a sensus
communis would be an incomparably lighter one in the case of
judgements upon the sublime than in the case of those on the
beautiful. For in the case of the sublime it is only a negative
condition that has to be satisfied. In the case of the mathe-
matically sublime we need only compare our judgements with
the possible judgements of others so far as to make sure that
what we refer to is so great that if anything were added to it it
would be something which the imagination of no man could
grasp in a whole of intuition. In the case of the dynamically
sublime we need only be certain that the might which we are
considering is such that no man could resist, or, we may add,
harness it to his powers.

In the case of the beautiful the reference to the appropriate-
ness of the occasion is essential: in the case of the sublime
what is essential is the reference to ideas of reason—the ex-
pansion of the soul. The occasion is supposed to be accepted
by all men and the question to be merely one of susceptibility
for ideas. But if the question of the appropriateness of the
occasion were raised, and if it were persisted in, then it is
difficult to see how it could be decided except by a reference
to taste. If a person goes into raptures over what Whistler
called ‘a very foolish sunset’, does not this betray bad ¢aste—
a ‘universal communicability’ to be confirmed and authenti-
cated, not by the few who are zöghz, but by a vulgar and middle
class plebiscite? But certainly the judgement is not wrong as
a judgement upon the sublime. No want of susceptibility for
ideas is shown, and no deficient sense of the sublime.

How, in fact, can a judgement upon the sublime, as such,
go wrong? For ‘we readily see that nothing can be given in
nature, no matter how great we may judge it to be, which,
regarded in some other relation, may not be degraded to the
level of the infinitely little, and nothing so small which in
comparison with some still smaller standard may not for
our imagination be-enlarged to the greatness of a world.
Telescopes have put within our reach an abundance of

IV. The Sublime Ixxxi

material to go upon in making the first observation, and
microscopes the same in making the second.’* This is why
Kant did not follow Burke in regarding the infinitely little as
a distinct kind of sublime. Burke’s infinitely little is a micro-
cosm in which the imagination can lose itself just as in the
macrocosm. Just because nothing in nature is truly sublime,
anything may serve as an appropriate occasion. If a person
lays down a judgement upon the sublime on an occasion which
we regard as inappropriate, we do not lay down a counter-
judgement upon the sublime (for there is no such thing), but
we lay down a judgement of taste, and say the person has
bad taste, and, in consideration of this conflict, we laugh
at his judgement upon the sublime as ridiculous. We do
‘not say that he is wanting in soul, but that he should keep
it under better control—under the wholesome restraint of
good taste.

Here, then, is the solution of the dilemma which we have
been considering. The judgement upon the sublime, as an
aesthetic judgement, must accept in each case the colour of
the occasion, and it must implicitly postulate universal agree-
ment as to this occasion. But, at the same time, it is entitled
to ignore any question of choice, because, in so far as it is
a mere judgement upon the sublime, it cannot go wrong. The
supersensible, as substrate, underlies the whole of nature as
phenomenon. All occasions are in themselves equally ap-
propriate. Even in the case of the dynamically sublime the
might of nature

Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle walls, and farewell king!

But the choice and description of an occasion as appropriate
involves taste. :

The above interpretation is supported by passages in the
Anthropology. ‘Beauty is what alone belongs to aesthetic
estimating so far as taste is concerned ; the suddime, no doubt,
also belongs to aesthetic estimating, but not for taste. But
the representation of the sublime may and ought to be in itself
beautiful; for otherwise it is uncouth, barbaric, and in bad
taste. Even the presentation of the evil or ugly (e.g. the form
of death in the personification of it given by Milton) can and
must be beautiful.’? So again, ‘The sublime is, no doubt, the

1 Infra, p. 97. 2 Werke, vol. vii, p. 241; cf. infra, p. 173.

1193 f

Ixxxii Introductory Essays

counterpoise (Gegengewicht) but not the contrary ( Widerspiel)
of the beautiful; because the effort and attempt to raise
oneself to the apprehension (apprehensio) of the object arouses
in the Subject a feeling of his own proper greatness and power;
while, on the other hand, the representation of the mental
process in a description or presentation can and must always be
beautiful. For otherwise the astonishment would be a repulsion,
which is very different from admiration as a mode of estimating
in which we do not weary of astonishment.’?

In connexion with the above statements we must further
remember that Kant held that the sublime is not to be sought
in works of art. ‘If the aesthetic judgement is to be pure
(unmixed with any Zeleological judgement which, as such, be-
longs to reason), and if we are to give a suitable example of it
for the critique of aesthetic judgement, we must not point to
the sublime in works of art (e.g. buildings, statues, and the
like) where a human end determines the form as well as the
magnitude ; nor yet in things of nature, which in their very con-
cept tmport a definite end (e.g. animals of a recognized natural
order), but in rude nature merely as involving magnitude.’?

It is significant that the last-quoted passage occurs im-
mediately after Kant had illustrated his analysis of the sublime
by the special consideration of two instances of objects of art,
viz. the Pyramids and St. Peter’s in Rome. Evidently a con-
vincing concrete example of the sublime is somewhat difficult
to find for the Critique of aesthetic judgement. But Kant gets
over all difficulties by selecting a work of art that is admirably
Suited to conceal any difficulty as to appropriateness of the
occasion, and by then appending the above warning. Just
consider the excellence of the illustration. Although the judge-
ment upon the sublime is required to abstract from ali form
and shape of the object, the Pyramids have a very definite
form and shape, and stand on the desert with nothing but the
blue sky above and behind. ‘Ihe object is thus well marked
off, and there is no doubt as to what we, and those whom we
expect to agree in our judgement, are to look at. Then there
is a correct distance from which the object is to be viewed.
Everything ready, we begin our Survey. Fortunately the
object happens to be divided into successive tiers, as if made
for the successive apprehension by the imagination. Naturally
we begin to take them in tier by tier—otherwise we are not

1 Werke, vol. vii,-p. 243. 2 Infra, p. 100.

IV. The Sublime Ixxxili

playing the game. Then, if our imagination breaks down, say,
one tier before we get to the top, we experience a feeling of the
sublime. Having thus given the appearance of inevitability to
the procedure of the imagination by selecting a work of art,
Kant says we are only to seek the sublime ‘in rude nature as
merely involving magnitude’. How can we avoid the con-
clusion that he is here, consciously or unconsciously, seeking
to conceal a difficulty that besets the choice of an appropriate
occasion? Further, there does not seem to be any way of
justifying this concealment except by admitting the difficulty,
and by, at the same time, admitting that the judgement upon
the sublime is, as such, entitled to ignore it. The latter
admission can only be made on the ground that theoretically
every occasion is appropriate, for theoretically we may always
abstract from everything but magnitude, which, having regard
to the infinite divisibility of matter, is always great. It is
irrelevant for the Critique of the swd/ime that, empirically, the
occasion which we select may be inappropriate and an offence
against good taste.

There is a section in the Analytic of the Beautiful which
must always be considered in connexion with the Analytic of
the Sublime. It is entitled ‘ The Ideal of Beauty’. If we read
it carefully we shall see that it forms a connecting link between
the Analytic of the Beautifuland that of the Sublime, and that
it might just as suitably be incorporated into the Analytic of
the Sublime under the heading: ‘The presentation of the
sublime in the human form.’ This presentation, as we have
learned from the Anthropology, ‘can and must be beautiful.’
In that section it is obvious that Kant had Greek sculpture
mainly in view, and that is also precisely what he is contempla-
ting when he speaks of the presentation of the sublime in ‘ works
of art (e.g. buildings, statues, and the like)’. Thus we see that,
just as when we leave the fuve judgement upon the sublime,
as, empirically, perhaps, we must do, we become involved in
questions of taste ; so when we leave the pure judgement upon
the beautiful we must recognize the presence of the sublime.

Hence, after considering all the passages that seem to bear
on the question, we come to the same conclusion as was
already suggested by the analysis of the passage in the Intro-
Auction, in which Kant gives his reasons for dividing the
Analytic into two main parts. The distinction which Kant
had in view is an important one for his critical investigation ;

f 2

Ixxxiv Introductory Essays

namely, that between the judgement of taste as eritical, and the
judgement upon the sublime as depending upon a Geistesgefühl
produced by the conscious finality of the Subject, answering to
the concept of freedom. In the former case the object of the
aesthetic judgement appears as chosen, and the question Is as to
what it is 7 the object that makes us choose it, and we find
that it is because it presents a form which the imagination can
regard as one which, if it were left to itself, it would freely
project. In the latter case the aesthetic judgement has
aesthetically no object (for the ideas of reason are not, in the
abstract, aesthetic objects); it has only an occasion which
appears as merely accepted, and the question is as to what
faculty of the mind enables us to accept it. This faculty we
find to be that of ideas, which imagination only serves zegatively,
and by the opportunity which it affords of letting us see the
inadequacy of every standard of sense. But, just because the
judgement upon the sublime can only maintain itself by virtue
of the occasion which makes it 7%zs particular judgement, while,
on the other hand, its whole meaning is to depreciate the
occasion, as a mere thing of nature, and beyond all comparison
below the dignity of the sublime, it contains an inherent con-
tradiction. This explains the advance in the definitions which
Kant gives of the sublime. In order to save the aesthetic
character of the judgement it is necessary to allow that although
nature is not sublime, and although ‘in a literal sense, and
according to their logical intent, ideas cannot be presented’,
still the sublime may be described as ‘an object (of nature) the
representation of which determines the mind to regard the elevation
of nature beyond our reach as equivalent to a presentation of
Ideas’. Thus, after all, the immeasurability and invincibility
of nature may be regarded as sublime. But it is easy to see
that the substitution of a reference to the Unerreichbarkeit der
Natur in the place of one to the Unerreichbarkeit der Idee is
only justified by an analogy between the physical superiority of
nature and the spiritual superiority of reason. The sublime,
which only resides in the mind, is symbolized by the zm-
measurability and invincibility of nature. But in the sequel we
learn that. symbolism is the basis of beauty as the expression
of aesthetic ideas. Further, Kant advances even beyond the
above definition when he says that ‘s¢émpJ/icity (artless finality)
is, as it were, the style that nature adopts in the sublime’
! Infra, p. 119. 2 Infra, p. 128,

IV, The Sublime Ixxxv

For nature can only adopt a s¢y/e—even that of artless finality
—in so far as it is like art, and so far as nature appears like art
it is beautiful. Thus we see a convergence of results due to
the fact that the judgements upon the beautiful and sublime,
abstractly considered, are the respective points of departure for
two lines of critical investigation dealing with the component
factors of what Kant calls ‘poetry’. For ‘a product composed
with soul and taste may be given the general name of poetry’.*

The reader will probably find little difficulty in Kant’s
account if he studies § 49 and the first Remark at the end of
$57. In both these places Kant discusses most minutely the
distinction between the rational idea and aesthetic ideas,
both of which have their seat in reason. We have, in fact,
only to concentrate our attention on the main problem, viz.
the attempt to find a rendering for ideas in terms of sense, to
see that the sublime and beauty, as the expression of aesthetic
ideas, may be reduced to a common denominator. In the
sublime there is a failure on the part of Ges? to find an
adequate sensuous expression forideas. So all we get is a mere
Geistesgefühl—an unsatisfied thirst for expression. Still the
very recognition of the failure of imagination in its greatest
efforts is regarded as negatively a presentation of ideas. But
in beauty imagination is put to a positive use by means of
symbolism.? Here the function of the aesthetic idea is, just
as before, to make us look out towards the supersensible. It
is, further, from this point of view that Kant solves the antinomy
of taste.

But the beautiful as dealt with in the Analytic of the Beautiful
is only described formally, as the object of the mere critical
faculty of taste. From this point of view it is the conformity
to law of the imagination in its freedom that is considered.
How the freedom of the imagination is procured is not a problem
to be solved in the part of the work devoted to the considera-
tion of the finality of the Object for the reflective judgement
in the Subject, in accordance with the concept of nature.

Beauty may thus be considered quite formally, as the object
of the mere critical reflective judgement, and thus as opposed
to the sublime ; or it may be considered in the concrete, as

1 Anthropology, Werke, vol. vii, p. 246.

? The relation between the sublime and the beautiful, asthe expression
of aesthetic ideas, will become quite plain on comparing p. 119, ll. 12-29,
and p. 177,1. 31 et seq. :

Ixxxvi Introductory Essays

the expression of aesthetic ideas, in which case the factor that
first made its appearance in the judgement upon the sublime
is allowed its full importance. Kant, in fact, does not scruple,
in one of the illustrations which he gives of the employment of
aesthetic ideas, to speak of these ideas as spreading through
the mind a number of swzd/ime feelings." : .

Professor Caird was, therefore, quite correct in elaborating
the reference to reason implied in Kant’s account of the beauti-
ful. But he confuses the different standpoints adopted in the
two books of the Analytic. The beautiful as the object of the
mere critical faculty of taste (the discipline of genius) depends
upon the harmony of imagination and understanding. Here
what is essential is regarded as given. But, if we then examine
the content of that given object, we must recognize the influence
of reason.? It is reason that gives imagination that freedom in
which it harmonizes with understanding. Kant was certainly
justified in separating these different questions, the distinction
between which was so important for his Critique.

Before leaving the question of the relation of the sublime
to the beautiful, a word must be said on Kant’s view that more
culture is requisite to enable us to pass a judgement upon the
former than to pass one upon the latter. Looking at the state-
ment apart from its connexion with Kant’s peculiar line of
argument, it is absolutely indefensible. The very Pyramids of
Egypt, by which Kant illustrates the sublime, testify to its
historical inaccuracy. But when we inquire into what Kant
exactly means by this statement, we find that it is completely
explained by the distinction above emphasized. In the case of
the beautiful we are asked to consider taste, quite abstractly, as
the mere faculty of estimating the conformity to law of the
imagination in its freedom, and to exclude from our considera-

1 Infra, p. 179, 1. 2.

2 In the Anthropology Kant goes further than this: ‘ Taste is a mere
regulative faculty for estimating the form in the combination of the
manifold in the imaginative ; soul (Geist) is, on the other hand, the
productive faculty of reason, whereby the imagination is supplied with
a model for that a priori form.’ (Werke, vol. vii, p. 246.) In the present
work, however, Kant states that the faculty of aesthetic ideas (i.e. soul),
‘regarded solely on its own account, is properly no more than a talent
of the imagination,’ (Jnfra, pp. 175,177, and 180, 1.5.) But this talent
of imagination, and the happy relation of imagination and understanding,
betray the influence of reason, i.e. the conjunction of these faculties in
a Subject influenced by principles of reason, and thus show the teleo-
logical unity of all our faculties. This position is more critical.

IV. The Sublime Ixxxvii

tion-all questions as to what is implied in our attempting to lay
down judgements of taste and in our seeking to detach ourselves
from the interest of sense, even where that interest is flattered ;
and, further, to exclude all questions as to the production of
the beautiful, and, therefore, all reference to aesthetic ideas and
the important part played by them ; and, furthermore, to pay no
heed to the ultimate significance of beauty as the symbol of
the morally good. These abstractions being made, the mere
susceptibility for ideas requisite to enable us to estimate the
sublime is regarded as postulating more than mere taste.
Hence, although we cannot expect universal agreement in the
case either of our judgements upon the beautiful or the sublime
unless we credit others with some degree of culture, still in the
former case ‘since judgement there refers the imagination
merely to the understanding, as the faculty of concepts, we
make the requirement as a matter of course, whereas in the case
of the latter, since the judgement refers the imagination to
reason, as a faculty of ideas, we do so only under a subjective
presupposition (which, however, we believe we are warranted
in making), namely, that of the moral feeling in man’. :

(B)
THE ANALYTIC OF THE SUBLIME

In the Analytic of the Sublime we entirely miss the peculiar
line of argument that makes the Analytic of the Beautiful so
characteristically Kantian, and which the opening paragraph
of § 24 would lead us to expect. While wonderfully rich in
suggestion and penetrating in psychological analysis, the course
of the argument rarely seems inevitable a prviort. Its predomi-
nantly psychological character has, however, made it attrac-
tive to readers who have little sympathy with an argument that
attempts to ignore the existence of empirical psychology even
in an investigation that has our aesthetic faculty for its object.

In the opening paragraph of § 24, which has all the appear-
ance of a new patch on an old garment, Kant states that the
exposition will begin with Quantity as first moment instead of
Quality. This ought to mean that the universal validity of the
delight would be treated first, and, after that, its disinterested-
ness. Further, this is what it does mean, so far as this paragraph

1 Infra, p. 116.

Ixxxviii Introductory Essays

is concerned—as appears from the summary of the moments
which it contains. However, the Quantity with which the
exposition begins is something quite different. What it is
appears not alone from § 25 but from §23. ‘The beautiful in
nature is a question of the form of the object, and this consists
in limitation, whereas the sublime is to be found in an object
even devoid of form, so far as it immediately involves, or else

by its presence provokes, a representation of /imitlessness, yet
with a superadded thought of totality. Hence the delight is
in the former case coupled with the representation of Quality,
but in this case with that of Quantity” It is with Quantity in
this sense that Kant begins his exposition.

At the outset Kant insists upon the necessity of a distinction
between the mathematically and the dynamically sublime
arising from the fact that it ‘involves as its characteristic
feature a mental movement’, whereas in taste the mind is in
restful contemplation. From § 27 we learn that ‘this movement
(especially in its inception) may be compared with a vibration,
i.e. with a rapidly alternating repulsion and attraction produced
by one and the same Object’. We also learn from § 54 that a
similar movement is the characteristic feature of the laughable.
However, what Kant had principally in mind in emphasizing the
importance of a mental movement was, that in the case of the
sublime, there being no finality on the part of the given object,
it had to be produced through ideas of reason in the very
process of judgement itself. There is, therefore, an essential
reference to production in the wide sense of the word.

A movement being involved, and having to be estimated as
subjectively final, it is referred through the imagination either
to the faculty of cognition or to that of desire. The finality is
estimated in respect of these faculties and is thus attributed to
the Object either as a mathematical or as a dynamical affection
of the imagination. Thus the distinction turns on the way the
imagination is affected—a point more clearly brought out in
the General Remark: ‘if we enlarge our empirical faculty of
representation (mathematical or dynamical) with a view to the
intuition of nature’; and, again, ‘an object the aesthetic esti-
mating of which strains the imagination to its utmost, whether
in respect of its extension (mathematical) or of its might over
the mind (dynamical). In other words, the distinction
turns on the way in which what occasions the sense of our own
sublimity is produced.

IV. The Sublime Ixxxix

We have, then, two different judgements in respect of the
sublime, each of which is distinct and entire. Hence each
judgement should exhibit all the four requisite moments. But
§§ 26, 27, 28, and 29 clearly follow the sequence of the cate-
gories of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Modality, and the
sections that contemplate the mathematical categories are
devoted to the mathematically sublime, and the sections that
contemplate the dynamical categories are devoted to the
dynamically sublime. Thus it should be noted that § 27 is
headed ‘ Quality of the delight in our estimate of the sublime’,
although the section only deals with the mathematically sublime,
and §-29 is headed ‘ Modality of the judgement on the sublime
in nature ’, although it is only the modality of the dynamically
sublime with which it deals! Further, subjective finality
naturally and properly appears as the @ grzor7 principle of the
judgement upon the sublime in general, and is accordingly
referred to both in the treatment of the mathematically sublime
and of the dynamically sublime, and § 28, which has evidently
the category of Relation in view, does not look to this as
exhibited in finality but as exhibited in nature as might.
Finality is, therefore, not treated as simply brought out by one
of four moments, but, as was probably the case in the original
treatment of the beautiful, as ke principle of the judgement.
Hence it is quite evident that the treatment of the sublime
follows a plan radically different from that of the beautiful, and
it seems impossible to escape the conclusion that the opening
paragraph of § 24 was added after a complete revision of the
treatment of the beautiful made it apparent that the judgement
upon the sublime, being an aesthetic judgement, was amenable
to a similar analysis.

We now come to the particular consideration of Kant’s
exposition of the mathematically sublime. Here, instead of
attempting to arrive at a definition from @ priori considerations,
Kant starts with the definition, ‘Sublime is the name given to
what is absolutely great.’ As he gives no indication of how he
arrives at this definition from which he draws the most impor-
tant consequences, this seems equivalent to making his major
premiss the proposition, ‘the swd/ime, as the meaning of the

1 Kant, in fact, gives no explanation of the modality of the mathe-
matically sublime. As the reference here is not to the faculty of desire,
and practical ideas are not brought into play, it does not appear how the
moral faculty could be concerned.

xe Introductory Essays

word implies, is what is absolutely great,’ or ‘Sublime is a
name which is admitted on all sides to be confined to what
is absolutely great’. Such a starting-point is eminently un-
critical.

The greatness of the sublime is a greatness comparable to
itself alone, and so can only be found in our ideas. Hence
the sublime may be also defined as that 2 comparison with
which all else is small. But, as we have seen, everything. in
nature may be degraded to the level of the infinitely little, or
enlarged to the greatness of a world. How, then, can any-
thing in nature be regarded even as an appropriate occasion
for awakening in us a sense of the sublime? Once we have
grasped the true meaning of sublimity, why should we be more
struck with the Victoria Falls than with the Salmon Leap at
Lucan? The ideas of reason are always with us, and, in itself,
a sand-heap is sufficient to strain a vivid imagination.

At the outset it is obvious that this question cannot be
answered by pointing to anything in nature considered posi-
tively. The consciousness of the sublime can only be wakened
in us by something that makes us recognize the idea of reason
as that to which the given /ai/s to attain. But, admitting this,
still, if nothing in nature is absolutely great, how can the not-
being of one object do more than the not-being of another ?

The answer to this question Kant finds in the empirical
limitations of a faculty of imagination which is necessary for
the estimation of magnitude. All estimation of magnitude is,
in the last resort, aesthetic, i.e. the fundamental measure must
be a guantum which the imagination grasps in a single intuition.
But ‘to take in a quantum intuitively in the imagination so as
to be able to use it as a measure, or unit for estimating magnitude
of numbers, involves two operations of this faculty : apprehen-
sion (apprehensio) and comprehension (comprehensio aesthetica).
Apprehension presents no difficulty, for this process can be
carried on ad infinitum ; but with the advance of apprehension
comprehension becomes more difficult at every step and soon
attains its maximum, and this is the aesthetically greatest
fundamental measure for the estimation of magnitude. For if
the apprehension has reached a point beyond which the repre-
sentations of sensuous intuition in the case of the parts first
apprehended begin to disappear from the imagination as this
advances to the apprehension of yet others, as much, then,
is lost at one end as is gained at the other, and for compre-

IV. The Sublime xci

hension we get a maximum which the imagination cannot
exceed’)

The recognition that this maximum is a limit for the
imagination (in respect of its power of comprehension) is the
first step towards a consciousness of the sublime. But what
leads to the recognition of this maximum as a limit? It must
be another faculty which can exceed this limit. ‘If now
a magnitude begins to tax the utmost stretch of our faculty of
comprehension in an intuition, and still numerical concepts (in
respect of which we are conscious of the boundlessness of our
faculty) call upon the imagination for aesthetic comprehension
in a greater unit, the mind gets a sense of being aesthetically
confined within bounds.’? Reason then steps in at the point
at which imagination recoils upon itself, ‘in its fruitless efforts
to extend this limit,’* and it brings with it the idea of the
absolute totality that even the progressive apprehension of the
imagination, which can be carried on ad tndefinitum, cannot
exhaust. In this way the failure of imagination brings with it
a consciousness of the supremacy of reason.

But it is by no means an unwarranted intrusion on the part
of reason to step in at the above juncture. For ‘the idea of
the comprehension of any phenomenon whatever, that may be
given to us, in a whole of intuition, is an idea imposed upon us
by a law of reason, which recognizes no definite, universally valid
measure except the absolute whole.’* Nothing short of this
absolute whole could be termed absolutely great.

‘Now the greatest effort of the imagination in the presenta-
tion of the unit for the estimation of magnitude, involves in
itself a reference to something absolutely great, consequently a
reference also to the law of reason that this alone is to be
adopted as the supreme measure of what is great.’° Hence the
failure of imagination brings with it a ‘feeling of our incapacity
to attain to an idea that is a law for us,’ * i.e. respect. The
feeling of the sublime in nature is, therefore, a ‘respect for
our own vocation.’*® It is, accordingly, ‘at once a feeling of
displeasure, arising from the inadequacy of imagination in the
aesthetic estimation of magnitude to attain to its estimation by
reason, and a simultaneously awakened pleasure, arising from
this very judgement of the inadequacy of the greatest faculty of
sense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the effort to

1 Infra, p. 99. 2 Infra, pp. 108, 109. 3 Infra, p. too.
4 Infra, p. 105. 5 Infra, p. 106.

xcii Introductory Essays

attain to these is for us a law.’? ‘But the judgement itse all
the while steadily preserves its aesthetic character, because it
represents, without being grounded on any definite concept of
the Object, merely the subjective play of the mental powers
(imagination and reason) as harmonious by virtue of their very
contrast. For just as in the estimate of the beautiful imagina-
tion and understanding by their concert generate subjective
finality of the mental faculties, so imagination and reason do so
here by their conflict—that is to say they induce a feeling of
our possessing pure and self-sufficing reason, or a faculty for
the estimation of magnitude, whose pre-eminence can only be
made intuitively evident by the inadequacy of that faculty which
in the presentation of magnitudes (of objects of sense) is itself
unbounded.’?

In the course of the analysis of which the above is a slight
sketch Kant makes a suggestive observation in connexion
with the respective powers of apprehension and comprehension
belonging to the imagination : ‘The comprehension of the
successively apprehended parts at one glance is a retrogression
that removes the time-condition in the progression of the
imagination, and renders co-existence intuitable.’* Kant hardly
seems to have made sufficient of this point. Our power of
comprehension by the imagination, limited though it be, still
enables us partly to realize the coexistence in a single present
moment of a world in space, the parts of which it would take
endless time to apprehend. The power of comprehension, no
doubt, plays a very important part in our estimate of the sublime,
but it does not seem necessary to call upon it further than to
bring home to us a sense of coexistence. The sense of the
sublime does not seem to come to us generally a? a point at
which the effort towards comprehension breaks down. We
seem to start with the recognition, in a vague way, of something
occupying the field of vision. Then we begin to gradually
apprehend it, and we go on, and it may be that we greatly exceed
what we could comprehend, in all its parts, in a single glance
of the mind. It is, in fact, impossible to say at what point
comprehension ends ; and our sense of the sublime does not
seem dependent upon any definite perception of the attainment
of its maximum. It comes to us with the feeling: ‘ That is all
there. We look out on the broad Atlantic Ocean, and we see
wave behind wave, and the mind faints in its flight before it

1 Infra, P- 106. 2 Infra, p. 107.

IV, The Sublime xciii

reaches where that same ocean is zozw, in the present moment
in which we draw our breath, washing the shores of America.
Or we look, let us say, through a telescope at Saturn ploughing
its way through the regions of space, and, if we think of its
distance, then the feeling of the sublime seems to come with
the realization of the fac¢ that it is ZAere, with us, in the same
moment of time. What exists with us at the present moment
shaves physical reality with us, is actual just as we are actual;
and it would seem to be a representation of an immensity co-
existing with ourselves, and thus dwarfing our physical being to
insignificance, that, with a terrible sense of reality beyond our-
sélves, makes us fall back upon the ideas of reason that are the
absolute measure of all reality. We might, accordingly, say
that what occasions the sense of the sublime is that which forces
us to think what is wholly beyond us in space as immediately
present with us in time.—Here it may be remarked that what we
can comprehend in one moment in the imagination never seems
to the imagination to be wholly beyond us, but rather to belong
to our surroundings. Hence the maximum for comprehension
seems rather the minimum for what we call sublime.

Before leaving the consideration of the mathematically
sublime it may be well to comment upon a curious criticism
of Kant’s account by M. Basch. In the Zadle of Contents
to his work we read: ‘Kant is wrong in requiring absolute
greatness for the mathematically sublime : relative greatness is
sufficient. The introduction of the idea of the infinite is
absolutely useless.’ On turning to the pages in which M. Basch
enlarges on this criticism we further find that he represents
Kant as holding that the relatively great is sufficient in the case
of the dynamically sublime. Both Kant’s accounts, however,
agree in this respect. The idea of reason is great beyond all
comparison, but it is sufficient if that which occasions the sense
of the sublime is so great as to tax the utmost stretch of the
powers of comprehension of the imagination. M. Basch is,
however, more plausible in regarding the intrusion of the idea
of reason—the infinite—as gratuitous. The point at which
this idea makes its entry in Kant’s account is indicated in the
paragraph beginning, ‘The mind, however, hearkens now to the
voice of reason,’' &c. But unless this account is accepted as
substantially accurate, how are we to explain that the feeling of
the sublime is a pleasure, and not merely a displeasure? How

5 : 1 Infra, p. 102. -

xciv Introductory Essays

can we find any joy in our own physical existence being dwarfed
to nothing, unless we fall back upon reason ? Of course Kant’s
account of what the voice of reason urges upon us may Seem
somewhat subtle, but this is the case with every expression ın
philosophical terms of the most common psychological process,
The voice of reason will speak in a different language to the
philosopher, the poet, the painter, the musician—they will hear
it every man in his own tongue, wherein he was born.—Perhaps
Kant’s account may seem less artificial if we take a passage
from Wordsworth’s lines on Tintern Abbey, in which we may
clearly discern, in a poetic form, the infinite, the appropriate
occasion, i.e. the manifestation for the imagination, and the sense
of mental elevation :
And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts ; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean, and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

We may also quote a passage from Shelley’s Prometheus
Unbound, in which we may almost hear him accepting Kant’s
premisses, but arguing that there is also a sublime in respect of
the process of time, and, moreover, not merely of time past, but
of the representation of time to come.

Mer. Yet pause, and plunge
Into Eternity, where recorded time,
Even all that we imagine, age on age,
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind
Flags wearily in its unending flight,
Till it sink dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless.
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved ?
Pro. Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass.

‚As in the case of the mathematically sublime, Kant begins
his account of the dynamically sublime with a definition:
‘ Might is a power which is superior to great hindrances. It is

IV. The Sublime xcv

termed dominion if it is also superior to the resistance of that
which itself possesses might. Nature considered in an aesthetic
judgement, as might that has no dominion over us, is dynamı-
cally sublime.’

It will be remembered that in the case of the mathematically
sublime the estimate of the greatness of nature that occasioned
the feeling of the sublime was effected through the effort of the
imagination to grasp the given manifold in a whole of intuition.
In the case of the dynamically sublime the estimate is effected
through the representation of our incapacity to resist the might
of nature, and, therefore, through our representation of it as
fearful or awe-inspiring. But this estimate of sublimity can
only arise when we feel assured of our own immediate safety,
for otherwise the instinct to self-preservation determines us to
action and not to contemplation. But when we see ourselves
safe the instinct is merely zz Alay, and simply serves as the
point of reference for our immediate representation of the
object as fearful. But even the mere representation of it as
fearful is the representation of it as an object of displeasure
which moves us to look towards a higher security, and so the
‘recognition of our physical helplessness as beings of nature’
reveals ‘a faculty of estimating ourselves as independent of
nature and discovers a pre-eminence above nature that is the
foundation of a self-preservation of quite another kind from
that which may be assailed and brought into danger by external
nature. This saves humanity in our own person from humilia-
tion, even though, as mortal men, we have to submit to external
violence. In this way, in our aesthetic judgement, external
nature is not estimated as sublime so far as exciting fear, but
rather because it challenges our power (one not of nature) to
regard as small those things of which we are wont to. be
solicitous (worldly goods, health, and life); and hence to
regard its might (to which in these matters we are no doubt
subject) as exercising over us and our personality no such rude
dominion that we should bow down before it, once the question
becomes one of our highest principles and of our asserting or
forsaking them. Therefore nature is here called sublime,
merely because it raises the imagination to a presentation of
those cases in which the mind can make itself sensible of the
appropriate sublimity of its own estate even above nature ’.'

The first point that naturally strikes one in the above account

1 Infra, pp. 111, 112. ,

xevi Introductory Essays

is that reason is made to step in with far less provocation than
in the case of the mathematically sublime. If we regard an
object as fearful and, at the same time, feel assured of our
immediate safety, then the most that can be said is that we
may call in ideas of reason, and we may experience a Sense of
sublimity ; but our doing so is by no means inevitable,’ and so
we cannot promise ourselves an agreement on the part of others
that depends upon their doing so. The sense of displeasure
at the fearfulness of the object may be followed by no more
than a pleasant sense of physical security. Further, it seems
possible that even a certain degree of complacency in our
feeling towards the object may be attained by merely adopting
a scientific point of view. Thus, without any appeal to moral
ideas, the gentleman in 7%e Mikado was able to say:

Volcanoes have a splendour that is grim,

And earthquakes only terrify the dolts,
But, for him who’s scientific,
There’s nothing that’s terrific

In the falling of a flight of thunderbolts.

But, passing from these points, and taking a case when we
do get a sense of the sublime, it is doubtful whether Kant
attributed sufficient importance to our seeing ourselves safe.
He seems to have treated this sense of security as if it were
only necessary because if we were actually in a state of fear we
could not play the part of a judge of the sublime. This is to
make ita mere negative condition of a disinterested judgement,
which must in the first instance be calm and free. Granted
that we recognize the safety of our position as a negative con-
dition, Kant does not seem to think, or certainly does not
expressly say, that our aesthetic judgement takes note of.
anything but the greatness of the might of nature which would
overpower us were we thrown in its way. Now, in the first
place, it seems doubtful if we ever estimate nature as dynami-
cally sublime unless the might, besides being intensively great,
dominates a fairly considerable field within which we can
imagine ourselves, not alone overcome, but as beyond the reach
of help. A burning fiery furnace heated seven times is not
sublime if a couple of jumps would get us clear of the flames.

1 That is to say, in the case of the dynamically sublime, Kant has no
ne corresponding’ to that at pp. 102, 1; ı8 et seq., and o5, 1. 26
et seq. u

IV, The Sublime xevii

The might must be supreme in the whole field which we
regard as the surroundings of our imagined position. Then,
in the second place, it would seem that we must represent our
present position of security as one beyond reach of that might.
Then this sense of removal and safety beyond the reach of
the world of danger seems to suggest to the mind that higher
security which no might of nature can possibly assail. In
other words, it would seem that we use our recognition of
the security of our position as a symbol of a higher security.
Cowper has some lines that bring out this point of view.

’Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd ;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all.

In the case of the dynamically sublime we are conscious of
being ourselves removed beyond reach of what is regarded as
fearful: in the mathematically sublime we are conscious of
something beyond our reach which is not regarded as fearful
otherwise than simply as being beyond us. In the former case
the idea of reason merely falls back and recoils upon itself: in
the latter case it is rather what we represented as beyond
ourselves that falls into and is absorbed in the idea. Thus in
the former case the attitude towards the phenomenal world
is purely negative, whereas in the latter case the idea becomes
at least the intelligible substrate of the world as phenomenon.
Hence in the case of the mathematically sublime it is only
by insisting upon confining the word ‘nature’ to nature as
Phenomenon that we can continue to refuse to call nature (not
the particular phenomenon of nature) sublime. For this reason
the mathematically sublime seems to stand higher than the
dynamically sublime: whereas the latter seems in a sense
the more fundamental. The judgement upon the mathe-
matically sublime seems, formally, only to differ from the
judgement upon the beautiful in that its subject is not an
object of nature but a quite impersonal reference. Thus we

1193 g

xeviii Introductory Essays

say that ‘this’ or ‘that’ object is beautiful, but we only say

“it is’ sublime. The subject is a mere presence. The response
to the call for a greater objectification of this presence is the
beautiful. Aesthetic ideas ‘seek to approximate to a presenta-
tion of rational concepts (i.e. intellectual ideas), thus giving to
these concepts the semblance of objective reality.’ *

Lastly, the sublime may be said to be the point of divergence
of art and philosophy. Hence it marks the point at which
philosophy is always in danger of becoming mere poetry, and
poetry. in danger of becoming mere philosophy. The essential
difference between art and philosophy lies in the method.

1 Infra, p. 176.

BSSAY W

INTEREST IN BEAUTY

We have seen that in the Analytic of the Beautiful Kant only
attempted to formulate the conception of a pure judgement of
taste. The moments of the judgement were considered merely
statically. But why should we concern ourselves about pure
taste? What is the source of the value we set upon it? What
is the dynamic of its evolution ?

This question may also be put in the form: How are we
justified in exacting agreement with our judgement of taste as
if it were a duty? In attempting an answer we must bear
in mind the comprehensive definition of taste which Kant gives
in § 40: ‘Taste is the faculty of forming an a priori estimate of
the communicability of the feelings that, without the mediation
of a concept, are connected with a given representation.’

‘Supposing, now, that we could assume that the mere
universal communicability of our feeling must of itself import
an interest for us (which is more than we are entitled to infer
from the character of a mere reflective judgement), we should
then be in a position to explain how the feeling in the judge-
rei of taste comes to be exacted from every one as a sort of

uty.

But does not this bring us face to face with an insuperable
difficulty ? It belongs to the essential nature of a judgement
of taste to be disinterested. Can this disinterestedness, then,
be called into existence by means of an interest ?

} Moreover, even supposing that we can have an interest in
disinterestedness, is this appeal to interest necessary? May
not the exercise of our faculty of disinterested reflection be
undertaken as mere play? For, even though nothing but mere
play is involved, yet, if the play is one in which we find an

1 Infra, p. 154.
g 2

® Introductory Essays

opportunity for expressing our inmost selves, and if this
expression is, in fact, the meaning of the play itself, then it
must be something to us, and the pleasure which it excites is a
higher pleasure. This valve which we set upon the pleasure
seems sufficient to justify our exacting agreement with our
judgement as a sort of duty. Of course, we do not expect
others to take up a disinterested standpoint when their vital
interests are at stake, any more than we expect a man to
appreciate the sublime on an occasion when he himself is in
imminent peril, but where no personal issue of importance is
involved we do expect a man to be able to lay aside his
empirical self—his ‘muddy vesture of decay —and look at things
from a standpoint that shows that he was at least born to be
free. We think that a man ought to be able to draw his
pleasure from what belongs to his higher rather than his lower
nature, and that even in what concerns sense—in that which he
has in common with the lower animals—he ought to be able to
make his body the keyboard of the soul.

But, if nothing more than play is involved, do we not deceive
ourselves when we imagine that one kind of play is more noble
and elevated than another because of its reference to moral
ideas? Is not the requirement of agreement on the part of
others as a sort of duty merely part of the game? Of course, if
others consent to play the game they, too, must obey the rules,
but are they not quite entitled to stand out without incurring
anything but mere p/ayfu/ censure? So far as play is play it is
non-moral. From a moral point of view, then, how can the
play be better or worse because a gwasi-moral character is
required to play it? When we fancy ourselves elevated because
the play of our imagination is directed to the rendering of moral
ideas in terms of sense, are we not like children playing Church
on the Sabbath, and thus simply deluding ourselves into the
idea that we are very virtuous? Is there any such thing as a
guasi-moral value ?

We may put this in another way. Kant has made it quite
clear that, while taste involves a reference to the cognitive
faculties, it contributes nothing to the knowledge of the Object.
Must he not now make it equally clear that, while taste also
involves a reference to the moral faculty, the possession of it
contributes nothing to the moral character of the Subject?
Taste pays a graceful compliment to both science and morality,
but science and morality must be alike indifferent to its

“

V. Interest in Beauty ci

attention. If science can expect no more from taste than a
bon mot, morality need expect nothing better from taste than
what is comme üÜ faut. If taste has a value for man, the
foundation of this value must not be sought in man as a
scientist or in man as a moral being. What, then, is the broad
platform upon which taste moves freely? What is its true point
of attachment in man? It would seem difficult to see any
thing in man that would satisfy the conditions but his Auman
nature itself. Certainly if ‘Aumanity signifies, on the one hand,
the universal feeling of sympathy, and, on the other, the faculty
of being able to communicate universally one’s inmost self—
properties constituting in conjunction the befitting social spirit
of mankind, in contradistinction to the narrow life of the lower
animals ’,! we should have in Aumanity something that would be
intrinsically capable of being the true home of taste. This
would also explain its double reference. For we can only
communicate what stands in some connexion with knowledge.
Also what is our inmost self—the supersensible substrate ot
humanity—but the moral idea? Could beauty then be simply
the mouthpiece of the supersensible substrate of humanity?
Could it be the language of a voice that comes from the soul
of man, and which only man as man, whole and entire, can
hear? Perhaps these reflections may help us to understand
the development of Kant’s argument, perhaps not. At all
events we must follow it closely.

Having suggested that the problem might be solved by
showing that the universal communicability of our feeling must
of itself import an interest for us, Kant disposes of the difficulty
of connecting an interest with what is in itself intrinsically
disinterested : ‘ Abundant proof has been given above to show
that the judgement of taste by which something is declared
beautiful must have no interest as its determining ground. But
it does not follow from this that after it has once been posited
as a pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter
into combination with it. This combination, however, can
never be anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say,
first of all be represented in connexion with something else, if
the delight attending the mere reflection upon an object is to
admit of there being further conjoined with it a pleasure in
the real existence of the object (as that wherein all interest
consists),’?

1 Infra, p. 226. 2 Infra, p. 154.

ci Introductory Essays

‘Now this “something else” may be something empirical,
such as an inclination proper to the nature of human beings, or
it may be something intellectual, as a property of the will
whereby it admits of rational determination a Zriori. Both
of these involve a delight in the existence of an Object,
and so can lay the foundation for an interest in what has
already pleased of itself and without regard to any interest
whatever.’ +

It would seem, therefore, that the empirical and intellectual
interests in question may appropriately be termed supervening,
as opposed to determining, interests.

The point of attachment for the empirical interest is at once
apparent from the definition of taste above quoted. Its social
value is obvious. For ‘if we admit that the impulse to society
is natural to mankind, and that the suitability for and the
propensity towards it, i.e. sociability, is a property essential
to the requirements of man as a creature intended for society,
and one, therefore, that belongs to Aumanity, it is inevitable
that we should also look upon taste in the light of a faculty
for estimating whatever enables us to communicate even
our feeling to every one else, and hence as a means of pro-
moting that upon which the natural inclination of every one
is set’?

This point of view enables Kant to indicate, in a general
way, his view as to the probable course of the evolution of art
as an empirical phenomenon in society. ‘ At first only charms,
e.g. colours for painting oneself (roucou among the Caribs
and cinnabar among the Iroquois), or flowers, mussel-shells,
beautifully coloured feathers, then, in the course of time, also
beautiful forms (canoes, clothes, &c.), which convey no grati-
fication (i.e. delight) of enjoyment, become of moment in
society and attract a considerable interest. Eventually, when
civilization has reached its height, it makes this work of
communication almost the main business of refined inclination,
and the entire value of sensations is placed in the degree to
which they permit of universal communication. At this stage,
then, even where the pleasure which each one has in such an
object is but insignificant and possesses of itself no conspicuous
interest, still the idea of its universal communicability almost
indefinitely augments its value.’ ®

1 Infra, pp. 154, 155. 2 Infra, p. 155. 3 Infra, pp. 155, 156.

V. Interest in Beauty ciii

A follower of Darwin and Spencer might be able to supple-
ment the above sketch with a great wealth of additional detail,
but he could hardly quarrel with its substantial accuracy.
So far as the account goes it is excellent. What more can
be required but an industrious accumulation of facts? The
poor Caribs and Iroquois must not monopolize attention.
The habit noted in their case must be carefully noted in the
case of a hundred and one other primitive tribes. Then
a close study of the lower animals must be undertaken with
a view to tracing back the history of the ‘Expression of the
Emotions’ to our remote progenitors. From beauty as the
expression of aesthetic ideas we must look back to, and beyond,
the grin of our ape-like progenitors. If transcendental philo-
sophy fixes its eye on the idea to which nature can never
attain, so, too, the lens of science is focussed on infinity.

Kant’s insistence upon aesthetic representation as play, his
further determination of this play as expression, his emphasis
of its social value as such expression, his suggestions as to the
course of its empirical evolution, and the consequent con-
nexion of the transcendental with the empirical point of view
constitute no mean contribution to aesthetics. But he con-
tinues: ‘This interest, indirectly attached to the beautiful
by virtue of our inclination towards society, and consequently
empirical, has however no importance for us here’! How
can we account for this sudden collapse of the empirical
interest? At the close of $4o Kant apparently pledged
himself to connect some interest with the universal com-
municability of feeling and to explain the reference to duty in
this way. Has he not done all that he proposed to do?
Undoubtedly this empirical interest is only zndirect/y attached
to the beautiful. But Kant has already stated that the com-
bination with an interest can never be anything but indirect.
Certainly the peremptory rejection of this interest, after what
Kant has said about it, is very dramatic.

Kant does not give a very full explanation of the cause
of the failure of the empirical interest. To do so would be
inartistic ; it would spoil the development of the plot. The
only reason he gives for the rejection of its claims is that ‘ that
to which we have alone to look is what can have a bearing,
even though indirect, upon the judgement of taste @ priori’.

1 Infra, p. 156.

civ Introductory Essays

This would seem to suggest that the empirical interest has
made out an excellent case, but has been non-suited on
a technical point—its inherent incapacity to succeed as a mere
empirical interest. It is perhaps a Aysteron proteron to assign
a value to taste as concerned with universal communicability
of feeling by appealing to a mere inclination to society. Can
we not look behind that mere inclination? What is its source?
Perhaps all that was wrong with the proposed connexion was
that it was not made deep enough. Certainly Kant had
nothing but what was good to say of the empirical interest till
he came to his objection that it is empirical. But this is
apparent on its very face ; and so, unless the empirical interest
calls attention to something of importance, the objection might
have been taken at once and the whole discussion dispensed
with.—Here we may recall Kant’s remarks on the psychological
observations of Burke and other acute men, which, he says,
may always afford material for a higher investigation. Perhaps
the manner in which taste attracts the empirical interest
discovers a popular and natural estimate of taste of which
Kant avails himself as an introduction to his own critical
account.

The empirical interest being dismissed from the stage, its
place is taken by an intellectual interest, i.e. an interest
springing from a property of the will whereby it is capable of
being determined a rior? by reason. This intellectual interest
only attaches to the beauty of nature and always indicates the
germ of a good moral disposition. But no such indication of
mental elevation is afforded by an interest in works of art, for
it is always possible for this interest to be due merely to
motives of vanity and other empirical inclinations.

Kant’s position that no intellectual interest attaches to the
beauty of art is not one that readily commends itself to us.
We are naturally tempted at first to attribute it partly to the
influence of Rousseau, and partly to Kant’s inadequate
appreciation of art, and to regard it as inconsistent with the
rest of his account. We recall with pleasure the expression of
a different view in the words of the good Sir Philip Sidney in
his excellent Apologie for Poetry: ‘Neyther let it be deemed
too saucie a comparison to balance the highest point of mans
wit with the efficacie of Nature; but rather give right honour
to the heavenly Maker of that maker: who having made man in
his own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that

V. Interest in Beauty cv

second nature, which in nothing he sheweth so much as in
Poetrie ; when with the force of a divine breath, he bringeth
things forth far surpassing her doings.’ Similar remarks, in
a more modern form, are made by Professor Caird: ‘Such an
interest [Kant holds] cannot accompany the beautiful in art ;
for the work of art is not a found but an arbitrarily produced
harmony of the object with the spirit of man. ‘To this it may
fairly be answered that if, as Kant himself contends, it is reason,
working as nature in man, that produces the objects of fine art,
it should interest reason at least as much to find a sensuous
expression of itself in the natural world as remoulded by the
spirit, as to find it in mere nature. In Kant’s view we may see
an evidence of his tendency to hold apart the spheres of nature
and freedom, even while he seeks to find a harmony between
them. For, if the principle of nature is that which more fully
manifests itself in human life, the art which ‘mends nature’ will
be recognized as itself a higher nature.’ !

In the above criticism we see an evidence of Professor Caird’s
tendency to represent two philosophers as absolutely irrecon-
cilable, even while he seeks to find a harmony between them.
His suggestion that according to Kant we can find beauty in
mere nature is somewhat startling. ‘Self-subsisting natural
beauty’, says Kant, ‘reveals to us a technic of nature, which
shows it in the light of a system ordered in accordance with
laws the principle of which is not to be found within the range
of our entire faculty of understanding. This principle is that
of a finality relative to the employment of judgement in respect
of phenomena, which have thus to be assigned, not merely
to nature regarded as purposeless mechanism, but also to
nature regarded after the analogy of art. Hence it gives
a veritable extension, not, of course, to our knowledge of the
Objects of nature, but to our conception of nature itself—
nature as mere mechanism being enlarged to the conception of
nature as art—an extension inviting profound inquiries as
to the possibility of such a form.’? The intellectual interest
in the beauty of nature, therefore, does not attach to the
existence of an object as an object of mere nature, but to it as
an object of nature regarded after the analogy of art, so that it
becomes, as we see later, the mouthpiece of spirit and ‘speaks

Critical Philosophy of Kant, vol. ii, p. 475-
2 Infra, p. 92.

cvi Introductory Essays

to us figuratively in its beautiful forms’. If Professor Caird had
not been in such a hurry to get to Hegel, and had waited to
read the last paragraph of § 42, he could hardly have failed to
see that the beauty of nature which attracts an intellectual
interest is not a beauty of mere nature but of ‘the natural
world as remoulded by the spirit’ in which reason finds ‘a
sensuous expression of itself’. The fact is that Professor
Caird did not himself believe in the possibility of nature being
really remoulded by the spirit, except on canvas. That is where
he differed from Kant.

However, it must be admitted that the explanation which
Kant gives of the ground of the intellectual interest is so vague
as to be almost unintelligible. The most important part of his
statement is as follows: ‘ But, now, reason is further interested
in ideas (for which in our moral feeling it brings about an
immediate interest) having also objective reality. That is to
say, it is of interest to reason that nature should at least show
a trace or give a hint that it contains in itself some ground or
other for assuming a uniform accordance of its products with
our wholly disinterested delight (a delight which we cognize
a priori as a law for every one without being able to found it
upon proofs). That being so, reason must take an interest in
every manifestation on the part of nature of some such accor-
dance. Hence the mind cannot reflect upon the beauty of
nature without finding its interest engaged. But this interest is
akin to the moral.’! For what particular idea or ideas is
objective reality sought? Do the words following ‘that is to
say’ qualify what is meant by objective reality? How may the
“some ground or other’ be more explicitly determined? Fur-
ther, we may remember that the simplicity of the Deduction
was said to be due to the fact that it was not called upon to
verify the objective reality of a concept. Surely this explana-
tion is too vague to be intended by Kant for a final explanation.

But as Kant doubtless intended us to speculate as to the
ground upon which the intellectual interest relies, it may be
worth while doing so. Perhaps Wordsworth may be taken as
a representative of the man with the germ of a good moral
disposition. He proclaims :

How exquisitely the individual mind,
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less

1 Infra, pp. 159, 160.

V. Interest in Beauty evii

Of the whole species) to the external world

Is fitted :—and how exquisitely, too,

(Theme this but little heard of among men),
The external world is fitted to the mind,

And the creation (by no lower name

Can it be called) which they with’ blended might
Accomplish.

This passage seems to suggest some wise disposition on the
part of the Author of things to which the finality of the form
of the beautiful object is due ; and, no doubt, if the real existence
of beautiful objects could confirm a belief in a realism of the
finality of nature we could then understand the source of the
good man’s interest. But we shall find that $58 completely
rules out this ground.

But, perhaps, there are some other men with guasi-moral
dispositions who may give us some help in elucidating the
source of the intellectual interest in the beautiful. Mr. Balfour
strenuously supports the belief ‘that somewhere and for some
Being there shines an unchanging splendour of beauty, of which
in Nature and in Art we see, each of us from our own standpoint,
only passing gleams and stray reflections, whose different
aspects we cannot now co-ordinate, whose import we cannot
fully comprehend, but which at least is something other than the
chance play of the Subjective sensibility or the far-off echo of an-
cestral lusts.’ Certainly the ‘somewhere and for some Being’
reminds one of Kant’s ‘some ground or other ’, and the ‘ passing
gleams and stray reflections’ only seems poetic for ‘show a
trace or give a hint’. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Balfour,
eloquent as he certainly is in the above passage, outdoes
Kant in elusiveness. Then, as he places nature and art on
the same level his view can give us little help. Evidently he
does not consider that the real existence of beautiful objects in
nature, as distinguished from art, affords any special confirmation
of his belief. Indeed the passage seems to amount to no more
than a statement that for some reason or other he believes what
Kant proves, viz. that the representation of beauty involves
a priori a reference to something supersensible. Where he differs
from Kant is that he regards this as a ‘ mystical creed’ that
points—heaven knows where. One wonders whether a writer
who gives vent to such views also believes in an absolute joke

1 Foundations of Belief, p. 65.

cviii Introductory Essays

of the universe, which somewhere and for some Being gleams
with incessant humour; or whether he merely believes that
our sense of the ludicrous implies an appreciation of the sig-
nificance of ideas of reason and a love of freedom—and of
a freedom, moreover, to which human beings are endeavouring
to give effect in a society regulated by laws intended, and
sometimes merely intended, to promote that freedom. _

Perhaps, however, we might arrive at a more satisfactory
explanation of the intellectual interest in the beauty of nature
from the lines of Tennyson :

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies :—

Hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

The beautiful object might be regarded as a microcosm reflect-
ing the macrocosm, and the good man might easily imagine
that in perceiving its beauty he was seeing, ‘as through a glass
darkly,’ something of what ‘God and man is’. The beautiful
object is to be contemplated ‘as it is in apprehension prior to
any concept’, and, so, its beauty might be supposed to be
some obscure vision corresponding to the idea of absolute
totality which is the unattainable limit of discursive knowledge.
Indeed, many good men’ have doubtless taken an intellectual
interest in the beauty of nature on this ground ; but, as Kant
rejected the supposition of an intellectual intuition, he must
have thought that the intellectual interest might be given a more
secure foundation.

Is there, then, any other possible explanation of the ground
of the interest in question? ‘When Southey’s read and
Wordsworth understood’ we cannot help making a suggestion
of ourown. Inthe case of landscapes there is a given harmony
which we can easily account for by the fact that the whole is
seen under the same atmospheric conditions. But in the case
of many plants there is a harmony which is more suggestive.
If we go into a greenhouse and look at twenty varieties, say, ot
geraniums, we may observe how the leaves of each plant har-
monize with its flower. Take the leaf of one variety and place
it near the flower of a plant of a different variety, and it will
appear quite out of tone. In fact, after making a few such

V. Interest in Beauty cix

experiments, one becomes convinced that if a flower and a leaf
were taken from each of the twenty plants, and if they were
all mixed together, one could then give each flower its own
leaf with nothing to guide one but mere taste. Or go to the
Natural History Museum in London and look at the hundreds
of humming-birds in the cases there, and the same conviction
will surely arise of a wonderful colour harmony in organic
nature strangely answering to our subjective mode of judging.
Thus the artificers of ladies’ hats need only consult a farm-yard
to get a hint for their marvellous creations. They may be
quite sure that nature will not go wrong in its colour schemes.
And yet our eyes are here the supreme arbiters of right and
wrong. Now it certainly seems difficult to understand what
deep connexion there can be between the physiological causes
of the actual colours, not alone in geraniums and humming-birds,
but apparently in all organisms (for although we may not like
the colour of some plants or animals this is not because of any
colour discord), on the one hand, and the physiological causes
of our colour sense, on the other. Yet, unless we wish to
accept a mystical creed, we must suppose that nothing is here
involved but a law of mere nature. This law of nature, what-
ever it may be, is such as to ensure the existence of objects in
nature that meet with our disinterested approval; and its
character with respect to our taste is something more than we
should be entitled to expect a priori. Just as nature might, as
Kant says, be such that we could not know it in detail, so, also,
it might be such as only to get uglier and uglier at every turn.
If some things in nature may be ugly, then why not everything ?
Hence, just as the correspondence of nature in its particular
forms with the subjective requirements of our cognitive faculties
is deemed contingent, and so gives rise to a feeling of pleasure
which is connected with an interest, so it might be said that
the perception of the beauty of nature shows a trace or gives
a hint ‘that it contains in itself some ground or other for
assuming a uniform accordance of its products with our wholly
disinterested delight’, and that, as this is to be deemed contin-
gent, it gives rise to a pleasure connected with an interest.

But of all the explanations suggested this is the most pal-
pably unsatisfactory. For all we have done is to find some
trace of a ground for generalizing the representation of
the aesthetic finality of nature. As far as the pleasure in
the representation of that finality is concerned, we have only

ex Introductory Essays

the disinterested delight in the beautiful as already dealt with.
We are as far as ever from the ground of the supervening in-
tellectual interest in the existence of beautiful objects in nature.
Doubtless these may give us some reason for expecting to find
beauty fairly regularly diffused throughout nature; but why
should that be of interest to us unless we already have an
interest in the beauty of nature? We can make nothing out
of this explanation unless we fall back on a teleological as-
sumption. Also there is this further objection to the explana-
tion, viz. that, if correct, it would not show why the intellectual
interest gives any clearer indication of a gxasi-moral disposition
than is given by mere taste.

In all the above attempts at an explanation of the intellectual
interest in the beauty of nature it has been assumed that be-
cause that interest essentially requires that the object should
be nature’s handiwork, its explanation must ultimately be found
in a regard to what external nature is, and not to what we are,
or to anything realized in us. But on such an explanation,
would not the intellectual interest be entirely misplaced ? The
whole tendency of Kant’s account has been to throw the
emphasis on what the judging Subject is, and what taste
implies. Beauty is not a property of the object. If the
intellectual interest were to attach to the existence of the object
of nature because of what it is as such a natural object, the
whole tenor of Kant’s Critique would be changed. The
Deduction, rightly or wrongly, seemed to show that if nature
is such that a concrete experience is possible it cannot avoid
containing objects that we can regard as beautiful—provided
we have taste. But the aesthetic judgement can give nature
credit for everything requisite for the possibility of a concrete
experience. What the intellectual interest of an intelligent
Kantian must look to is rather some working unanimity of
sentiment in mankind, sufficient to be regarded as at least
a partial realization of the idea of acommon sense—which idea
Kant suggested in § 22 might be merely a regulative idea the
function of which is to produce such unanimity. If the beauty
of nature could show a trace or give a hint of some measure
of realization of ¢hat idea—of some harmonizing of nature and
freedom in ourselves, of some deep significance of humanity—
we would then be able to see more clearly the thread of con-
sistency running through Kant’s account.

In the last paragraph of § 42 Kant seems to point us to an

V. Interest in Beauty cxi

explanation on these lines. ‘The song of birds tells of joyous-
ness and contentment with their existence. So, at least, we
interpret nature, whether such be its intention or not. But it
is the indispensable requisite of the interest which we here
take in beauty, that the beauty should be that of nature.’ So
everything turns on the way we interpret nature. Provided
that we are sufficiently agreed as to ovr mode of interpretation
to enable us to objectify our representation and regard the
beauty as if it were a predicate belonging to the object, physical
nature may keep its secret to itself. The intellectual interest
depends here upon what is ‘as it were a language in which
nature speaks to us and which has the semblance of a higher
meaning ’.?

The ideality of this process is clearly apparent. Is it, then,
possible to explain the intellectual interest when the beauty of
nature is considered from this point of view? ‘The semblance
of a higher meaning’ in the language in which nature speaks
to us no doubt explains why the interest is intellectual. But
how is that higher meaning derived? The explanation of this
is to be found in the analogy between the judgement of taste
and the moral judgement. Kant does not enter upon a full
analysis of this analogy until § 59, but it is referred to towards
the close of § 42 in a paragraph in which Kant gives two clear
grounds of the intellectual interest. These two grounds must
now be considered.

The analogy between the judgement of taste and the moral
judgement not alone explains why the interest in the beauty ot
nature is intellectual, but also why it is an interest in the real
existence of the object. ‘The analogy in which the pure
judgement of taste, that, without relying upon any interest,
gives us a feeling of delight, and at the same time represents it
a priori as proper to mankind in general, stands to the moral
judgement that does just the same from concepts, is one which,
without any clear, subtle, or deliberate reflection, conduces to
a like immediate interest being taken in the objects of the
former judgement as in those of the latter.’ Thus the love of
the object of nature is a mere extension of the analogy in which
the judgement of taste stands to the moral judgement, i.e. as
the judgement of taste is to the moral judgement, so is the
intellectual interest in the beauty of nature to the interest
immediately produced by moral ideas. This extension is quite

1 Infra, p. 161. 2 Infra, p. 160.

cxii Introductory Essays

natural. For the bearing of the practical upon the theoretical
faculty, which the form of the judgement of taste implies, im-
plies also an original movement of the mind which is re-started
on reflection upon the above-mentioned analogy, and is carried
on, ‘without any clear, subtle, or deliberate reflection,’ in its
usual course, so as to produce an immediate interest in the
object. The immediate interest in the beauty of nature 1s, on
this interpretation, a mere play of the moral faculty, though one
implying a disposition akin to the moral. This explanation
has the merit of bringing us back to the fundamental concept
of play. On the other hand, it seems to be a play which
mature reflection, which zs ‘clear, subtle, and deliberate’,
might leave for the amusement of more youthful minds.

But Kant has a further explanation. ‘In addition to this
there is our admiration of nature which in her beautiful pro-
ducts displays herself as art, not as mere matter of chance, but,
as it were, designedly, according to a law-conforming arrange-
ment, and as finality apart from an end. As we never meet
with such an end outside ourselves, we naturally look for it
in ourselves, and, in fact, in that which constitutes the ulti-
mate purpose of our existence—the moral side of our being.
(The inquiry into the ground of the possibility of such a
natural finality will, however, first come under discussion in
the Teleology.)’! This is a completely different explanation
of the ground of the intellectual interest. It has the advan-
tage of extreme seriousness. If the man with the germ ofa
good moral disposition finds reason for believing in such
a natural finality, his interest in the beauty of nature will be
strong and persistent, and will be quite different from any that
he takes in works of art. But then, the consideration of this
point of view, which depends upon an assumption the correct-
ness of which was declared in the Remark to § 38 to be very
doubtful, is properly relegated to the Teleology. For Kant to
attach importance to the intellectual interest in the beauty of
nature and to base it upon this ground would be fatal to
Ss account. Hence it is definitely ruled out of order
in § 58.

Now are these two clear and distinct grounds of the intellec-
tual interest in the beautiful of nature two new grounds, over
and above the one in the preceding paragraph which referred
to the ‘trace’ and ‘hint’ and the ‘some ground or other’, and

1 Infra, pp. 160, 161.

V. Interest in Beauty cxiii

which we found so elusive? It would seem clear that they are
not intended to be additional. Kant begins by stating the
ground in a purposely vague and indefinite manner, so as to
cover both his own explanation and the explanation of those
who have not arrived at his critical standpoint. He then
provisionally clears up the explanation by letting it diverge in
two opposite directions, just as he allowed his main account to
diverge into the consideration of an empirical and an intellec-
tual interest. These two explanations represent the double
explanation that would be given by one who failed to grasp
Kant’s own central position. They are without any inner
_ connexion whatever.

But Kant must restore the unity of the point of view
indicated in the ground as first stated. How can this be
done? It will be observed that the first of the two substituted
explanations looks to the form of the judgement of taste upon
the object of nature, the second to its content. Again, the
former merely connects the interest with the disinterested
delight of the individual in the object—though the words ‘and
at the same time represents it a Zriori as proper to mankind in
general’ suggest the possibility of a wider view. The latter,
also, connects the interest merely with a purpose supposed to
take effect in the world of physical nature. It takes no note of
nature in us. Both explanations, therefore, entirely pass over
the essential character of taste as a social faculty. If, now,
Kant could bring the form and content of the judgement of
taste into a more intimate union, and also restore the impor-
tance of universal communicability of feeling, there would then
seem to be a prospect of his being able to give a clearer and
more satisfactory explanation of the ground of the intellectual
interest in beauty.

But although Kant returns upon the main point discussed in
these sections, he does not anywhere else expressly attempt
a more satisfactory explanation of the ground of that interest.
This seems a difficulty in the way of supposing, as is here done,
that the question is not completely disposed of in § 42. Having
regard to the important position of art in the Critique, should
not any depreciation of art at the expense of nature be justified
on the clearest grounds?

But there does not seem to be any reason for jumping to
the conclusion (as somehow one naturally does at first) that it
was art which Kant intended to depreciate by his proof that

1193 h

cxiv Introductory Essays

the beauty of art is not the object of an intellectual interest.
It is rather the intellectual interest which is depreciated. For
what was the problem that the intellectual interest had to
solve? We may recall Kant’s statement: ‘Supposing, now,
that we could assume that the mere universality of our feeling
must of itself import an interest for us, we should then be ina
position to explain how the feeling in the judgement of taste
comes to be exacted: from every one as a sort of duty.’ An
attempt at such an explanation was first made with the empiri-
cal interest. It was readily connected with the universal
communicability of our feeling, but it failed because it was
only empirical. So Kant turned to the intellectual interest.
This fails to cover the ground. It only applies in the case of
the beauty of nature: but the judgement of taste exacts agree-
ment from every one, as a sort of duty, just as much in the
case of works of art as in the case of objects of nature. Then,
further, it was not immediately obvious how the intellectual
interest was to be connected with universal communicability
of feeling.

But there is an additional reason why the intellectual interest
could not solve the problem. For this interest would itself be
something which we should have to require others to take.
‘We regard as coarse and low the habits of thought of those
who have no feeling for beautiful nature.’’ In requiring this
Jeeling we have only the same ground to go on as in the
modality of judgements upon the sublime. Zeeling is, in fact,
the word which Kant appropriated to the case where the
sublimity of the mind is concerned. But the requirement in
the case of judgements upon the sublime is only made under
presupposition of the moral feeling in man, whereas in the case
of judgements of taste it is made ‘as a matter of course’. It
would, then, be absurd to attempt to explain the latter require-
ment by one of the former kind.

The intellectual interest, therefore, fails to solve the main
problem. Still, as might be expected from the fact that it
arises from reflection on beauty, its consideration materially
advances the argument.

For, in the first place, it rebuts the presumption arising from
the often worthless character of virtuosi in taste, that not only
is the feeling for the beautiful ‘ specifically different from the
moral feeling (which as a matter of fact is the case), but also

1 Infra, p. 162.

V. Interest in Beauty CXV

that the interest which we may combine with it, will hardly
consort with the moral, and certainly not on grounds of inner
affinity ’.'

Then, further, it shows definitely that the interest arises
upon the reflection on an analogy which the judgement of
taste bears tothe moral judgement. This at once invites deeper
investigation.

Then it also sets the beauty of nature in a new light. Taste
of itself only regards the finality of the object for the mind.
But the feeling for beautiful nature brings the beauty of nature
into line with the sublime and art. It depends upon a reflec.
tion which recognizes Geis? in the beauty of nature. Hence it
directs attention to the finality of the mind in respect of objects.
Once this is brought into view, even the charms of nature, which
had been expressly laid aside, are seen in a new light.” Taste
regards the beautiful object as merely given: feeling for the
beautiful betrays a consciousness of the source from which it is
derived. It is just because the beautiful object as merely
judged by taste seems to be merely given, and to come from
without, that it is so important to show how and why reason
can find its interest engaged by it. On the other hand, it would
be absurd to look for an interest of reason in the sublimity
of the mind—and the case of art is in much the same posi-
tion.- But of course particular existing works of art stand on
a different footing.

The consideration of the intellectual interest in the beauty
_ of nature supplies the Critique with a motive for pursuing the
investigation of the specific content of the judgement of taste.
The form of that judgement involves an interpretation of the
given object. This interpretation in general, and the particular
form of the object, was not shown to have the essence of its
import in the character of the interpretation introduced by us.
But the intellectual interest fastens on the definite given con-
crete object. Can our mode of interpretation, of which the
third moment of the judgement of taste expresses the mere
general or abstract concept, give this concrete form its meaning ?
Does the essence of beauty lie in symbolism, as a natural art
of mankind?* Is nature a mere keyboard on which art plays

1 Infra, p. 157.

‚> Infra, p. 161; ct. p. 157. .

“ The reader must not forget that, according to Kant, all our know-
ledge of God is symbolic (see infra, p. 223)—a statement that would

h2

exvi Introductory Essays

the music of the soul? At all events it is quite evident that
the intellectual interest necessitates a full investigation of how
beauty is produced. We have learned that nature 1s only
beautiful when it looks like art. What is this art that is read
into nature? Is it a concrete art? Does beautiful nature
only look like art in the sense that it betrays, let us say, some
regularity which we interpret on the analogy of art in general,
or does it look like an art the concept of which increases with
each new beauty which we recognize? Is it art that has
furnished the standard literature of that language in which
beautiful nature speaks to us, and of which the Analytic of the
Beautiful has given us the grammar? Finally, does art imitate
nature so as to leave us no further than where we were, or can
nature be regarded as imitating art ?

Our estimate of Kant’s consistency depends largely on the
answer which we suppose that he intends to give to these
questions. For the present we can say this much: that if art
were intended to be entirely subordinated to the beauty of
nature, and if the intellectual interest were also to be taken as
solving the main problem which Kant has before him, then it
would be difficult to see what problem remains outstanding and
awaiting final solution. The discussion of art would at least
seem gratuitous—as critics generally think itis. They represent
Kant as proceeding to the discussion of art hot-foot upon
a section which completely depreciates its significance. But
according to the view here put forward what has been done is
to show that the main problem is one not to be solved by any
mere supervening interest. Yet these interests imply a reflec-
tion upon beauty, and the possibility of their attaching to
beauty affords an instructive commentary upon its inner
meaning. Each interest fastens on a partial truth, and thus
the investigation paves the way for Kant’s critical account.

A completely satisfactory statement of the true ground of
the distinction between the beauty of nature and the beauty of
art is not given. Its ground has only been analysed suff-
ciently for the purpose in hand. When art has been discussed
we may learn something that throws additional light upon it.
In the meantime it may be sufficient to note that what Kant is
contrasting with interest in the beauty of nature is not interest
in art itself (whatever this may mean apart from an impulse

also seem applicable to immortality (as endless life), and perhaps even to
freedom (as ground),

V. Interest in Beauty cxvii

to express oneself through the medium of art), but an interest
in the real existence of particular works of art—things which
may be collected and possessed by the individual. The con-
trast would, doubtless, be less sharp if what were considered
was art that is regarded as the possession of all men of culture,
as, for instance, Shakespeare’s plays or the poems of Homer,
or— well, if we seek for a more universal heritage than this, do
we not simply come to the beauty of nature? It speaks to us
in the mother-tongue of the race.

ESSAY VI

ART AND THE ARTIST

KANT’s treatment of fine art is intimately connected with the
distinction which he drew between technically and morally
practical rules. It may be remembered that the first section of
the Introduction was devoted to a full discussion of this
distinction ; and the draft of the original Introduction begins
in the same way.! The distinction corresponds to that between
natural concepts and the concept of freedom. Hence we
may expect that, since art is assigned a position intermediate
between nature and freedom,’ the rules of fine art will occupy
a like intermediate position between rules technically and rules
morally practical, and afford a sort of transition from the one
to the other. We should further expect that genius, if it be the.

„source of the rules of fine art, must be the result _of a bearing
of the practical upon the theoretical faculty, operating in man
as a maker.

~The Various characteristics of fine art, as given by Kant, are,
in fact, derived systematically and from a friori considerations
just as much as the moments of the judgement of taste. Fine
art is gradually defined so as to be distinguished alike from
what is technically practical and from what is morally practical.
It is /o be something specific. Further, if Kant can show that
his conception of fine art is simply the conception of an art
occupying such a distinct position, he has proved all he requires
to prove, provided he can show that such a fine art is Possible.
If others choose to call something fine art which differs in no
essential manner from the art of a practical carpenter or boot-
maker, they are at liberty to do so. It is absurd to quarrel
over names. But if there is a specific kind of art, with such
and such characteristics, then it seems more rational to reserve
the special name for that which is distinct.

The source of the possibility of a fine art, as above described,

1 Also see Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 485, 486, 488, 489; Werke, vol. iii,

PP. 520, 521, 523, 524 ; Ethics, p. 113; Werke, vol. v, p. 26.
2 Infra, p. 39.

VI, Art and the Artist cxix

Kant finds in the conception of a free play of the cognitive
faculties. Here, however, a difficulty presents itself. If this
play is directed to the production of something, then how is its
character of p/ay preserved? If, on the other hand, it is not
directed to the production of anything, how can it be art? In
the one case we would seem to get a mere mechanical art, in |
the other a mere product of chance. Kant’s argument takes
the form of devising an escape from this dilemma.

That it must be possible to reconcile a certain mechanical
side of fine art with its freedom is apparent from the fact that

fine art veguzres a certain mechanispr For, without this, “thé
soul, Which in art must be/ree, an ich alone gives life to the
work, would be bodyless and evanescent.’' ‘The thought of

Something as end must be present, or else its product would
not be ascribed to art at all, but would be a mere product of

chance.’? Hence, despite the fact that the possibility of fine art
depends upon a freedom in the play of our cognitive faculties, it
TS Hecessaty To Ser OUT Trom The proposition Tat "ait has always
Zot a dehnite-mtemtron_or producing something. Were this
"something ”, however, to be mere sensation (something merely
subjective), intended to be accompanied with pleasure, then such
product would, in our estimation of it, only please through the
agency of the feeling of the senses. On the other hand, were the
intention one directed to the production of a definite object,then,
supposing this were attained by art, the object would only please
by means of a concept. But in both cases the art would please,
not in ¢he mere estimate of it, i.e. not as fine art, but rather as
mechanical art.’* The statement that fine art has a mechanical
side, however, does not mean that fine art itself is in any sense a
mechanical art, but merely that something academic constitutes
the essential condition of the art.* There is an essential refer-
ence to the ‘concept of what the thing is intended to be,’®
with the result that perfection must be taken into account.
What saves fine art from being itself a mechanical art is that it
‘displays itself, not so much in the working out of the projected
concept, as rather in the portrayal, or expression of aesthetic
ideas containing a wealtirofmatertatfor effecting that intention.’ ®

Henke, ‘fine art, as such, must not be regarded as the product,
of understanding and_scieriée, but 0 | genius, and must, there-

aes
1 Infra, p. 164. 2 Infra, p. 171.
3 Infra, p. 167. 4 Infra, p. 1971.
5 Infra, p. 173. 6 Infra, p. 180.

CXX Introductory Essays

fore, derive its rule from aesthetic ideas, which are essentially
different from rational ideas of determinate ends.’ ! Thus,
although fine art is directed to the production of something,
‘it is nature (the nature of the individual), and not a set
purpose, that in products of genius gives the rule to art (as the
production of the beautiful).’ ? :

In the course of the above argument Kant touches on a point
of considerable importance, and deals with it in a characteristic
manner. Every one is agreed that fine art must have the
appearance of nature. This is generally taken to mean that
fine art is imitative. But Kant attaches a different meaning
to the statement. Pine art must be like natur ina way that
concerns itself as fine art—it must be natural. What me it
like nature in this sense 1s “the presence of perfect exactness in
the agreement with rules prescribing how alone the-product can
be what it is intended to be, but with an absence of /adoured
"effect (without the academic form betraying itself)’.* Art, so
far as merely imitative, is only mechanical art ; whereas fine
jart is the art of genius.
= ‘As to the element of science in every art—a matter which
turns upon the 72% in the presentation of the Object of
the art—while this is, no doubt, the indispensable condition
(conditio sine gua non) of fine art, it is not itself fine art. Fine
art, therefore, has only got a manner (modus), and not a method
of teaching (methodus). The master must illustrate what the
pupil is to achieve, and how achievement is to be attained,
and the proper function of the universal rules to which he
ultimately reduces his treatment is rather that of supplying
a convenient text for recalling its chief moments to the
pupil’s mind, than of prescribing them to him. Yet, in all
this, due regard must be paid to a certain ideal which art must
keep in view, even though complete success ever eludes its
happiest efforts.’ *

Thus Kant arrives at the conception of fine art as something
absolutely distinct and sud generis. Its rules do not point to
anything that can be done simply by the adjustment of means
to the required end, nor yet to anything that can be done
because it ought to be done. The possibility of art depends

rather upon the free play of the cognitive Taculties. Hence
the rules of fine art are not rules prescribed. The rule "cannot
1 Infra, p. 221, 2 Infra, p. 212, 8 Infra, p. 167.
4 Infra, pp. 225, 226.

VI, Art and the Artist cxxi

be one set down in a formula and serving as a precept—for
then the judgement upon the beautiful would be determinable
according to concepts. Rather must the rule be gathered from.
the performance, i.e. from the product’.

But while the required distinctive character of fine art was
the point which Kant had ultimately in view, he had a more
immediate consideration to guide him. His previous analysis
of the judgement of taste showed him at once the lines which
his investigation must take. For the product of fine art has
to be estimated as beautiful. Hence its treatment must dispose
of two primary questions. It must be shown, namely, first,
how the conformity to law is obtained, and, secondly, how the,
freedom of the zmagination is assured.

Some surprise may be felt at the fact that Kant makes no
attempt to connect the several characteristics of genius with
the four moments of aesthetic judgement. He only appears
to have aimed, in this respect, at showing a parallelism between
his account of genius and his account of the ¢hird moment of
the judgement of taste. This want of correspondence, so far
as explicit treatment is concerned, may, however, be explained
if the hypothesis is accepted that the co-ordination of the four
moments was a late change introduced into the work. Still, if
Kant’s account of genius is satisfactory, it ought to be possible
to arrange the different cardinal points in his account so as to
exhibit the required uniformity.

Now, just as the major premiss of the Analytic of the Beautiy
ful is that the judgement of taste ‘is not a cognitive judgement,
consequently not logical, but aesthetic’, so the major premiss
of Kant’s argument in the exposition of genius is that genius
is fundamentally distinguishable from any mere ability to
imitate or learn from another. And just as the judgement
of taste, as aesthetic, rests upon feeling, so genius, as a prö-
ductive faculty, rests upon the free play of the cognitive
faculties.

Hence the first property of genius is originality. Now, at
first sight, there certainly does not eee any such
intimate connexion between originality and disinterestedness
as would lead us to think that the former is for the productive
faculty of genius what the latter is for the faculty of aesthetic
judgement. Disinterestedness is essentially impersonal and
looks to whärisumiversat, whereas originality seems

1 Infra, p. 171. oat

cxxii Introductory Essays
to imply something individual and _peculiar_to_the Subject.
Bar origimahty whee consists in singularity is far from being
the originality of gemius. Of course, the man of genius is
Sng m The sense oF being a rare phenomenon, but this
is not what is meant when the man of genius is supposed to be
singular—besides, even disinterestedness, however impersonal,
is anything but common. Whatis usually meant when singu-
larity (understood a8 more than mere idiosyncrasy) is associated
with the conception of genius, is a unique relation of the
faculties involving the abnormal development of some at
the expense of others." But such path logical genius is not
true genius, for it only concerns the evelopment of those
aculties which genius employs as its instruments. An ab-
normal memory may be of great service to a genius; but it
does not constitute genius—though, with equal natural memory,
the genius will exhibit a better memory than other men, be-
cause he sees things in their proper connexions. Similarly,
very acute natural powers of observation may be very useful to
a genius; but they do not make a man a genius—though,
given good natural powers of this kind, the genius can best
employ them, since he knows what he is looking for. Again,
delicate sensibility and an emotional temperament may aid
artistic genius; but they do not of themselves provide the
source of inspiration—though the artistic genius may feel more
intensely than others, because his‘ self’ is as deep as humanity.
‘The so-called eccentric genius is not a real genius. Genius is,
in fact, precisely what he lacks. He has séngudarity but not
personality. If, then, we admit Kant’s conception of person-
ality, and recognize that its foundation lies in the idea of free-
dom and autonomy, it will be easy to see the connexion between
disinterestedness and originality, since both are similarly asso-
ciated with personality. Each alike evidence the bearing of
the practical upon the theoretical faculty.
~ Disinterestedness implies detachment. But genius also
seerfis to depend om something that enables a man to lose
kimsef? in his work, to get absorbed init, and yet in so doing
To develop a higher self. The genius disengages himself from
swharis-particular, and especially from his own empirical self.
The genius breaks away from his immediate surroundings and
ceases to be merely one of the many. So he understands the

1 Infra, p. 79, n., where Kant seems to be speaking of genius in this
sense.

VI. Art and the Artist exxiii

many better than they understand themselves. For he can
stand back from himself and know himself. The supreme

maxim of genius is ‘know thyself’

However, ri So Ge crally recognized_ as a_character-
istic of genvis- AS OMA THAT is perhaps annecessary Teather
“Woargue the point that the moment of the judgement of taste
with which originality should be connected is the one that
immediately indicates the influence of the moral side of man’s
being. Creations of the mind which do not owe their origin-
"iM any way to the spiritual faculty in man—to the idea of
freedom, and to disinterested love of the truth—are only
products of mechanical operations, of associations of ideas,
or even of mere lucky accidents. am

It_may further be remarked that the originality of genius
doesn: not betray itself so much in saying this or that new thing,
as in the adoption of a higher point of view, which gives a
broader Oe SE Te eh
bearings. Also, thé original genius is of all men the one who
in his work is least actuated by a desire to be original—and, in
fact, his way is generally more or less prepared before him.
True originality can look after itself. The sincere lover of the
truth can hardly avoid being original. Thus the artist who
does not surrender himself to the first whim of his fancy, but,
after having been an apprentice, becomes a critic of the pro-
gress of art, is bound to emphasize his own standpoint in
respect of the history of art. _

When engaged upon particular works, the man of genius seems
like one who in a forest has climbed to some eminence, from |
which he sees whence he has come and whither he is going.
Thus he never loses himself in detail ; for he sees all the details
as parts of a whole of which he is master. _

Against the above view it may be urged that the difference
between originality and disinterestedness corresponds to that
between the first two of the three maxims of common human
understanding which Kant discusses in $40. The first of these_

maxims is 0 think for oneself: the second is /o_ think from the
standpoint of every one else. But the originality of genius implies
ar more than merely thinking for oneself. ‘ Even though a man
weaves his own thoughts or fancies, instead of merely taking
in what others have thought, and even though he go so far as
to bring fresh gains to art and science, this does not afford
a valid reason for calling such a man of drains, and often great

cxxiv Introductory Essays

brains, a genius”! If disinterestedness is compared with the
%econd of the above maxims, the originality of genius should
rather be compared with the third : a/ways fo think consistently.
This maxim, Kant says, ‘is the hardest of attainment, and is
only attainable by the union of both of the former, and after con-
stant attention has made one at home in their observance.’?
The first of the three maxims is ‘the maxim of understand-
ing, the second that of judgement, the third that of reason’.
Se/f-consistent thought, therefore, implies not merely think-
ing for oneself, but a certain detachment from self. It is this
that ensures that the self for which one thinks is really worth
thinking for.

From the fact that the originality of genius does not depend
upon any mere peculiarity of the artist, but upon the freedom
of a detached ego and the auton of the Subject that gives
a new rule_ to” a We may infer its next characteristic,
‘Viz. that itis through »ature in the Subject that genius gives
the rule to art. This nature in the Subject seems to correspond
to the universal voice with which the judgement of taste speaks.
Further, the conception of genius as nature in the Subject
explains the possibility of the originality of genius as the function
of a detached ego, which has begun by the will to be free, in
just the same way as the claim to speak with a universal voice
explains the possibility of a disinterested judgement of delight.

The transition to what we may regard as the characteristic
of genius, answering to the third moment of the judgement of
taste, is indicated by Kant himself in the following passage :
‘The mental powers whose union in a certain relation constitutes
genius arg Jmagination and understanding. Now, since the
Snagnation, In iS empropment-on benalfof cognition, is sub-
jected to the constraint of the understanding and the restriction
of having to be conformable to the concept belonging thereto,
whereas aesthetically it is yet free to furnish of its own accord,
over and above that agreement with the concept, a wealth of
undeveloped material for the understanding, to which the latter
paid no regard in its concept, but which it can make use of, not
so much objectively for cognition as subjectively for quickening
the cognitive faculties, and hence also indirectly for cognitions,
it may be seen that genius properly consists in the happy
relation, which science cannot teach nor industry learn, enabling

1 Infra, p. 169. 2 Infra, p. 153.

VI. Art and the Artist CXXV

one to find out ideas for a given concept, and, besides, to hit
upon the expression for them—the expression by means of
which the subjective mental condition induced by the ideas as
the concomitant of a concept may be communicated to others,
This latter talent is properly that which is termed soul’! The
net result is that genius is constituted by a happy relation of
the imagination and understanding, and gives the rule, not to
science, but to fine art as a product in which the faculties are
engaged in free play. It is as so constituted that genius is the
source of finality apart from an end.

The further characteristic of genius, that its originality is
an exemplary originality, obviously corresponds to the fourth
moment of the judgement of taste. ‘Genius... is the exemplary
originality of the natural endowment of an individual in the /ree
employment of his cognitive faculties. On this showing,
the product of a genius (in respect of so much in this product
as is attributable to genius and not to possible learning or
academic instruction) is an example, not for imitation (for that
would mean the loss of the element of genius and just the very
soul of the work), but one to be followed by another genius—
one whom it arouses to a sense of his own originality in putting
freedom from the constraint of rules so into force in his art that
for art itself a new rule is won—which is what shows a talent to
be exemplary.’ ?

We saw that the four moments of the judgement of taste led
up to the sexsus communis as the ultimate presupposition. In
the same way the different characteristics of genius point to
reason and the intelligible basis of human nature. ‘Rule and
precept are incapable of serving as the requisite subjective
standard for that aesthetic and unconditional finality in fine art
which has to make a warranted claim to being bound to please
every one. Rather must such a standard be sought in the
element of mere nature in the Subject, which cannot be com-
prehended under rules or concepts, that is to say, the supersen-
sible substrate of all the Subject’s faculties (unattainable by any
concept of understanding), and, consequently, in that which
forms the point of reference for the harmonious accord of all
our faculties of cognition—the production of which accord is
the ultimate end set by the intelligible basis of our nature.
Thus alone is it possible for a subjective and yet universally

1 Infra, pp. 179, 180. 2 Infra, p. 181.

cxxvi Introductory Essays

valid principle a priori to lie at the basis of that finality for
which no objective principle can be prescribed.’ * u

Lastly, corresponding to the comprehensive definition of
taste ($ 40) as a faculty for estimating what makes our feeling
in a given representation universally communicable without the
intervention of a concept, we have the comprehensive definition
of genius as the faculty of aesthetic ideas. :

Beauty, whether it be beauty of nature or of art, is the
expression of aesthetic ideas, and genius is the faculty of
aesthetic ideas—these are the propositions that sum up the
result of Kant’s Analytic. Kant has steadily advanced to this
position, and, once attained, he never retreats from it.

The division of the fine arts, upon which Kant enters after
his discussion of the faculties requisite for their production, has
not had the good fortune to commend itself to his critics.

Professor Caird’s curt dismissal of all Kant’s remarks on the
subject as having ‘nothing that is worthy of special mention’
reflects the general opinion. This unfavourable reception seems
partly due to the fact that Kant himself says in a note that his
division ‘is not put forward as a deliberate theory but is only
one of various attempts than can and ought to be made’, and
partly to the analogy which, according to his usual practice, he
employs as a guiding principle, and which seems in some
respects fanciful.

As to the first point we may say that if the account contained
nothing but the above short note it would still contain some-
thing worthy of mention. In systematic divisions Kant
generally felt himself quite at home, and he was not in the
habit of claiming any indulgence for them. But he was too
far-seeing to stake much on a division of the fine arts, He
recognized that it was quite impossible for the division to be
made completely a Zriori. For it must take the medium of
communication into account, and this is @ posterior? material?
Besides, the particular stage at which regard is paid to this
material is more or less arbitrary. Kant, looking, no doubt, to

1 Infra, p. 212; cf. pp. 220, 224.

2 How could we possibly decide a priori that there may not be possible
fine arts beyond those generally recognized? Thus might there not be
an art of the beautiful play of colour sensations given in succession as well
coexisting? In an artistic ballet, for instance, is not the sequence of
colours almost as important as their grouping ? Might we not get akind

of music of the succession of colours? The kinematograph provides
a means of experiment in this direction. :

VI. Art and the Artist exxvii

the empirical origin of the existence of the fine arts, preferred
to attend first to the vehicle of communication, and work up to
the relative preponderance of the essential elements of a fine
art as such. But he foresaw the possibility of other divisions.
And, in fact, his attempt has been followed by a multitude of
others which have come, as it were, at the bidding of his words
‘which can and ought to be made’. Though the authors of
these attempts have not been as cautious or modest as Kant in
estimating their value, none of them have been successful in
attracting a large following. Hegel’s division into Symbolic,
Classic, and Romantic, which is perhaps the best known, has
the advantage of depending upon a principle which can be
followed into the particular arts themselves by a process of
involution and so made to represent progressive stages in these
arts themselves.

As to the apparently fanciful analogy upon which Kant relies,
it will be seen that this soon slips into the background and was
mainly introductory to a reference to the distinction between
thought, intuition, and sensation. In this distinction lies the real
nerve of Kant’s division.

As beauty is the expression of aesthetic ideas, the first point
to which one naturally looks is the mode of expression by which
these ideas are communicated. Now, if we remember what was
said in § 41 as to the empirical interest in the beautiful, we shall
see good reason for looking behind the development of the
fine arts to speech as the original mode of expression. Even
here the need for something further than words betrays itself.
Something moves in the man beyond the mere concept. And
so before language becomes that powerful organ of expression
into which it develops in poetry, the word is supplemented by
gesture and tone. Only by means of the conjunction of these
three is the speaker able to communicate himself completely—
not merely as a thinking, but also as a feeling subject. By
availing himself of those three channels of communication he
is able to convey thought, intuition, and sensation concurrently
and in their united force to others. In this primitive struggle
after expression, in which man first exhausts all the available
resources of his body to communicate the thought and feeling
that is too large for utterance by the language at his command,
may we not find foreshadowed the various channels that a finer
art has devised, as nature became a more and more subservient
material in the hands of man? For the artist uses external

cxxviii Introductory Essays

nature as an extension of the body that is immediately organic
to his soul.

The justification for framing a division of the fine arts
generally on the basis of an analogy to the modes of expres-
sion adopted in speaking, and the precise significance of that
analogy, are apparent from a consideration of the justification
in the case when the analogy seems most far-fetched, viz. that
in which formative art is brought under a common head with
gesture in speaking. For through the outward forms of which
this art avails itself ‘the soul of the artist furnishes a bodily
expression for the substance and character of his thought, and
makes the thing itself speak, as it were, in mimic language’.

The analogy adopted by Kant results in a division of the
fine arts into three classes: (1) the arts of speech; (2) the
formative arts, or those for the expression of ideas in sezswous
intuition ; (3) the arts of the deautiful play of sensations (as
external sense impressions). Here, as well as in the remarks
devoted to the individual arts, we see that what Kant has
in view is the faculty of thought, intuition, or sensation, as
the case may be, to which the artist primarily addresses himself
in communicating himself to others.

It is not here necessary to follow Kant through all the
subdivisions of these different heads. The important point to
observe is the essential bearing that the introductory remarks
with which the section begins have upon all that follows. Here,
after grouping together the beauty both of nature and of art,
Kant points out the distinction, already familiar to us, that in
the case of fine art the idea ‘must be excited through the
medium of a concept of the object, whereas in beautiful nature
the bare reflection upon a given intuition, apart from any
concept of what the object is intended to be, is sufficient for
awakening and communicating the idea of which that Object
is regarded as the expression’. All Kant’s observations on the
particular arts turn on the extent to which the concept of the
product leaves room for the expression of aesthetic finality. If
this had been more clearly perceived Kant’s treatment would
probably have been better appreciated.

The extent to which the above considerations dominate
Kant’s representation of the essential distinction between the
different arts is perhaps best illustrated by his comparison of
sculpture and architecture. Sculpture ‘presents concepts of
things corporeally, as they might have existed in nature (though

VI. Art and the Artist CXXIX

as fine art it pays regard to aesthetic finality)’. On the other
hand, ‘ Architecture is the art of presenting concepts of things
which are possible only ‘hrough art, and the determining ground
of whose forms is not nature but an arbitrary end, yet with the
intention still in view of presenting them at the same time with
aesthetic finality.’ For this reason not alone ‘ temples, splendid
buildings for public concourse, or even dwelling houses,
triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, &c., erected as monu-
ments, belong to architecture’, but also household furniture
may be added to the list, ‘on the ground that adaptation of the
product to a particular use is the essential element in a work of
architecture. On the other hand a mere piece of sculpture, made
simply to be looked at and intended to please on its own
account is, as a corporeal presentation, a mere imitation of
nature, though one in which regard is paid to aesthetic ideas.’
This at once recalls Kant’s remarks in § 16 in which the beauty
of ‘a building (such as a church, palace, arsenal, or summer-
house)’ is described as dependent beauty, and distinguished
from the free beauty, such as that of ‘delineations @ Ja grecque,
foliage for framework or on wall papers, &c.’ The latter
‘represent nothing—no Object under a definite concept’. Also
all music which is not controlled by a definite theme is placed
in this latter category.

Thus the final distinction which Kant had in view in work-
ing out his division was that between free and dependent beauty.
This is apparent from the observations on each of the particular
arts. From this point of view architecture and music are the
opposite poles of fine art. Between these, as the typical
instances respectively of dependent and free arts, we have what
are generally called the imitative arts. Here the dependence
is merely subjective, and not as in architecture objective ; it is
merely one upon an external reference, and not upon an internal
end. On these lines we might divide the arts into those that
are (1) dependent upon an internal end, i.e. objectively
dependent ; (2) dependent upon an external reference which
the Subject freely assigns to the product, i.e. subjectively
dependent ; (3) free or independent. The grouping of the
several arts on this principle would, however, differ somewhat
from that given by Kant. Thus, for instance, rhetoric, as.
having essentially in view the purpose of persuasion, would
(if included in the division at all) come under the same
heading as architecture. For each of these arts is alike

1193 i

CXXX Introductory Essays

objectively dependent. They merely pay regard to aesthetic
finality.

Following the division of the arts, Kant has some remarks
on the combination of different fine arts in one and the same
product. They contain little of interest, and conclude with
what seems an unfortunate paragraph, containing a sermon on
the necessity of bringing the fine arts either proximately or
remotely into combination with moral ideas apart from which
they only serve for diversion. If this is merely intended to
anticipate the position that beauty is the syméo/ of the morally
good, then it may be passed over as merely misleadingly
worded, but if it is meant (which presumably it is not) to
suggest that fine art should havea moral intention, then it is in
flagrant contradiction with all that is best in what Kant has
said about the freedom of the beauty both of nature and of art.
If, on the other hand, the observations are intended as an
estimate of art from a moral standpoint, as is perhaps the case,
then art must take the censure in silence—unless it retorts that
if moral ideas are not brought either proximately or remotely
into combination with the aesthetic, they, in turn, are dull and
prosy.

The moralizing strain started in the above section is pursued
into a section which seems somewhat inappropriately headed,
‘ Relative aesthetic worth of the several fine arts.’ The tension
is, however, relieved in § 54 by a discussion of the laughable.

Laughter, according to Kant, is ‘an affection arising from the
sudden conversion of a strained expectation into nothing’.
This does not mean that if a man were to have a strained
expectation of being left well off by some rich relative, and
those expectations were to be reduced to nothing when the will
was read, this reduction of his expectations to nothing would
result in an outburst of laughter on %is part. The account is
explained by the words immediately preceding: ‘ Something
absurd (something in which, therefore, the understanding can
of itself find no satisfaction) must be present in whatever is to
raise a hearty convulsive laugh.’ The strained expectation is
a developing play of the imagination similar to that occasioned
by a beautiful object, in which case, however, the play strengthens
and maintains itself owing to a harmony of imagination and
understanding. ‘The play of imagination in the case of the
beautiful. must be such that the understanding receives no
shock. But in the case of what is laughable it does receive

VI. Art and the Artist CXXNi

this shock by reason of the presence of something absurd,
and the lively process of thought is suddenly stopped. The
imagination then builds up the representation anew, but the
same result follows. This mental movement is accompanied
by a corresponding internal movement of the body; for all
our thoughts have some movement in the bodily organs asso-
ciated with them. In this connexion Kant does not forget to
refer to the effects of ziekling. His whole account strikingly
anticipates that of Herbert Spencer. According to the latter,
‘laughter naturally results only when consciousness is unawares
transferred from great things to small—only when there is what
we call a descending incongruity.’ With Herbert Spencer the
physiological phenomenon of laughter is the equivalent of
the nerve-force liberated by the cessation or slowing down of
the previously animated thought-processes, and is thus brought
under the general law of the conservation of energy.

Kant’s account, while good so far as it goes, fails to do justice
to his own standpoint. For all the four serious moments of
the judgement of taste enter gravely, not, of course, into
laughter as a physiological phenomenon, but into the reflective
judgement which estimates something as laughable. We refer
the predicate ‘laughable’ to an object, as if it were a logical
predicate, just as much as we do the predicate ‘beautiful’.
We have, in fact, only to look at the definitions of the beautiful
drawn from each of the four moments to see that they could
all serve equally for definitions of the laughable, except that the
third would require modification, owing to the fact that here the
finality apart from an end arises out of the conflict of imagina-
tion and understanding. Perhaps Kant felt diffidence about
going too closely into the nature of the laughable, as he could
hardly regard it as the symbol of the morally good. But then
(if it must be connected with something moral), might he not
have regarded it as the symbol of our original sin, which a
disinterested judgement finds has something to say for itself—
at least aesthetically? Or might he not have regarded it as
due to a sense of the superiority of reason to those artificial
laws and restrictions which are thought to be necessary in order
to enable us to realize our freedom in society ?

It may be observed that there could be no strained expecta-
tion in the play of imagination in the case of what is laughable,
nor, much less, anything to make us go back on that play and
‘try it over again, unless the play had a certain subjective

12

cxxxii Introductory Essays

validity—a semblance of truth. This, then, must come into
conflict with what is objectively valid as estimated according
to some adopted standard of truth. Hence a classification, so
far as this is possible, of the different standards according to
which truth is generally estimated, combined with a classification
of the different kinds of purely subjective validity (as dependent
on association of ideas, language, customs, &c.) with which the
imagination supports itself, would furnish a basis for a classifi-
cation of things laughable, so far as depending upon something
absurd. But it must be remembered that, when ideas are
adopted as the standard, the greatest absurdity is often the
world of mere understanding (which takes itself so seriously, as
if it were the whole truth), and this may, therefore, be ranked
on the same level as what is purely subjective.

The difficulties presented by Kant’s account of art have, so
far as possible, been glossed over in the brief outline above
given. Some of these, no doubt, turn on mere verbal inconsis-
tencies, but others are serious difficulties of interpretation.
They must now engage our attention. In some cases they seem
to arise owing to Kant deserting his own use of terms for that
attributed to opponents, and, in particular, the leaders of the
Sturm und Drang movement. In other cases they appear to
be due to his changing his point of view from the possibility of
things to things as they generally exist. But the more impor-
tant difficulties arise from his not explicitly drawing the apparent
consequences of his statements.

If we compare the opening paragraphs of §§ 16 and 51 we
would seem entitled to infer that the beauty of nature and the
beauty of art are related to one another as free and dependent
beauty. But on a closer view there appears to be a complete
parallelism. So far as fine art has nothing for its object but
the expression of aesthetic ideas, i.e, so far as it is a fine art,
it is free, and its product a free beauty. The precise function
of genius and aesthetic ideas is to make art free. Fine art is
always free within certain limits; but some arts are more free
(i.e. less restricted by the concept of an object) than others.
In § 16 Kant goes so far as explicitly to admit the existence
of some free beauties of art. For instance, ‘delineations 4 Ja
grecque, foliage for framework or wall papers, &c., have no
essential meaning. They represent nothing—no object under
a definite concept, and are free beauties. The same applies
to music which is not controlled by any definite theme, and

VI, Art and the Artist CXXNili

also to ‘mere aesthetic painting, which has no definite theme’.
Hence, within fine art itself, we get a complete advance from
architecture, as the most dependent beauty, to the above as
quite free.

Such being the position of art we may see at once that nature
has no advantage to boast of on the score of freedom. Land-
scapes, in the strict sense, belong to art, and beautiful views
are so devoid of form that they are not to be counted among
the free beauties of nature. In fact it seems that we do not
get a free beauty of nature at all unless a concept is present.
But if a concept is present then there is imminent danger of
the beauty being merely dependent, as in the case of a human
being or any of the higher animals. Flowers, shells, and birds
practically exhaust Kant’s list of the free beauties of nature.
But even here we must be careful to abstract from any know-
ledge of botany and zoology which we may happen to possess.
Crystals might, perhaps, also put forward a claim, but their
purely mathematical regularity is greatly against them. The
beauty of nature, therefore, is not in general any more free than
that of art. Further, if we take a dependent beauty of nature,
such as a human being, and also take a dependent beauty of
art, such as his portrait, it would seem that of the two the
latter may be the more free, i.e. if it pays more regard to the
expression of aesthetic ideas.

Another point to which attention may be called is the
misleading manner in which Kant sometimes substitutes an
attack on what he dislikes in place of a serious theory. Thus
his remarks on rhetoric are unfortunate. He might with
advantage have discussed the element of fine art in rhetoric,
but to define it in the worst possible sense and then denounce
it because of the uses to which it may be put seems absurd.
Then his statement of the favourable way in which poetry
compares with rhetoric is by no means penetrating. ‘In poetry
everything is straight and above board. It shows its hand; it
desires to carry on a mere entertaining play with the imagination,
and one consonant, in respect of form, with the laws of
understanding ; and it does not seek to steal upon and ensnare
the understanding with a sensuous presentation.’’ It is the
very fact that poetry only proclaims a mere play with ideas that
makes it soinsidious. It is useless for it to protest its innocence
when it is so continually quoted on serious matters. Why,

1 Infra, p. 193.

cxxxiv Introductory Essays

there was a time when no speech in Parliament was thought
complete without a quotation from the classics. A successful
quotation used to be able almost to turn a general election.
Its insistence that it is to be taken as part of the contract that
no reliance is to be placed on its representations is generally
only part of the fraud itself. 5
Similarly, Kant shifts about from criticisms of painting and
music as conceived by him, and as they ought to be according
to his theory, to painting and music as he was acquainted with
them. Kant’s own view evidently was that the colour in
painting was a mere extraneous charm unless the whole might
be regarded as a colour arrangement exhibiting a harmony of
colours in which true unity of form was to be found. This
much one can say with absolute certainty: that Whistler’s
conception of painting is simply the conception of painting
as it ought to be conceived according to Kant’s views.
Thus Whistler says: ‘My picture of a Harmony in grey
and gold is an illustration of my meaning—a snow scene
with a single black figure and a lighted tavern. I care
nothing for the past, present, or future of the black figure,
placed there because the black was wanted at the spot. All
that I know is that my combination of grey and gold is the
basis of the picture.’ If Whistler’s painting came up to this
high ideal, then it was a free beauty of art as conceived by
Kant. Kant laughed at the colouring in the pictures which
had come under his notice. Their colour was a mere extrinsic
charm that only served ‘to make the form more intuitable —
like the colouring of different countries on a map. Colouring
which has no higher meaning than this might be dispensed
with. Take the -gaudy thing away—cover it up lest it blind
true aesthetic judgement—was the criticism of the philosopher of
Königsberg. We can imagine Whistler applauding the verdict.
Some difficulty may be found in Kant’s statement that ‘in
a would-be work of fine art we may often perceive genius with-
out taste, and in another taste without genius’. It is obvious,
however, that Kant here uses the word genius in a special
sense. For taste is one of the faculties that are required to
constitute genius. Kant not alone states this explicitly, but he
shows how genius involves taste: ‘Genius properly consists
in the happy relation, which science cannot teach nor
industry learn, enabling one to find out ideas for a given
concept, and besides, to hit upon the expression for them—

VI. Art and the Artist CXXXV

the expression by means of which the subjective mental
condition induced by the ideas as the concomitant of a concept
may be communicated to others.’' . Hence, when Kant says that
we may see genius without taste in a work of art he is using the
word in the sense attributed to opponents—in which sense he
says that genius may produce original nonsense. As Kant
only spoke of a zvould-be work of fine art, so also he only
intended to speak of so-called genius.

But, with this explanation of the sense in which he used the
term genius, what is the significance of the remark? Kant’s
conception of genius and of the relation between genius and
taste is obviously dominated by his conception of taste as
a social faculty and art as a social product, and by his
conception of the relation of the individual to society. By
genius Kant seems, in this connexion, to mean the productive
imagination of the individual operating in conjunction with the
foundation of human nature in him. Human nature, the whole
heritage of the race, descends upon the man of genius, and he
receives it into himself, not so as to overpower his individuality,
but so as to give his individuality force and truth. The man
of genius is the man who can accept nature’s bounty without
being crushed under the burden of the gift.

The man of genius is at once ‘the heir of all the ages’ and
also ‘in the foremost files of time’. Every work of art of any
importance is both a recapitulation and anadvance. So far as
it has to be the former it requires taste ; so far as it has also to
be the latter it requires genius. Hence, precisely because
genius is nature in the Subject, and because it controls itself
by taste, i.e. keeps in touch with the general advance, it is
qualified to become, and always is in process of becoming,
a mere common-sense of mankind. Every genius adds to the
patrimony of the race. The taste of to-day was the vision of
buried genius—genius that has fertilized the soil out of which
it grew and in which it was laid to rest. It is here as with
thought generally—

Thoughts that great hearts ever broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air;
The dust we trample heedlessly
Once throbbed in saints and heroes rare,
Who perished opening for the race
New pathways to the commonplace.
1 Infra, pp. 179, 180.

CXXXVi Introductory Essays

Now the mar whose capacity just falls short of that of the
genius may betray his deficiency either in respect of humanity
or in respect of individuality. In the former case he feels that
his originality would be cramped by too close a study of those
who have preceded him, or, at all events, he allows the
individual bent of what we may call his genius to assert itself
before he has mastered the works of his predecessors. He
strikes out a path of his own, and is fertile in production, but
he is always in danger of becoming merely eccentric. If the
taste of the world is formed upon correct models, he is liable
to be completely ignored ; for the public will be quicker to
perceive his defects and the extent to which he falls short of
the masters whom they admire, than to recognize the worth
of what is original in his contributions. But it is practically
impossible for a man, no matter how great his originality, to
produce anything of any worth whatsoever in total disregard of
the productions of others. What the man whom we have in
view generally does is to absorb what is most congenial to him
in the works of his contemporaries, and to catch the spirit of his
own society, or even of his own age, so far as original, and in
that case he is generally rewarded with widespread, though not
with enduring popularity. His original contribution soon
becomes absorbed by a later and more comprehensive genius.
The irony of his fate is that, having ignored history, he himself
becomes of mere historical importance.

On the other hand, the man of deficient individuality finds
his productive capacity checked by the contemplation of what
has already been produced. He exhausts himself in the
appreciation of others. In his lifetime he is recognized by
those who know him as a man of extreme culture and refine-
ment. The irony of his fate is that, having devoted himself to
history, he himself is of no historical importance.

Closely connected with the above is Kant’s consideration ot
the question as to whether in a work of art more stress should
be laid upon genius or taste. Here again we might at once
object that where there is genius there must also be taste.
Kant seems to anticipate the objection by turning the question
into one of the respective importance of fertility and originality
of ideas, and of judgement which secures an accordance of
imagination with the conformity to law of the understanding.
Kant decides in favour of judgement, i.e. taste, which is what
is fundamental. It may be thought that in coming to this

VI. Art and the Artist CXXXVii

decision he was merely influenced by antagonism to the leaders
of the Sturm und Drang movement. But that Kant had more
in his mind than this would appear from his statement that
taste ‘introduces a clearness and order into the plenitude of
thought, and in so doing gives stability to the ideas, qualifies
them at once for permanent and universal approval, for being
followed by others and for a continually progressive culture ’.'
Here we can plainly see that what attracted Kant was the
sobriety of true genius, and the security of tenure which it enjoys
by virtue of a happy reciprocal relation between the individual
and the general social development of the race.

But it is really quite impossible to press such a comparison
in the case of two factors both of which are absolutely indis-
pensable. Using genius in the loose sense of mere ‘fertility
and originality of ideas’, it may be said that taste without
genius is more often met with than genius without taste.
Indeed taste without genius seems not uncommon in the case
of art of a more or less decadent character. Thus the some-
what insipid canvases of Guido Reni seem fairly typical of taste
without genius (at least of the high order possessed by his
predecessors). But it is not so easy to find examples of genius,
even in the limited sense of ‘soul’, without taste. This may
be partly explained on the ground that Kant is so absolutely
justified in specially condemning genius without taste, that the
works which might have shown us what genius without taste is
like have been strangled in their birth and condemned out of
existence. ‘Taste is, in fact, such an indispensable requisite of
a work of fine art that if it is who/ly absent we can recognize
nothing. The most one can do is to take a man of genius
whose good taste may often be questioned and compare him
with another who is lacking in genius but hardly to be blamed
on the score of deficient taste. Thus, in the paintings of Watts
we may occasionally be offended by a certain ‘Cabaret de
YEnfer’ or ‘Cabaret du Ciel’ effect, and we may ask if this
is worse than the more deficient genius of Leighton. But it is
doubtful if such questions are worth answering. Much turns
on the degree of genius present and how far taste is deficient ;
and, in any case, even if the question could be decided in
particular cases, it would seem impossible to generalize the
answers.

Perhaps Kant should have said that the question of the

1 Infra, p. 183.

CXXXViii Introductory Essays

relative importance of genius and taste in a work of art only
arises in the case of the man of genius working under definite
conditions in which the true light of his genius sometimes
fails or becomes uncertain. If the happy relation of imagina-
tion and understanding is disturbed or endangered, should he
rather think of the loss of force from putting a restraint upon
his imagination, or of his mode of expression not being a truly
exemplary vehicle of communication to express the idea that
stirs within him? Thus framed, the question cannot be
answered in the abstract. We may readily pardon Shake-
speare for not always showing the restraint of Sophocles, in
whom genius and taste were perfectly balanced, but, at the
same time we can hardly fail to wish that in such a passage as
that in which he compares the lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
he had curbed the ‘inimitable rush of his spirit’ before he
reached the lines—

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear.
On the practical question Kant says all that can be said. An
offence against taste ‘is always a blemish’, but we must be
ready to pardon those ‘deformities which the genius only
suffered to remain, because they could hardly be removed
without loss of force to the idea’.! It is in these remarks that
Kant approaches the question on the proper plane.

Difficulties of a more serious character arise out of the sharp
distinction which Kant draws between judging and pro-
ducing the beautiful. ‘For eszimating beautiful objects, as such,
what is required is Zasze , but for fine art, i.e. the production
of such objects, one needs genius.’” Now there is, of course,
no difficulty in distinguishing between judging and producing,
between being a critic and an artist. The distinction is a
real distinction, and a convenient and necessary one, But how
far does the critical faculty presuppose the artistic faculty, and
vice versa?

At the outset it may be said that the above passage is by no
means unambiguous on the question which we have now in
view. We may see this at once if we ask ourselves whether
Kant means that if genius were absolutely non-existent in the
race we might have Zasze and enjoy the Jeauty of nature just as
we do at present.

1 Infra, p. 181, 2 Infra, p. 172.

VI. Art and the Artist CXNNIN

Before endeavouring to find out what light Kant has thrown
on this question we may shortly consider the matter for our-
selves. That there is a valid distinction between the critical
and the productive capacity, so far at least as to give meaning
to the assertion that something evidences more of the one than
the other, is unquestionable. Between mere judging of the
beautiful and the highest creative art we can, in fact, find an
intermediate art which is certainly more creative than the
former and less so than the latter. An actor or a performer of
music is certainly an artist.1 He has to interpret, and he puts
something of himself into his rendering. But while an actor
may in a sense create a part, he creates at the instance of
a suggestion given him by another. The performer of a piece
of music also differs from his appreciative audience by more
than mere technical skill. A musician who had to conduct
a performance of Salome or Zilectra would undoubtedly require
a certain amount of something intermediate between taste and
genius to enable him to perform the task successfully. But to
say that he required genius of the same order as that of Strauss
would be as absurd as to rank Jebb with Sophocles.

It is, in fact, the different degree of creative power required
that alone can explain the fact that while women have equalled
men in the art of acting, and have competed with them in per-
forming music, there has never been a really great female
dramatist or composer of music. The education of women
in music, which has always been expected from them as an
accomplishment, has certainly not been neglected—as most of
us know to our cost. What has been the result? They are
rapidly beginning to abandon the pursuit altogether, and now
that a few of them have turned to science and other such soul-
less occupations, the sex which could never produce a Mozart,
a Beethoven, or a Wagner has readily produced a Madame
Curie—a striking confirmation of Kant’s opinion that a scien-
tist, even such as Newton, cannot rank as a genius with the
great creators of art.?

But if there is a wide distinction between composing a great
musical work and performing it, we may a fortiori admit the
difference between the creative power of the composer and

1 It is significant that Kant does not consider the distinct position of
the art in these cases.

2 Kant, however, was certainly not justified in confining genius entirely
tofineart. See notesto p. 14, ll. 10-24, and p. 170, |. 1.

cxl Introductory Essays

the taste of a musical audience merely competent to appreciate
it. But how far is that taste the product of genius? Must
not the great composer first create his works of art and then
educate the taste requisite to appreciate them? That this
is to a large extent the case is a matter of common experience.

But admitting that it is artistic genius that forms and
educates taste in the case of music, is not taste much more
independent of genius in the case of the beauty of nature?
That the beautiful landscapes which we see in nature are
largely the creations of Ruysdael, Constable, Turner, and
their successors must surely be conceded, but what about the
flowers, birds, and sea-shells of which Kant speaks? Would
it not be a Aysteron proteron to say that feathers and shells
and such-like things were not recognized to be beautiful until
primitive man used them to decorate himself? Was it not
precisely because they were regarded as beautiful that they
were used for the purpose of decoration? In attempting to
answer this question there are two important points that must
be borne in mind. First, there is the distinction which Kant
has properly explained between what is regarded as agreeable
because pleasant to the senses, and what is estimated as beautt-
ful. No doubt primitive man did not decorate himself with
feathers until he found such things agreeable to the senses ;
but this is a very different thing from saying that he did not
decorate himself until he attained that degree of self-conscious-
ness implied by anything approaching a pure judgement of
taste. It would hardly be an extravagant hypothesis to suppose
that it was the practice of decorating himself with such things
that helped the transition from the mere recognition of such
things as agreeable to the judgement that they were beautiful.
Then, secondly, not merely painting or decoration but also
poetry must be taken into account, and, further, poetry must
be understood in a wide sense so as to include description in
language generally. When we bear these points in mind we
may see strong reasons for supposing that we do not first judge
things to be beautiful and then seek to find an expression for
them, but that we judge them to be beautiful because of our
consciousness at least of the possibility of finding an expression
for them. Unless this view is adopted there does not appear
to be any intimate connexion between the appreciation of the
beautiful and the creative work of art, deeply as the latter has
obviously influenced the former in the field of experience open

VI. Art and the Artist exli

to our immediate observation. The preferable alternative is to
recognize that the impulse which impels an artist to produce
works of art is implied in the mere judgement that anything
is beautiful.

We may now turn to what may be gleaned from Kant’s
account.

We have already seen that the distinction between the
merely critical faculty of taste and the productive faculty of
soul is the fundamental distinction which lies at the basis of
the division of the Analytic into that of the Beautiful and that
of the Sublime, and that in the Analytir of the Beautiful Kant
entirely abstracted from the latter faculty. But this distinction
does not negative the supposition that beauty always pre-
supposes soul, and that apart from soul there would be no
beauty for us to estimate.

Kant’s statement that for estimating beautiful objects, as
such, what is required is taste, but for fine art, i.e. the pro-
duction of such objects, one needs genius, does not really touch
on the above point. For the beautiful object which has to be
estimated may be a work of art, in which case soul is, to
begin with, presupposed on the part of the producer of
the work. Here the object owes its beauty to aesthetic ideas,
and unless these are appreciated by the critic, taste could not
find any beauty in the work. Thus in §17 Kant recognizes
that even for estimating ideal beauty ideas of reason and great
imaginative power are required.

Undoubtedly, when Kant says that in a work of art taste is
more important than genius because it is in respect of the
former that it deserves to be called beautiful, whereas in respect
of the latter it deserves rather to be called inspired or full of
soul, he seems to imply that taste has nothing to do with the
soul in a work of art. But the whole discussion of art certainly
implies that genius is required in order that a work of art may
be beautiful even for mere taste. How, then, can this
position be reconciled with the former statement? The only
way that suggests itself is by saying that there Kant was
thinking of that degree of originality that is required in every
work of art. A work of art may be beautiful, at least in
a popular sense, although it is most commonplace. But what
is now commonplace may only be soul that has become the
substratum of mere taste. But a work of art must have life,
and must be estimated with regard to the progress of art.

exlii Introductory Essays

But has soul anything to do with the beauty of nature? It
would seem that here again we can only answer in the negative
if we insist that in a society in which a certain degree of culture
is attained the individual is not to be credited with soul if all
that he possesses is the mere common property of all. Other-
wise we must recognize that soul is required in order that
any one should even think of laying down a pure judgement of
taste. The very form of the judgement that anything is
beautiful implies the interpretation of what is given after the
analogy of art, and therefore an indeterminate poetic sense.
The only difference between the poet and the man who
says of an object, ‘Isn’t it beautiful!’ is that the former is
definitely articulate. The mere judgement, ‘That is beautiful’,
is poetry. It is certainly not very advanced poetry, but it is
better than the lines of the man who after spending a week
at Niagara wrote,—

O Niagara, Niagara,
You’re a staggerer, a staggerer.

So much for the soul implied in the mere attempt to lay
down a judgement of taste. But is not soul also required in
order that an object of nature should exhibit that finality for
the cognitive faculties which is the condition of its being
regarded as beautiful? There seems no reason for not taking
Kant’s statements that ‘Genius is the faculty of aesthetic ideas’
and that ‘ Beauty (whether it be beauty of nature or of art) may
in general be called the expression of aesthetic ideas’ as final
and decisive. It implies that all beauty is ultimately the
product of soul. No distinction is here made between the
beauty of nature and the beauty of art. Neither is any such
distinction drawn in the solution of the antinomy of taste. The
solution of that antinomy seems to lie in a common soul that
forms the supersensible substrate of humanity. But this
position is in no way inconsistent with Kant’s statements in the
Analytic of the Beautiful. From the first it was recognized
that the form of the beautiful object must appear charged with
meaning for us. Only in this way can it stimulate the mind
and produce the sensation of the quickening of the mental
faculties. But whence is this meaning derived? In the most
elementary case it would seem that all we are conscious of in
the form is that the imagination easily grasps and reproduces
it. This of itself indicates a finality for the mind, i.e. the

VI. Art and the Artist exliii

conception of beauty can attach even to that minimum, and
give it importance. Here soul only appears to be involved in
so far as it is implied in the mere effort to lay down a judge-
ment of taste. Such beauty is the fundamental beauty to
which all art refers back. But even here Kant is careful to
point out that it is the productive and not the mere reproductive
imagination that is concerned. This seems to mean that the
form is one upon which we dwell and which sustains and
reproduces itself owing to its being one which we would our-
. selves mentally produce. Unless we admit that soul and
aesthetic ideas afford an explanation of what is meant by the
productive imagination, then we must admit that the statement
that imagination ‘is to be taken as productive (as originative
of arbitrary forms of possible intuitions)’, which is put forward
in such a way as to control the interpretation of the entire
analytic of the beautiful, is practically unintelligible, for Kant
would then have left the mode of production wholly unex-
plained. But it seems more natural to suppose that the
explanation was merely postponed for treatment in the discus-
sion of art, and precisely because the productive imagination
means the artistic imagination—and that Kant returns to the
point in passages like the following: ‘The imagination (as
a productive faculty of cognition) is a powerful agent for
creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material
supplied to it by actual nature.’? Or again, ‘ If, now, we attach
to a concept a representation of the imagination belonging to
its presentation, but inducing solely on its own account such
a wealth of thought as would never admit of comprehension in
a definite concept, and, as a consequence, giving aesthetically
an unbounded expansion to the concept itself, then the
imagination here displays a creative activity, and it puts the
faculty of intellectual ideas (reason) into motion—a motion, at
the instance of a representation, towards an extension of
thought, that, while germane, no doubt, to the concept of the
object, exceeds what can be laid hold of in that representation
or clearly expressed.’ ?

The passage immediately preceding the last quoted is also
important. Kant there says, ‘ And it is, in fact, precisely in
the poetic art that the faculty of aesthetic ideas can show itself
to full advantage.’ With this we must read the remarks on
poetry at the beginning of §53. Why, now, does Kant append

1 Infra, p. 176. 2 Infra, p. 177.

cxliv Introductory Essays

to the above statement the remark, ‘This faculty, however,
regarded solely on its own account, is properly no more than
a talent (of the imagination)’? It is not for the purpose of
cutting down the significance of what was just said, but mainly
in order to refer the faculty of aesthetic ideas back to the
productive imagination of which he spoke in the Axadptic of the
Beautiful. Symbolism in the Critigue of the Aesthetic Judgement
plays a part analogous to that of schematism in the Critique of
Pure Reason.

Hence we may infer that Kant would thoroughly agree with
the lines of Wordsworth, which are as true as anything ever
written on the subject of Aesthetics :—

Yea, what were mighty Nature’s self?
Her features, could they win us,
Unhelped by the poetic voice
That hourly speaks within us?

The judgement upon the beautiful has always a content in
which soul must appear, as otherwise there would be no
aesthetic finality. But, as already shown, this does not
obliterate the distinction between taste and genius, The
progressive culture of society implies a reciprocal relation
between the individual and society. It is one thing for the
individual merely to respond to the influences around him and
be a man of culture and refinement, and another thing for him
to be himself an influence. Most men merely possess the
common soul of the society in which they live. It is a mistake
to suppose that they have different souls just because they have
separate suits of clothes, separate houses, and different personal
anecdotes. But in some few men the soul which is fostered
by culture becomes individual, blossoms into fresh life, and
fructifies. Ce sont les immortels !

ESSAY VIl

THE DIALECTIC

Ir may be well to warn the reader who is not familiar with
Kant’s other Critiques that in the Dialeczic he is not to expect
to find any additions to the analysis of beauty, sublimity, and
art already furnished. The Déadectic follows upon the completion
of the Analytic. But what the reader is to expect is a proof
that Kant’s explanation affords the only avenue of escape from
the difficulties attaching to other accounts. As such, his’ex-
planation will naturally acquire a deeper significance. Though
nothing is added to the analysis, the meaning of the analysis
itself will probably become more apparent. The reader may
hope for a clearer insight into the dominant motive of the
Analytic. Thus, while he is not to look for any further defini-
tion of beauty eiusderm generis or co-ordinate with the definition
of beauty as the expression of aesthetic ideas, he should be
prepared to find an explanation of what beauty, as the expression
of aesthetic ideas, is from the point of view of transcendental
criticism. He must, in short, be ready to look back onall that
has gone before from the standpoint of the teleological unity of
all our faculties a Zriori.

The dialectic of taste, or, rather, of the Critique of taste, is
exhibited in an antinomy—a pair of antithetical propositions
setting forth conflicting principles that: underlie every judge-
ment of taste, each of which may be supported by valid
considerations. This conflict forces us to adopt a higher point
of view from which these different principles may be reconciled.
The antinomy is stated by Kant in the following terms :—

‘1. Thesis. The judgement of taste is not based upon
concepts ; for, if it were, it would be open to dispute (decision
by means of proofs). 2. Antithesis. The judgement of taste
is based on concepts ; for otherwise, despite diversity of judge-
ment, there could be no room even for contention in the matter
(a claim to the necessary agreement of others with this judge-
ment)!

1 Infra, p. 206,

1193 k

exlvi Introductory Essays

Now if determinate concepts of the understanding were the
only concepts of which we could take account in the thesis and
antithesis, the conflict between the propositions would be
irremovable. The thesis is quite correct in stating that the
judgement of taste is not based on such concepts. But besides
such concepts there is the transcendental rational concept of
the supersensible, which is at once intrinsically undetermined
and undeterminable. A reference to such a concept as this is
certainly required by the judgement of taste in order to explain
the ‘enlarged reference on the part of the representation of the
Object (and at the same time on the part of the Subject also),
which lays the foundation of an extension of judgements of this
kind to necessity for every one.’! The proof of the antithesis
does not go beyond the proof of a reference to such a concept,
and, it being one that does not admit of determination by
intuition and that affords no knowledge of anything, the conflict
disappears.

Here, now, an objection naturally occurs. The reason for
assuming a reference of the judgement of taste to some
concept, even though only an indeferminale one, was that this
was the only means of saving the claim of that judgement to
universal validity. Now it is easy to see that a delerminate
concept would save that claim, but is a mere indeterminate
concept, as of the supersensible, equally efficacious? Un-
doubtedly we all have the rational concept of the supersensible
slumbering within our breasts, and we think of it as the
intelligible substrate of all sensible intuition, but, if we cannot
connect it in any way with particular representations, why is it
referred to in one case more than another? We know how
Kant rejected the idea of an intellectual intuition. But is not
that precisely what we require here? Does not Kant here
tacitly assume an intellectual intuition? If not, how does the
judgement of taste differ from that upon the sublime, which,
as we saw, also looks to the rational concept of the super-
sensible ?

But Kant is prepared for us on this point. We have for-
gotten that the essential feature of the aesthetic idea is that itis
a product of the Imagination, and that it is one ‘ which serves
the above rational idea, as a substitute for logical presentation,
but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind
by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred repre-

1 Infra, p. 207.

VII. The Dialectic exlvii

sentations stretching beyond its ken’! It is through the
aesthetic idea, which is the counterpart of the rational idea,
that the required reference is effected.

Hence Kant supplements the above solution of the antinomy
with a further explanation of aesthetic ideas addressed specially
to meeting the above difficulty. ‘Ideas, in the most compre-
hensive sense of the word, are representations referred to an
object according to a certain principle (subjective or objective),
in so far as they can still never becomea cognition of it. They
are either referred to an intuition, in accordance with a merely
subjective principle of the harmony of the cognitive faculties
(imagination and understanding), and are then called aesthetic;
or else they are referred to a concept according to an objective
principle and yet are incapable of ever furnishing a cognition
of the object, and are called rational ideas. In the latter case
the concept is a Zranscendent concept, and, as such, differs
from a concept of understanding, for which an adequately
answering experience may always be supplied, and which, on
that account, is called zmmanent. An aesthetic idea cannot be-
come a cognition, because it is an ¢#¢udtion (of the imagination)
for which an adequate concept can never befound. A rational
idea can never become a cognition, because it involves a concept
(of the supersensible), for which a commensurate intuition can
never be given. Now the aesthetic idea might, I think, be
called an zxexponible representation of the imagination, the
rational idea, on the other hand, an zndemonstrable concept of
reason. The production of both is presupposed to be not
altogether groundless, but rather, (following the above ex-
planation of an idea in general,) to take place in obedience to
certain principles of the cognitive faculties to which they belong
(subjective principles in the case of the former and objective in
that of the latter).’?

The consideration of the antinomy concludes with a com-
parison of the antinomies in the case of each of the higher
faculties. They are all shown to have one result, viz. they force
us to take cognisance of a supersensible substrate of the given
Object as phenomenon.

The result of the account is to bring three ideas into
evidence ; and these show the nature of the bridge with which
this Critique attempts to connect the realms of nature and of
freedom. ‘Firstly, there is the supersensible in general,

1 Infra, p. 177. n 2 Infra, pp. 209, 210.
2

exlviii Introductory Essays

without further determination, as substrate of nature ; second/y,
this same supersensible as principle of the subjective finality of
nature for our cognitive faculties; ZAraly, the same super-
sensible again, as principle of the ends of freedom, and principle
of the common accord of these ends with freedom in the moral
sphere.’! .

It can hardly be said that Kant’s mode of arriving at the
antinomy is very convincing. He obviously approaches the
question with a lively recollection of the discussion of the
problem of a standard of taste so familiar in the works of
English writers—notably Hume and Home, both of whom refer
to the proverbial saying that there is no disputing about taste.
Subsequently, no doubt, he refers the thesis and antithesis
respectively to the two peculiarities of the judgement of taste
dealt with in §§ 31, 32,and 33. The universality and necessity
are, however, treated together so that only one antinomy results.
But in the four moments universality and necessity are quite
distinctly separated. Here, again, we see the standpoint of
the four moments ignored. But we can, in fact, construct two
antinomies corresponding to the two peculiarities as first given
in § 31, and in-such a way as to answer to the second and
fourth moments of the judgement of taste. Thus from the
first peculiarity we get :—

Thesis. The judgement of taste is not based upon concepts.
For otherwise the predicate ‘ beautiful’ would belong to the
object as a logical predicate, and the judgement of taste would
be logical, not aesthetic.

Antithesis. The judgement of taste must depend upon
a concept. For otherwise its universal communicability would
be inexplicable.

Solution. Undoubtedly the judgement of taste is not based
on determinate concepts. This satisfies the thesis. Then the
universal communicability does undoubtedly involve a reference
to cognition. But the reference in the case of the judgement
of taste is merely to the harmony of the cognitive faculties, of
which we are only conscious through the sensation of the
quickening of our faculties.

From the second peculiarity we might derive the following :—

‚Thesis. There is no rule or standard of taste. For other-
wise we could determine objectively by means of proofs

1 Infra, p. 215

VII. The Dialectic cxlix

whether an object is beautiful or not. But the judgement of
taste is merely aesthetic.

Antithesis. There must be some rule or standard of taste.
For otherwise there would be an end to approval or censure of
taste as correct or incorrect. To say that ‘every one has his
own taste’ would be the last word on the subject. But this
would be subversive of the very meaning of taste, which implies
that we have a right to praise or blame taste as good or bad.

Solution. The function of a rule or standard of taste is
performed by a sensus communis which is a mere ideal norm.
The judgement of taste is laid down as an example of the
judgement of this sezsws communis and has, therefore, only
exemplary validity attributed to it.

The antinomy of taste, as treated by Kant, arises from the
paradoxical character of the judgement of taste as displayed in
the two peculiarities. These two peculiarities point to two
distinct paradoxes (or else Kant was wrong in separating them
in the second and fourth moments), and therefore we should
get two corresponding antinomies. Why does Kant only give
one? The most plausible answer seems to be, that the
separation of universality and necessity, which are the joint
signs of a Priority, is somewhat artificial, and that when Kant
framed the antinomy he did not regard them as two distinct
moments of the judgement of taste.

But, further, the paradoxical character of the judgement of
taste is not confined to the two peculiarities, or, in other words,
to the second and fourth moments. The first and third
moments also involve paradoxes. This may be seen from the
definition of the beautiful appended to each, and is indicated
by the words ‘apart from any interest’ and ‘apart from any
representation of an end’ which take the place of the words
‘apart from any concept’ which appear in the definitions
appended to the second and fourth moments. Antinomies
might therefore be also framed in their case. It is, in fact, in
a solution to an antinomy arising out of the fourth moment that
Kant should answer the questions raised in § 22 as to the
ultimate nature of the sensus communis which was there left as
an outstanding problem.

It is to be observed that Kant does not suggest the possi-
bility of an antinomy in the case of the judgement upon the
sublime. Yet it would not be difficult to collect passages
from which, combined with what Kant says is necessary to

cl Introductory Essays

give rise to an antinomy, we might be led to expect one.
Why then is none given? Or rather, why does the possi-
bility of one not seem to have even occurred to Kant? Ap-
parently the answer lies in the fact that with him the sublime
is only to be found in the mind of the judging Subject, and
that the object of nature is a mere occasion for awakening the
mind to a sense of its own proper sublimity. There seems,
then, to be nothing paradoxical in the reflective judgement in
the case of the sublime not determining the object, for it does
not even apply to it the aesthetic predicate. The antinomy of
taste forces us, according to Kant, to look to the rational idea
of the supersensible, and, as the judgement upon the sublime
itself begins with the recognition of this idea, it is already where
the solution of the antinomy of taste ends.

But is there not a latent antinomy in the very conception of
a faculty of reflective judgement which relies upon ideas of
reason, and which yet purports to pass different singular
aesthetic judgements? We may, at the expense of some
repetition, suggest the following :—

Thesis. Sublimity must be referable to nature. For other-
wise the judgement upon the sublime could not be aesthetic.
The judgement would have no relevant content but the ideas
of reason, which would always be the same. Hence the most
that there could be would be one judgement upon the
mathematically sublime and one upon the dynamically sublime,
and these would simply involve an abstract intellectual recog-
nition of the supremacy of reason. If, on the other hand, the
‘occasion’ that excites a sense of the sublime is given impor-
tance in order to distinguish one judgement upon the sublime
from another, and if universal agreement is claimed with regard
to the occasion, then there is as much ground for applying the
predicate ‘sublime’ to the object, as there is for so applying
the predicate ‘beautiful’ in judgements of taste.

Antithests. Sublimity cannot be referable to nature. For
nature can never be adequate to ideas of reason, and it is
precisely the recognition of the inadequacy of nature that gives
us the sense of the sublime. To refer the sublime to nature
would therefore be a contradiction.

Solution. The supersensible in the subject and the super-
sensible substrate of nature as phenomenon, the thing-in-itself,
may be at bottom one and the same; and the judgement upon
the sublime regards them as so. Nature as phenomenon is

VII, The Dialectic cli

certainly not sublime; but in respect of its supersensible
substrate it is sublime in such of its phenomena as bring home
to us a consciousness that these phenomena are only pheno-
mena of a thing-in-itself. Any phenomenon of nature is
intrinsically capable of awakening this consciousness in us, for
nothing but inadequacy is required, and any question as to
appropriateness is properly a question of taste.

It is customary to find fault with Kant for his technicalities,
his somewhat scholastic distinctions and logical divisions, and
his methodical arrangements, which Schopenhauer has called

‘architectonic amusements’. Whether such objections are in
general justified or not, the Dialeczic of taste would seem to
gain in clearness if its contents were brought into closer
connexion with the four moments. The four moments involve
four distinct paradoxes ; and the solution of the one antinomy
given by Kant leaves outstanding difficulties awaiting solution
from the appropriate standpoint of the Déadectic. Additional
explanation is, in fact, furnished in a scattered way in the
different sections of the Dialectic and in the Remarks to §57
and in the Appendix. That this Appendix, which is headed
‘The Methodology of Taste’ (although Kant states that the
division of a Critique into a doctrine of elements and a doctrine
of method is inapplicable to a critique of taste), should contain
matter which throws considerable additional light on the
problem of the Dialeezic is in itself sufficiently anomalous toshow
the confused arrangement of Kant’s treatment of that problem.

The final explanation of the paradox involved in the first
moment is to be found in § 59, which treats of beauty as the
symbol of morality. In the treatment of the first moment the
difficulty was solved by a transition to the second moment, and
so on till the final presupposition of the sensus communis was
reached. But, now that all the characteristics of the judgement
of taste have been completely analysed, what is the ultimate
explanation of how the beautiful can be an object of delight
apart from any interest? Of course this explanation must lie
in some reference to the practical faculty. But, just as the
reference of the judgement of taste to the theoretical faculty,
emphasized in the third moment, was not one through concepts
but only a reference to the harmony of imagination and
understanding in general, so in the case of the practical faculty
the reference is not through desires or interest, but is only a
reference to the practical faculty generally. The form of the

clit Introductory Essays

judgement of taste is to be regarded as the result of a bearing
of the practical upon the theoretical faculty, which is to be
explained by the teleological unity of all our faculties a prtor7.
The moments of the judgement of taste constitute beauty the
symbol of the morally good.

Kant, however, does not refer expressly to the moments of
the judgement of taste, and, in tracing out the points of the
analogy between that judgement and the moral judgement,
seems, as pointed out above,’ to collect the characteristics from
a draft containing a different arrangement.

The conception of beauty as the symbol of the morally good
is not in the least prejudicial to the distinction between the
beautiful and the good. In noting the points of the analogy
Kant is careful also to call attention to the points of difference.
Further, the judgement upon the beautiful is in no way deter-
mined by a moral interest. It is, in fact, the disinterestedness
of the judgement of taste—its freedom from a// interest, including
even that in the morally good—that first of all qualifies it to be
the symbol of the morally good. ~

But, on the other hand, the analogy does point to a super-
sensible ground ‘in which the theoretical faculty gets bound up
into unity with the practical in an intimate and obscure
manner’.? It supplies an answer to the question as to why
beauty is anything to us. It explains the significance of beauty,
and the reason we set a value upon it. For the capacity of
forming a clear judgement of taste evidences a degree of mental
detachment that implies a certain evolution of soul. Hence
with the pleasure in the beautiful ‘the mind gets at once
a sense of a certain ennoblement and elevation above sensibility
to pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the
worth of others on the score of a like maxim of their judge-
ment’? In this way ‘taste makes, as it were, the transition
from the charms of sense to habitual moral interest possible
without too violent a leap’.

Beauty being constituted as the symbol of the morally good,
the judgement upon beauty is legislative. Itis not determined
by any concept of what the object is. This would be heter-
onomy. But the judgement of taste founds on the autonomy of
the Subject. Yet this autonomy of the Subject does not make
the judgement a mere private judgement. It is through the
adoption of a universal standpoint that the autonomy is

1 Supra, p. xivii. 2 Infra, p. 224.

VII The Dialectic cliii

obtained. The delight in the judgement of taste is a free
favour with which the object is received, and the autonomy
founds upon what is the supersensible substrate of human
nature. This explains the universal voice with which the
judgement of taste purports to speak.

The autonomy of the Subject proves the idealism of the
finality in estimating the beautiful in nature and in art. This
‘is the only hypothesis upon which the critique can explain the
possibility of a judgement of taste that demands a priori
validity for every one (yet without basing the finality, represented
in the Object, upon concepts)’ The discussion of this sub-
ject has an intimate bearing on § 42.

.It will be remembered that in $ 42, in which an attempt was
made to explain, by reference to an intellectual interest, how
the agreement required by a judgement is exacted as a duty,
one of the grounds upon which that interest was based depended
on teleological considerations. ‘In addition,’ said Kant, ‘there
is our admiration of nature, which in her beautiful products
displays herself as art, not as mere matter of chance, but as it
were designedly, according toa law-conforming arrangement as
a finality apart from an end. As we never meet with such an
end outside ourselves, we naturally look for it within ourselves,
and, in fact, in that which constitutes the ultimate end of our
existence—the moral side of our being. (The inquiry into the
ground of the possibility of such a natural finality will, however,
first come under discussion in the Teleology.) ’*

The discussion promised in the Teleology looks back to and
quotes from § 58—thus connecting $$ 42 and 58. The man
with the germ of a good moral disposition may, no doubt, base
his interest in the beauty of nature upon teleological considera-
tions, but if that interest is to explain the problem of the
aesthetic judgement the critique of that faculty must see that
the interest is well founded. In the Remark to § 38 Kant said,
‘But if the question were: How is it possible to assume
a priori that nature is a complex of objects of taste? the
problem would then have reference to teleology, because it
would have to be regarded as an end of nature belonging
essentially to its concept that it should exhibit forms that are
final for our judgement. But the correctness of this assump-
tion may still be seriously questioned, while the actual existence
of beauties of nature is patent to experience.’* In § 58 the

1 Infra, p. 221. 2 Infra, p. 160. 3 Infra, p. 148.

cliv Introductory Essays

two rival interpretations of subjective finality are clearly stated.
‘Either such subjective finality is, in the first case, a harmony
with our judgement pursued as an actual (intentional) exd of
nature (or of art), or else, in the second case, it is only
a supervening final harmony with the needs of our faculty of
judgement in its relation to nature and the forms which it
produces in accordance with particular laws, and one that is
independent of an end, spontaneous and contingent.’* The
former of these interpretations would be one of realism ; the
latter of idealism. The distinction between these interpretations
‚has nothing to do with the explanation of beauty by reference
to perfection. That explanation has long since been ruled out.
The question now is whether or not the admittedly subjective
finality of beauty is to be explained by reference to final causes.

No doubt ‘ the beautiful formations displayed in the kingdom
of organic nature plead eloquently on the side of the realism of
the aesthetic finality of nature in support of the plausible
assumption that beneath the production of the beautiful there
must lie a preconceived idea in the producing cause—that is to
say, an end acting in the interests of our imagination’! These
forms seem chosen as it were with an eye to our taste. But
reason, with its maxim forbidding a useless multiplication of
principles, sets itself against this unnecessary assumption. And
further, nature produces forms which we consider beautiful in
cases where we must regard it as a mere mechanism following
its own laws in complete indifference to us. To illustrate this
Kant enters upon a lengthy, but most relevant, discussion of
the process of crystallization. Do the threads of ice that form
at angles of 60° in freezing water come together in this way to
please the eye of man? Similarly in the case of organic nature,
‘without at all derogating from the teleological principle by which
an organization is judged, it is readily conceivable how, with
the beauty of flowers, of the plumage of birds, of crustacea,
both as to their shape and their colour, we have only what may
be ascribed to nature and its capacity for originating in free
activity aesthetically final forms, independently of any guiding
ends, according to chemical laws, by the deposit of the material
requisite for the organization.’ ?

‘That nature affords us an opportunity for perceiving the
inner finality in the relation of our mental powers engaged in
the estimate of certain of its products, and, indeed, such a

1 Infra, p. 216. 2 Infra, p. 219.

VII. The Dialectic clv

finality as, arising from a supersensible basis, is to be pronounced
necessary and of universal validity, is a property of nature
which cannot belong to it as its end, or rather cannot be
judged by us to be such an end. For otherwise the judge-
ment that would be determined by reference to such an end
would found on heteronomy, instead of founding on autonomy
and being free, as befits a judgement of taste’! In short,
the finality rests upon the play of imagination in its freedom.
‘It is we who receive nature with favour, and not nature
that does us a favour.’

In fine art this idealism is still more clearly apparent. For,
‘that the delight arising from aesthetic ideas must not be made
dependent upon the successful attainment of ends (as an art
mechanically directed to results), and that, consequently, even
in the case of the rationalism of principle, an ideality of ends and
not their reality is fundamental, is clearly apparent from the
fact that fine art, as such, must not be regarded as a product
of understanding and science, but of genius, and must there-
fore derive its rule from aesthetic ideas, which are essentially
different from rational ideas of determinate ends.’ *

In considering the two clear grounds into which Kant
analysed the basis of the intellectual interest in the beauty of
nature we saw reason for expecting that Kant’s solution of the
problem of how agreement in the judgement of taste is exacted
as a duty would give each of these grounds its true weight.’
In the definition, or rather evaluation, of beauty as the symbol
of the morally good, Kant has done so in respect of the first.
In the case of the second he has now done so by making the .
teleological unity of all our faculties a Zrzori the ultimate point
of reference for the subjective finality of beauty.

Just as the reference in a judgement of taste to the theoretical
and to the practical faculty is represented by Kant as general
and indeterminate, so also the reference to Teleology is as
general and indeterminate as possible. Aesthetic sensibility
involves the revelation of no mystery of nature: it involves no
deep insight into the hidden meaning of things—whatever the
Critique of Taste may disclose in respect of our own nature.
In adopting this position Kant was well advised. The realm
of feeling extends over the broad and dusky demesnes of
a twilight consciousness. It is in this realm that poetry has its

1 Infra, p. 220. 2 Infra, pp. 220, 221.
3 Supra, p. cxiii.

elvi Introductory Essays

immediate truth. But the inspiration of poetry has a higher
source. Poetry looks back upon that realm and returns to it.
It is only one who has looked out towards ideas of reason that
can re-enter into the twilight, and there allow his dreams to
take mystic shape in its half-seen forms. The early epics of
the race all point back to a heroic age. But they were not
written in the age described; for to itself that age was not
heroic. Were this otherwise, fine art would not be the creation
of genius, but merely of a kind of feminine instinct—from which
it must be carefully distinguished, as, on the other hand, from
an intellectual intuition. The originality of the man of genius
(in the case of fine art) consists in his capacity for detaching
himself from feeling, which he then possesses as his empire.

It is certainly difficult to distinguish the ultimate explanation
which Kant gives of the claims of judgements of taste from
that which he gives of the modality of the judgement upon
the sublime. In the latter case he said, ‘ But the fact that
culture is requisite for the judgement upon the sublime in
nature (more than for that upon the beautiful) does not involve
its being an original product of culture and something introduced
ina more or less conventional way into society. Rather is itin
human nature that its foundations are laid, and, in fact, in that
which, at once with common understanding, we may expect
every one to possess and may require of him, namely, a native
capacity for the feeling for (practical) ideas, i.e. for moral
feeling.’? So again, ‘The pleasure in the sublime in nature,
as one of rationalizing contemplation, lays claim also to uni-
versal participation, but still it presupposes another feeling,
that namely of our supersensible sphere, which feeling, however
obscure it may be, has a moral foundation.’

In the above passages Kant certainly implies that taste is
merely founded on common human understanding, and does
not in any way presuppose ‘a native capacity for the feeling for
(practical) ideas, i. e. for moral feeling’, nor any recognition of
our ‘supersensible sphere’, nor any feeling that has ‘a moral
foundation’. Further, it implies that not much culture is
required.

But we have now seen that Kant places the import of beauty
in the fact that itis the symbol of the morally good. From this
he derives the justification of the claims of the judgement of
taste. “Only in this light (a point of view natural to every one,

1 Infra, p. 116. 2 Infra, p. 149.

VII. The Dialectic clvii

and one that every one exacts from others as a duty) does it
give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of
every one else, upon which the mind gets a sense of a certain
ennoblement and elevation above sensibility to pleasure from
impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth of others on
the score of a like maxim of their judgement. This is that
intelligible to which taste... extends its view.’! Thus again he
says, ‘Even common understanding is wont to pay regard to
this analogy ; and we frequently apply to beautiful objects of
nature or of art names that seem to rely on the basis of a moral
estimate.’ ?

It is difficult, at first sight, to reconcile these passages. The
feeling of the beautiful does require a ‘native capacity (Anlage)
for the feeling for (practical) ideas’. However, the feeling for
the sublime really requires something more than this. It
requires an actual frame of mind akin to the moral.

Thus understood, it is not the modality of the judgement
upon the beautiful that is indistinguishable from the modality
of the judgement upon the sublime, but rather the modality
of the intellectual interest in the beauty of nature, described in
§ 42. If Kant had accepted this intellectual interest as the
ultimate explanation of the claim to universal agreement in
judgements of taste, which is exacted as a duty, then he would
have fallen into hopeless contradiction with the passages in
which he distinguished the modality of the judgements upon
the sublime and the beautiful. But that he does not do so is
apparent from the mere fact that in § 59, in which the problem
is expressly solved, the claims of the judgement of taste are in
no way confined to the beauty of nature as opposed to that of
art. Hence, the passages above quoted will be easily reconciled
if it is possible to distinguish the feeling for the beauty of
nature which is dependent upon an intellectual interest, from
the pleasure in a judgement upon the beautiful, the claims of
which judgement are only justified because beauty is the symbol
of the morally good.

As we have already seen, the intellectual interest in the beauty
of nature is the result of a popular critique. It discovers and
brings to light the /a¢ent significance of beauty. Further, it
presupposes a disposition of mind akin to the moral. Tran-
scendental critique also brings to light the latent significance of
beauty, but finds this significance in the supersensible in which

1 Infra, pp. 223, 224. 2 Infra, p. 225.

elviii Introductory Essays

the theoretical faculty and the practical are bound up Into
unity in an intimate and obscure manner. The reference is
not to the moral faculty sémpZiciter, but to the supersensible as
the point of reference for the common accord of all our faculties.
Hence, although beauty is, in its ultimate import, the symbol
of the morally good, and although taste is, in the last resort,
‘a critical faculty directed to the rendering of moral ideas in
terms of sense,’ still appreciation of the beautiful in no way
postulates a disposition akin to the moral. Taste does not
necessarily concern itself with the moral faculty further than to
avail itself of a reference to that faculty, in order to give freedom
to the imagination which would otherwise not be able to get
beyond the mere object of nature. In a judgement of taste,
accordingly, the moral faculty is merely 7 p/ay. This is the
solution which Kant himself gives to the difficulty. ‘ As a matter
of facta feeling for the sublime in nature is hardly thinkable unless
in conjunction with a frame of mind resembling the moral. And
though, like that feeling, the immediate pleasure in the beautiful
in nature presupposes and cultivates a certain liberality of
thought, i. e. makes our delight independent of any mere enjoy-
ment of sense, still it represents freedom rather as in play than
as exercising a law-ordained function.’ '

But if the moral faculty is merely in play in the judgement
of taste, what gives seriousness to the duty to agree in that
judgement? The answer seems to be that the play is one in
which we express ourselves. Here there are two points to be
considered. That the play is one which is qualified to be an
expression of ourselves is due to the introduction of the moral
faculty. But that the expression is an expression of ourselves
makes the reference to duty something more than mere play.
It is moral ideas that give expressiveness to the expression, and it
is the expression that gives seriousness to the reference to duty.

Hence the ultimate explanation of the modality of the
judgement of taste must lie in something that allows each of
the factors expression and se/f its true value; and this ‘some-
thing’ must also solve the problem as to the true nature of the
sensus communis. What is sought can be nothing else but
humanity. For ‘humanity signifies on the one hand the uni-
versal feeling of sympathy, and on the other the faculty of being
able to communicate universally one’s inmost self—properties
constituting in conjunction the befitting sociability of mankind,

1 Infra, p. 120.

VII. The Dialectic clix

in contradistinction to the narrow life of the lower animals.
There was an age and there was a race in which the active
impulse towards a social life regulated by Jaws—what converts
a people into a permanent community—grappled with the vast
difficulties presented by the momentous problem of bringing
freedom (and hence equality also) into union with constraining
force (more that of respect and dutiful submission than of
fear). Such must have been the age and such the people that
first discovered the art of reciprocal communication of ideas
between the cultivated and the uncultivated sections of the
community, and how to bridge the difference between the
amplitude and refinement of the former and the natural
simplicity and originality of the latter—in this way hitting upon
that mean between higher culture and the modest worth of
nature that forms for taste also, as a universal sense of mankind,
that standard which no universal rules can supply ’.!

This account enables us to understand to some extent why
Kant thought that the judgement upon the sublime implies
more culture than a judgement upon the beautiful. In the
case of the sublime the distinction between judging and pro-
ducing does not hold. The sublime has to be produced in the
mere judgement itself. But in the case of the beautiful there
is that distinction and, therefore, the distinction between genius
and taste. For, although, in ultimate analysis, the critical
judgement of taste does imply the production of a standard,
still that standard is not necessarily the production of the
individual judging subject. If the individual can acquire
something as member of a society, which he could not acquire
through his own unaided resources, and if genius can win
something for the race, then art may be a humanizing influence
and may beget in others the standard by which it is to be
judged, and may discover how to bridge the difference between
the higher culture and the modest worth of nature. Still it
would seem that the individual must have arrived at a con-
siderable degree of culture through general social influences
before acquiring anything approaching a pure and refined
taste. A judgement upon the beautiful that presupposes less
culture than a judgement upon the sublime proper, must be
the judgement of a taste that requires the addition of the charm
of sense, which Kant allows may be added to the beauty of
form to win over a taste that is as yet crude and uncultured.

1 Infra, pp. 226, 227.

clx Introductory Essays

Taste can be cultivated more than a sense of the sublime, and
it runs through a much more complicated course of evolution.
There is an uncultured taste, which is still taste and may be
cultivated ; whereas the judgement upon the sublime from the
first presupposes culture. Once genius has given beauty a
name, even the uncultured may call some ‘ flowers, shells, and
birds’ beautiful, and may find that their judgements meet
with a responsive agreement.

For the birth of taste in society—for crude and uncultured
taste—the moral faculty is only implied so far as a human
society presupposes the moral substrate of human nature. At
whatever stage in the development of the race man may, from
a biological point of view, be regarded as having become
a man, still from the point of view of what we call humanity he
only joins the human brotherhood upon the development of
a certain social and moral tendency of his nature. The
Naturanlage henceforth marks the destiny of the race. It
points forward to the ideas of reason which alone render its
development intelligible.

What for taste intermediates between nature and freedom is
humanity, which only belongs to man as a social being. This
enables us to understand the meaning of common sense
as a concrete faculty. It implies, on the one hand, the
Maturanlage of the race, and, on the other hand, freedom and
ideas of reason, as the light of social evolution, and, in parti-
cular, as the dominant influence in the formation of the
conception of a possible pure judgement of taste. Both of
these are united in what is further implied, viz. an actual social
community, which has attained to a stage of culture, and in
which the influence of the practical upon the theoretical faculty
has resulted in well-established habits of thought, and in
a certain community of feeling.

Art requires leaders of the progress of culture, and is a great
humanizing influence, while, in turn, it presupposes some
existing degree of culture. Also, that society to which taste
looks for agreement with its judgement is, of course, not the
mere product of art. Social development is rather due to the
same influences that are recognizable in art, only operating on
a larger scale. The development of the sensus communis is
itself furthered by general social conditions. Doubtless the
reciprocal relations of the influences here brought into play are
difficult to understand. The problem involved is that of social

VII The Dialectic clxi

progress, and it is the difficulties of that problem that compli-
cate the problem of the relation of taste and genius. Hence
we see that the Critigue of Aesthetic Judgement affords a sort
of transition from general Critical Philosophy to Pragmatic
Anthropology.

We may, therefore, appropriately quote a few passages from
the Anthropology bearing on the social aspect of man’s nature.
‘Man is determined by his reason to be in society with man,
and in society to make himself, by means of art and science,
a cultured, civilized, and moral being.’ ‘Withall other animals
the single individual can attain all that it has in it to become,
but with man only thegezus.? * Hence the human race can only
work out its way by progress, in a succession of countless
generations, to the fulfilment of his vocation.’* In this social
life ‘the private sense (of individuals)’ must be reconciled with
the ‘common sense (of all united)’.* In the state, freedom
and law must be intermediated by dominion—as it is in
a Republic.’ It is, in fact, part of the character of the human
species ‘to feel itself intended by nature for a cosmopolitan
society. This intrinsically unattainable idea is, however, not
a constitutive principle, ... but only a regulative principle, to
make us diligently pursue this idea as the destiny of the human
race, not without a reasonable presumption of a natural tendency
towards it ’.®

Thus we see the systematic connexions of Kant’s view that
the beautiful is estimated in respect of the free conformity to
law of the imagination, and why he was so severe on the leaders
of the Sturm und Drang movement for not recognizing the
importance of rules in art. The Sturm und Drang movement
had, as we know, a political aspect. Kant clearly recognized
this, and his aesthetics have a certain political colour. In art
there must be a balance between the conservative and radical
tendencies.

The man of genius must be the man of his age. He
belongs to the age, but as the truth of the age. He must be
at once a fulfilment and a prophecy. Hence it is only
posterity that can set the seal on the genius as the true man of
his age, which it does in recognizing the age as the age of the
man.

We ought now to be in a position to answer the questions

1 Anthropologie; Werke, vol. vii, p. 324. 7 Ibid., p. 324. 8 Ibid.,
P- 324. 4 Ibid,, p. 329. 5 Ibid., p. 331. 6 Ibid., p. 331.

1193 1

elxii Introductory Essays

in respect of the sezsus communis left over from the Analytic
of the Beautiful. The idea of a sensus communis is for taste
and art just what the idea of a cosmopolitan society is for politics
and social progress. It is not ‘a constitutive principle of the
possibility of experience’ but is ‘formed for us as a regulative
principle by a still higher principle of reason that for higher
ends first seeks to beget in us a common sense’. Further,
considered in the concrete, it is not ‘a natural and original
faculty’. It is, in fact, a faculty that is ‘artificial, and to be
acquired by us’, in the sense that the ‘imputation of a universal
assent’ contained in a judgement of taste is ‘ but a require-
ment of reason for generating such a consemsws’, and in the
sense that ‘the ought, i.e. the objective necessity of the
coincidence of the feeling of all with the particular feeling of
each’ only betokens ‘the possibility of arriving at some sort of
unanimity in these matters’, so that the judgement of taste
only adduces ‘an example of the application of this principle’.
On the other hand, it is so far not merely artificial that we
have, as in the case of the idea of a cosmopolitan society,
‘a reasonable presumption of a natural tendency towards it.’

That a sensus communis is a faculty which is not merely zo de
acquired by us is evidenced by the beauties of nature. As
a regulative idea it is something unattainable—a limit. But
there is an actual taste which manifests a degree of approxima-
tion to that idea. ‘The actual existence of beauties of nature
is patent to experience’! As we can only estimate this beauty
by referring to what imagination ‘if it were left to itself would
freely project in harmony with the general conformity to law of
the understanding’, these beauties, so far as we are able to
regard them as merely given to us, betray a certain measure
of reconciliation between the idea of freedom and nature.
They bear witness to the supersensible substrate of humanity
as a soul infused into external nature.

As the actual existence of what betrays a certain degree of
realization of the idea is naturally an object of intellectual
interest, it follows that one who has even the germ of a good
moral disposition must take an interest in the beauty of nature
so far as he finds himself able to receive it as a beauty of.
nature, i.e. as given to him, and not as the mere creation of his
own poetic fancy,

1 Infra, p. 148.

VII. The Dialectic clxiii

Singing hymns unbidden
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

The beauties of nature which Kant regarded as capable of
giving this evidence were such objects as certain flowers, shells,
and birds. Here the imagination is tied down to a definite
given form, and yet every normal individual regards them as
beautiful. Ifa Peter Bell sees nothing more in ‘a primrose by
a river’s brim’ than a mere ‘yellow primrose’ then the man
with ‘ a germ of a good moral disposition’ is entitled to regard
Peter Bell as disassociating himself from the human brother-
hood and as beyond the pale of that social community that
awaits the day of the coming of the ‘cosmopolitan society ’.
The judgement of taste, though it claims universal assent,
never looks beyond the pale of that society. Even for taste,
with its universal voice, there is a hell to which some seeming
members of the race may condemn themselves. Therefore in
the case of some objects of nature we get something to which,
as beauty with real existence, we may reasonably enough allow
our intellectual interest to attach.

What are called ‘ beautiful views of nature’ stand, according
to Kant, on quite a different footing. Landscapes, as the
creation of ‘ aesthetic painting that has no definite theme (but
by means of light and shade makes a pleasing composition of
atmosphere, land, and water)’! are, no doubt, very beautiful,
and the products of a very high art. But nature does not
contain landscapes. They are not for the masses—or, at least,
they were not so in Kant’s time. For him the ‘aesthetic
painting ’ of a Constable, Turner, Corot, Monet, or a Whistler
was, for the most part, only the idea of a possible kind of
painting that would present truly deautiful compositions of
elements drawn from nature, and not mere charming views
of nature. He did not live to see the day when every public
holiday would find the art galleries. of all large cities crowded
with representatives of a class that have ‘the force and truth of
a free nature sensible of its proper worth’—members of the
human brotherhood to which those great masters addressed
their message and looked for universal agreement. Till that
day came, and till it bore its fruit, Kant refused to

1 Infra, p. 187, n.
l2

elxiv Introductory Essays

allow us to call nature beautiful in its broader and less studied
aspects.

But, even with this extension, is there any warrant for con-
fining the beauty of nature to those of its aspects which are
interpreted by the art of painting? Whether Kant intended
any such restriction or not, it certainly seems implied in most
of his instances of the beauty of nature, e.g. ‘the beautiful
forms of a wild flower, of a bird, of an insect’. The song of
birds is an exception, and is contrasted with songs of the
human voice sung to music. However, it would seem a carica-
ture of music to compare the songs of birds and music as
corresponding beauties of nature and of art. The beauty of
a bird’s song has its origin in poetry rather than in music. In
the General Remark on the Analytic, however, certain disposi-
tions of mind are referred to as beautiful, and the application
of the term sublime is very extensive. Is there, then, a wide
field of natural beauty answering to poetry? And, if so, may
such natural beauty be the object of an intellectual interest ?

The moment this question is asked the source of the diffi-
culty becomes apparent. We call a poem beautiful. But
although we may hear in nature

The still sad music of humanity,
or say with Keats,
The poetry of earth is never dead,

still nature does not, properly speaking, contain poems. There
is a difficulty as to how we can mark off in nature any objects
corresponding to the beauties of poetry. Vet we think that
in poetry there must be some reference, immediate or remote,
to nature. For, otherwise, what is the subject-matter of
poetry? It cannot be exclusively the realm of freedom.

This difficulty does not easily strike us in the case of sculp-
ture and painting in which ‘figures in space are used for the
expression of ideas’. There we can, or think we can, point
out the very objects that we regard as beautiful. We think
that we have something definite that we may either regard as
a mere object of nature or as a beautiful object just as we
please, and that in each case we are speaking of precisely the
same object. But we have clearly seen that even in painting
the difficulty arises in the case of landscapes—since nature, as
mere nature, does not contain landscapes.

VII. The Dialectic clxv

Perhaps, then, we were not warranted in supposing that
Kant (who does not seem to have sufficiently considered this
precise point) would have allowed us under any circumstances
(no matter how popular the ‘aesthetic painting’ to which he
refers might become) to speak of beautiful landscapes in
nature, or of an intellectual interest in them. Very well—let
landscapes be excluded on the ground that a landscape is
a mere synthesis of the artistic imagination, and that its unity
only exists from the point of view of art. Is, then, a dunch of
violets a beautiful object of nature? On the same reasoning
we ought to say that it is only a collection of beautiful natural
objects. But single out one particular modest violet. Can it
plead a good case to be regarded as a beauty of nature? How
has it been torn from the stem, and severed from the rest of
the plant? Why not rather consider the violet as flower, stem,
leaf, root, and all? Perhaps, because we are accustomed to
speak of beautiful violets, and this is not all included in what
we call to mind when we speak of a violet. But what does the
imagination conjure up when we speak of beautiful violets ?
Is it

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky?

Or (may the poets forgive us !) is it a bunch of violets? Surely
it is not one solitary violet lying bare on the table ready to
be dissected by some botanist.

The fact is that in speaking of beauties of nature Kant pays
a covert regard to natural concepts in a way that was not justi-
fiable, seeing that the aesthetic judgement must not be deter-
mined by concepts. An object of nature is a synthesis of the
manifold in accordance with categories of the understanding.
Now, in order to connect the principle of the aesthetic judge-
ment upon the beauty of an object with the principle of the
finality of nature for our cognitive faculties, upon which is
founded the principle of the specification of nature, Kant seems
to have assumed that the imagination employed upon the
synthesis of the manifold for the purpose of cognition, and
the imagination merely engaged in grasping some content in
a single intuition for the purpose of an aesthetic judgement,
was so far identical in its operation as to mark out the same

elxvi Introductory Essays

identical object for both purposes. Thus the object of the
aesthetic judgement, he says, is the object as it is in apprehen-
sion prior to any concept. But, as above suggested, why
should this object be a single violet and not a bunch of violets?
The objects to which our concepts refer are not produced by
any mere synthesis of the imagination. They presuppose
a frequently elaborate analysis. This is sometimes overlooked.
Thus Mill’s /rductive Logic supposes that the bird is in the
hands, and that nothing remains but to put salt on its tail.
The trouble, however, is to get the bird into one’s hand. But
the aesthetic judgement may be quite satisfied to hear the bird
singing in the bush. Even then it may not confine its atten-
tion specially to the bird. Thus Kant says, ‘What is more
highly esteemed of poets than the nightingale’s bewitching and
beautiful note, in a lonely thicket on a still summer evening
by the soft light of the moon?’! This is a very pretty picture
indeed—but entirely a work of art. For it is not suggested
that it is the moon that makes the nightingale sing, or the
nightingale that makes the moon shine. But it zs suggested
that they are both essential parts of this beauty of nature.

It is, therefore, quite open to us to contend that, in the
strict sense, there are no free beauties of nature. For if
the subject of the aesthetic judgement is not to be determined
by reference to concepts, it can only be a coincidence that the
artistic whole to which an aesthetic judgement points should
be a subject denoting what may also be regarded as an object
of nature to be determined by logical predicates.

But if there are no beauties of nature, then what are there ?
There are beauties of the synthesis of nature and freedom.
Or, it is sufficient to say, there is an aesthetic synthesis of
nature and freedom. It is to the existence of this synthesis,
regarded as of universal validity, that the intellectual interest
attaches.

The particular works of art which are produced by the man
of genius are only specimens of the art whereby he effects
a deeper and more intimate synthesis. Such works may be
the object of an empirical interest, but it is the synthesis of
nature and freedom that can alone attract an intellectual
interest.

Except in the case of poetry and painting it is difficult to
point to a logical subject capable of being used to denote the

1 Infra, p. 162.

VII. The Dialectic elxvii

true artistic synthesis, and, therefore, of being singled out as
the object of the intellectual interest. But it is always possible
to consider how far the senszs communis itself is not merely an
idea, but an actual community of feeling and judgement in
mankind. Hence a certain intellectual interest is bound up
with the recognition of the enduring popularity of those
monuments of art which have met with the approval of all
ages; and, accordingly, in reading the works, say, of Homer,
we experience a delight which supervenes upon pure aesthetic
appreciation, for this appreciation becomes at once associated
with a conviction of the permanent reality of a human nature
which is not mere nature and not mere freedom.

But even in the case of poetry our intellectual interest has
more upon which it can fasten than the evidences of a settled
taste afforded by the wide and lasting popularity of certain works.
Kant has some interesting remarks on the comparative merits of
the statesman and the general. The aesthetic judgement, he
says, unhesitatingly decides in favour of the latter. We may
infer that Kant’s estimate of Napoleon would have been that
as an aesthetic figure he was incomparable. Napoleon himself
had evidently a passion for dramatic effect, and no one seems
to have realized better the extent to which popularity and
power depend upon a successful appeal to the aesthetic
faculties. But to ensure the success of such an appeal one
must be an artist oneself, and most great men have been great
artists. It was as an artist that Napoleon made as much out
of Waterloo and his ‘Last Phase’ as out of his greatest
victories. But although a general appeals more to the imagina-
tion than a statesman, still Gladstone and Bismarck showed
what the latter can do. Then, as an emperor, the present
Kaiser has displayed no mean talent as an artist. However,
it is not necessary to labour the point. As Shakespeare has
said,

All the world’s a stage
And all the men and women merely players.

This does not simply mean that, from a poet’s point of view,
the world is capable of being regarded as a stage, and the
people in it as players. It is because the world is a stage that
it is so interesting ; and the people are actors, and treat them-
selves as such. Even the restless criminal is a would-be actor
who feels that society has denied him his part. Give almost

elxviii Introductory Essays

any criminal an exciting part, where conspicuous honesty and
fair dealing would contribute to dramatic effect, ‚and ‚he will
display honesty and fair dealing. Itis also the artistic impulse
that is the factor generally overlooked in the analysis of
ambition. In affairs of love it has an equally important röle.
Half the quarrels and reconciliations of lovers take place with
a view to dramatic effect. . ;

English writers were the first to clearly recognize how all this
plays into the hands of morality. To have ever present to
mind what sort of a figure one cuts in a particular action tends
in general to prevent one from doing what is base, and is
a powerful incentive to do what is generally esteemed. Un-
doubtedly the action that results has not a purely moral source.
But in leading to actions that are materially right, it prepares
the way for those that are formadly right. We may further even
suspect that many of those who resolutely do what they believe
to be right, regardless of what others may think, are considerably
strengthened in their resolve by a sense of the sublimity of
such action. And, to descend to a lower level, those who
profess to despise public opinion are generally very proud of
the fact.

Architecture passes out of the sphere of mere art, and
becomes invested with the character of nature, when it begins to
enter into the life of a city or people—for the term nature is not
confined to mere physical nature. An Englishman for whom
Westminster Abbey was simply a fine piece of architecture
would not be worthy of the name. He takes an intellectual
interest in its existence, and would regard its destruction as
a national calamity. To say that, since it is a work of art, he
can only take an empirical interest in it, whereas he may take
an intellectual interest in the so-called silver Thames, is
certainly false psychology. But it is only so because West-
minster Abbey, as the object of his aesthetic judgement, is not
a mere piece of architecture. A city, with its cathedral and
beautiful public buildings, is no more an arbitrarily produced
product than society itself. It is the recognition of this that
alone explains the intense feeling experienced when visiting
some great city of whose life and history we know something.
To account for our feelings by pointing simply to historic
associations would be absurd ; for those associations would be
of little or no meaning apart from aesthetic sensibilities. In
the same way it would be a mistake to attempt to explain the

VII. The Dialectic aay

feeling that arises, over and above the delight connected with
the mere judgement of taste, when a cathedral is visited, by
reference to strong religious emotion ; for the strong religious
emotion draws considerable support from the aesthetic faculty.

There is, perhaps, no art that does more to give to the
people of a community a common mental background than
architecture. The individual minds of the inhabitants of
Cologne are, doubtless, coefficients of the cathedral. It was
due to a keen insight into the aesthetic factor in human nature
that the Jews were directed to go once a year to Jerusalem, and
the Mohammedans to make pilgrimages to Mecca.

But, apart from the direct evidences of the influence of our
aesthetic faculty, it may be said that whatever betrays in
a sensible form a measure of reconciliation between nature and
freedom is something in which we may see an expression of
humanity, and in which the soul of man, thirsting for expres-
sion, may take an intellectual interest. ‘The happy union in
one and the same people of the law-directed constraint be-
longing to the highest culture with force and truth of a free
nature sensible of its proper worth’ could not be something the
concept of which is necessary in order that taste may be
established on a firm basis, unless it were something of which
art may give a symbolic interpretation, and, therefore, unless it
were a beauty of nature, answering to the beauty of art, and
capable of attracting an intellectual interest.

Perhaps the higher socialism of to-day is an endeavour after
the ‘happy union’ above referred to, and, if so, we may be
able to regard any evident traces of its beneficial results as
some fulfilment of the prophecy of music.

That this is the direction in which we should look for some
trace or suggestion of the realization of what is more especially
symbolized in music, will readily be allowed by those who
admit the truth of Spencer’s eloquent account of its function.
A quotation of his words on this subject will form a fitting
conclusion to these Essays.

‘Thus if, as we have endeavoured to show, it is the function
of music to facilitate the development of this emotional
language, we may regard music as an aid to the achievement
of that higher happiness which it indistinctly shadows forth.
Those vague feelings of unexperienced felicity which music
arouses—those indefinite impressions of an unknown ideal life
which it calls up, may be considered as a prophecy, to the

clxx Introductory Essays

fulfilment of which music is itself partly instrumental. The
strange capacity which we have for being so affected by melody
and harmony may be taken to imply both that it is within the
possibilities of our nature to realize those intense delights they
dimly suggest, and that they are in some way concerned in the
realization of them. On this supposition the power and the
meaning of music become comprehensible ; but otherwise they
are a mystery.

‘We will only add that if the probability of those corollaries
be admitted, then music must take rank as the highest of the
fine arts—as the one which, more than any other, ministers to
human welfare. And thus, even leaving out of view the
immediate gratifications it is hourly giving, we cannot too
much applaud the progress of musical culture which is becoming
one of the characteristics of our age.’!

1 Herbert Spencer, Essays, vol. i, p. 237.

CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT

BY

IMMANUEL KANT

1193 B

PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION, 1790

THE faculty of knowledge from @ priori principles may be
called pure reason, and the general investigation into its
5 possibility and bounds the Critique of pure reason. This is
permissible although ‘pure reason’, as was the case with the
same use of terms in our first work, is only intended to denote
reason in its theoretical employment, and although there is no
desire to bring under review its faculty as practical reason and
to its special principles as such. That Critique is, then, an
investigation addressed simply to our faculty of knowing things

a priori. Hence it makes our cognitive faculties its sole
concern, to the exclusion of the feeling of pleasure or dis-
pleasure and the faculty of desire; and among the cognitive
15 faculties it confines its attention to understanding and its a
priori principles, to the exclusion of judgement and reason,
(faculties that also belong to theoretical cognition,) because it
turns out in the sequel that there is no cognitive faculty other
than understanding capable of affording constitutive a priori
20 principles of knowledge. Accordingly the Critique which sifts
these faculties one and all, so as to try the possible claims of
each of the other faculties to a share in the clear possession
of knowledge from roots of its own, retains nothing but what
understanding prescribes a priori as a law for nature as the
25 complex of phenomena—the form of these being similarly
furnished a Zröori. All other pure concepts it relegates to the
rank of ideas, which for our faculty of theoretical cognition are
transcendent : though they are not without their use nor redun-
dant, but discharge certain functions as regulative principles.

B2

4 Critique of Judgement

For these concepts serve partly to restrain the officious pre-
tensions of understanding, which, presuming on its ability to
supply @ prior? the conditions of the possibility of all things

168 which it is capable of knowing, behaves as if it had thus
determined these bounds as those of the possibility of all things 5
generally, and partly also to lead understanding, in its study
of nature, according to a principle of completeness, unattainable
as this remains for it, and so to promote the ultimate aim of
all knowledge.

Properly, therefore, it was wnderstanding—which, so far as 10
it contains constitutive a Priori cognitive principles, has its
special realm, and one, moreover, in our faculty of knowledge—
that the Critique, called in a general way that of Pure Reason,
was intended to establish in secure but particular possession
against all other competitors. In the same way reason, which 15
contains constitutive @ Zr7ori principles solely in respect of the
faculty of desire, gets its holding assigned to it by the Critique
of Practical Reason.

But now comes judgement, which in the order of our
cognitive faculties forms a middle term between understanding 20
and reason. Has 7¢ also got independent a priori principles?
If so, are they constitutive, or are they merely regulative, thus
indicating no special realm? And do they give a rule a prior?
to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, as the middle term
between the faculties of cognition and desire, just as under- 25
standing prescribes laws a priori for the former and reason for
the latter? This is the topic to which the present Critique is
devoted.

A Critique of pure reason, i.e. of our faculty of judging on
a prior’ principles, would be incomplete if the critical ex- 30
amination of judgement, which is a faculty of knowledge, and,
as such, lays claim to independent principles, were not dealt
with separately. Still, however, its principles cannot, in a system
of pure philosophy, form a separate constituent part intermediate
between the theoretical and practical divisions, but may when 35

Preface 5

needful be annexed to one or other as occasion requires. For
if such a system is some day worked out under the general
name of Metaphysic—and its full and complete execution is
both possible and of the utmost importance for the employ-
5 ment of reason in all departments of its activity—the critical
examination of the ground for this edifice must have been pre-
viously carried down to the very depths of the foundations of
the faculty of principles independent of experience, lest in some
quarter it might give way, and, sinking, inevitably bring with it
Io the ruin of all. N
We may readily gather, however, from the nature of the
faculty of judgement (whose ‘correct employment is so neces-
sary and universally requisite that it is just this faculty that is
intended when we speak of sound understanding) that the
15 discovery of a peculiar principle belonging to it—and some
such it must contain in itself a priori, for otherwise it would
not be a cognitive faculty the distinctive character of which is
obvious to the most commonplace criticism—must be a task
involving considerable difficulties. For this principle is one
ao which must not be derived from a friori concepts, seeing that
these are the property of understanding, and judgement is only
directed to their application. It has, therefore, itself to furnish
a concept, and one from which, properly, we get no cognition of
a thing, but which it can itself employ as a rule only—but not as
25 an objective rule to which it can adapt its judgement, because,
for that, another faculty of judgement would again be required to
enable us to decide whether the case was one for the application
of the rule or not.
It is chiefly in those estimates that are called aesthetic, and
30 which relate to the beautiful and sublime, whether of nature or
of art, that one meets with the above difficulty about a princi-
ple (be it subjective or objective). And yet the critical search
for a principle of judgement in their case is the most important
item in a Critique of this faculty. For, although they do not
35 Of themselves contribute a whit to the knowledge of things,

170

6 Critique of Judgement

they still belong wholly to the faculty of knowledge, and evidence
an immediate bearing of this faculty upon the feeling of pleasure
or displeasure according to some a Zriori principle, and do so
without confusing this principle with what is capable of being
a determining ground of the faculty of desire, for the latter 5
has its principles a friori in concepts of reason.—Logical
estimates of nature, however, stand on a different footing. They
deal with cases in which experience presents a conformity to
law in things, which the understanding’s general concept of the
sensible is no longer adequate to render intelligible or explic- 10
able, and in which judgement may have recourse to itself for
a principle of the reference of the natural thing to the unknow-
able supersensible and, indeed, must employ some such prin-
ciple, though with a regard only to itself and the knowledge of
nature. For in these cases the application of such an a priori 15
principle for the cognition of what is in the world is both
possible and necessary, and withal opens out prospects which
are profitable for practical reason. But here there is no imme-
diate reference to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. But
this is precisely the riddle in the principle of judgement that 20
necessitates a separate division for this faculty in the Critique,
—for there was nothing to prevent the formation of logical
estimates according to concepts (from which no immediate
conclusion can ever be drawn to the feeling of pleasure or dis-
pleasure) having been treated, with a critical statement of its 25
limitations, in an appendage to the theoretical part of philosophy.
The present investigation of taste, as a faculty of aesthetic
judgement, not being undertaken with a view to the formation
or culture of taste, (which will pursue its course in the
future, as in the past, independently of such inquiries,) but 30
being merely directed to its transcendental aspects, I feel
assured of its indulgent criticism in respect of any short-
comings on that score. But in all that is relevant to the
transcendental aspect it must be prepared to stand the test of
the most rigorous examination. Yet even here I venture to 35

Preface 7

hope that the difficulty of unravelling a problem so involved
in its nature may serve as an excuse for a certain amount
of hardly avoidable obscurity in its solution, provided that the
accuracy of our statement of the principle is proved with all

5 requisite clearness. I admit that the mode of deriving the
phenomena of judgement from that principle has not all the
lucidity that is rightly demanded elsewhere, where the subject
is cognition by concepts, and that I believe I have in fact
attained in the second part of this work.

ro With this, then, I bring my entire critical undertaking to
aclose. I shall hasten to the doctrinal part, in order, as far as
possible, to snatch from my advancing years what time may yet
be favourable to the task. It is obvious that no separate division
of Doctrine is reserved for the faculty of judgement, seeing that

15 with judgement Critique takes the place of Theory ; but, follow-
ing the division of philosophy into theoretical and practical, and
of pure philosophy in the same way, the whole ground will be
covered by the Metaphysics of Nature and of Morals.

“171

INTRODUCTION

I _
Division OF PHILOSOPHY

PHILOSOPHY may be said to contain the principles of the =
rational cognition that concepts afford us of things (not merely, 5
as with Logic, the principles of the form of thought in general
irrespective of the Objects), and, thus interpreted, the course,
usually adopted, of dividing it into ¢heoretical and practical is
perfectly sound. But this makes imperative a specific distinction
on the part of the concepts by which the principles of this 10
rational cognition get their Object assigned to them, for if
the concepts are not distinct they fail to justify a division,
which always presupposes that the principles belonging to the
rational cognition of the several parts of the science in question
are themselves mutually exclusive. 15

Now there are but two kinds of concepts, and these yield a
corresponding number of distinct principles of the possibility
of their objects. The concepts referred to are those of nature
and that of freedom. By the first of these a ¢heoretical cognition
from a friori principles becomes possible. In respect of such 20
cognition, however, the second, by its very concept, imports
no more than a negative principle (that of simple antithesis),
while for the determination of the will, on the other hand, it
establishes fundamental principles which enlarge the scope of
its activity, and which on that account are called practical. 25
Hence the division of philosophy falls properly into two parts,
quite distinct in their principles—a theoretical, as Philosophy
of Nature, and a practical, as Philosophy of Morals (for this is
what the practical legislation of reason by the concept of

Introduction 9

freedom is called). Hitherto, however, in the application of
these expressions to the division of the different principles, and
with them to the division of philosophy, a gross misuse of the
terms has prevailed ; for what is practical according to concepts
5 of nature has been taken as identical with what is practical
according to the concept of freedom, with the result that a
division has been made under these heads of theoretical and
practical, by which, in effect, there has been no division at all
(seeing that both parts might have similar principles).
to The will—for this is what is said—is the faculty of desire
and, as such, is just one of the many natural causes in the
world, the one, namely, which acts by concepts; and whatever
is represented as possible (or necessary) through the efficacy of
will is called practically possible (or necessary): the intention
15 being to distinguish its possibility (or necessity) from the
‚Physical possibility or necessity of an effect the causality of
whose cause is not determined to its production by concepts
(but rather, as with lifeless matter, by mechanism, and, as with
the lower animals, by instinct).—Now, the question in re-
20 spect of the practical faculty: whether, that is to say, the
concept, by which the causality of the will gets its rule, is a
concept of nature or of freedom, is here left quite open.
The latter distinction, however, is essential. For, let the
concept determining the causality be a concept of nature, and
25 then the principles are Zechnically-practical; but, let it be a
concept of freedom, and they are morally-practical. Now,
in the division of a rational science the difference between
objects that require different principles for their cognition is the
difference on which everything turns. Hence technically-
30 practical principles belong to theoretical philosophy (natural
science), whereas those morally-practical alone form the second
part, that is, practical philosophy (ethical science).
All technically-practical rules (i.e. those of art and skill
generally, or even of prudence, as a skill in exercising an
35 influence over men and their wills) must, so far as their

173

10 Critique of Judgement

principles rest upon concepts, be reckoned only as corollaries
to theoretical philosophy. For they only touch the possibility
of things according to concepts of nature, and this embraces,
not alone the means discoverable in nature for the purpose, but
even the will itself (as a faculty of desire, and consequently a 5
natural faculty), so far as it is determinable on these rules by
natural motives. Still these practical rules are not called laws
(like physical laws), but only precepts. This is due to the
fact that the will does not stand simply under the natural
concept, but also under the concept of freedom. In the latter 10
connexion its principles are called laws, and these principles,
with the addition of what follows from them, alone constitute
the second or practical part of philosophy.

The solution of the problems of pure geometry is not allo-
cated to a special part of that science, nor does the art of land- 15
surveying merit the name of practical, in contradistinction to
pure, as a second part of the general science of geometry, and
with equally little, or perhaps less, right can the mechanical or
chemical art of experiment or of observation be ranked as
a practical part of the science of nature, or, in fine, domestic, a0
agricultural, or political economy, the art of social intercourse,
the principles of dietetics, or even general instruction as to
the attainment of happiness, or as much as the control of
the inclinations or the restraining of the affections with a
view thereto, be denominated practical philosophy—not to 25.
mention forming these latter into a second part of philosophy
in general. For, between them all, the above contain nothing
more than rules of skill, which are thus only technically
practical—the skill being directed to producing an effect which
is possible according to natural concepts of causes and effects. 30
As these concepts belong to theoretical philosophy they are
subject to those precepts as mere corollaries of theorétical
philosophy (i.e. as corollaries of natural science), and so
cannot claim any place in any special philosophy called
practical. On the other hand the morally practical precepts, 35

Introduction II

which are founded entirely on the concept of freedom, to the
complete exclusion of grounds taken from nature for the deter-
mination of the will, form quite a special kind of precepts.
These, too, like the rules obeyed by nature, are, without qualifi-

5 cation, called laws,—though they do not, like the latter, rest on
sensible conditions, but upon a supersensible principle,—and
they must needs have a separate part of philosophy allotted
to them as their own, corresponding to the theoretical part,
and termed practical philosophy.

10 Hence it is evident that a complex of practical precepts
furnished by philosophy does not form a special part of
philosophy, co-ordinate with the theoretical, by reason of
its precepts being practical—for that they might be, notwith-
standing that their principles were derived wholly from the

15 theoretical knowledge of nature (as technically-practical rules).
But an adequate reason only exists where their principle,
being in no way borrowed from the concept of nature, which
is always sensibly conditioned, rests consequently on the
supersensible, which the concept of freedom alone makes

20 cognizable by means of its formal laws, and where, therefore,
they are morally-practical, i.e. not merely precepts and rules in
this or that interest, but laws independent of all antecedent
reference to ends or aims.

Il 174
25 THE REALM OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL

THE employment of our faculty of cognition from principles,
and with it philosophy, is coextensive with the applicability of

a priori concepts.
Now a division of the complex of all the objects to which
30 those concepts are referred for the purpose, where possible, of
compassing their knowledge, may be made according to the

i2 Critique of Judgement

varied competence or incompetence of our faculty in that
connexion.

Concepts, so far as they are referred to objects apart from
the question of whether knowledge of them is possible or not,
have their field, which is determined simply by the relation 5 5
in which their Object stands to our faculty ‘of cognition in
general.—The part of this field in which knowledge is possible
for us, is a territory (¢erritorium) for these concepts and the
requisite cognitive faculty. The part of the territory over
which they exercise legislative authority is the realm (dito) of 10
these concepts, and their appropriate cognitive faculty. Em-
pirical concepts have, therefore, their territory, doubtless, in
nature as the complex of all sensible objects, but they have no
realm (only a dwelling-place, domicilium), for, although they
are formed according to law, they are not themselves legis- 15
lative, but the rules founded on them are empirical, and con-
sequently contingent.

Our entire faculty of cognition has two realms, that of
natural concepts and that of the concept of freedom, for
through both it prescribes laws a Zriori. In accordance with 20
this distinction, then, philosophy is divisible into theoretical and_—
practical. But the territory upon which its realm is established,
and over which it exercises its legislative authority, is still
always confined to the complex of the objects of all possible
experience, taken as no more than mere phenomena, for 25
otherwise legislation by the understanding in respect of them
is unthinkable.

The function of prescribing laws by means of concepts of
nature is discharged by understanding, and is theoretical.
That of prescribing laws by means of the concept of freedom 30
is discharged by reason and is merely practical. It is only in
the practical sphere that reason can prescribe laws ; in respect
of theoretical knowledge (of nature) it can only (as. by the

ı75 understanding advised in the law) deduce from given laws
their logical consequences, which still always remain restricted 35

Introduchon 13

to nature. But we cannot reverse this and say that where rules
are practical reason is then and there /egis/arive, since the
rules might be technically practical.
Understanding and reason, therefore, have two distinct
5 jurisdictions over one and the same territory of experience,
But neither can interfere with the other. For the concept of
freedom just as little disturbs the legislation of nature, as the
concept of nature influences legislation through the concept of
freedom. — That it is possible for us at least to think without
1o contradiction of both these jurisdictions, and their appropriate
faculties, as coexisting in the same Subject, was shown by the
Critique of Pure Reason, since it disposed of the objections on
the other side by detecting their dialectical illusion.
Still, how does it happen that these two different realms do
15 not form oe realm, seeing that, while they do not limit each
other in their legislation, they continually do so in their effects in
the sensible world? The explanation lies in the fact that the
concept of nature represents its objects in intuition doubtless,
yet not as things-in-themselves, but as mere phenomena,
20 Whereas the concept of freedom represents in its Object what is
no doubt a thing-in-itself, but it does not make itintuitable, and
further that neither the one nor the other is capable, therefore,
of furnishing a theoretical cognition of its Object (or even of
the thinking Subject) as a thing-in-itself, or, as this would be, ,. _
25 Of the supersensible—the idea of which has certainly to be in- ‚.. .
troduced as the basis of the possibility of all those objects of
experience, although it cannot itself ever be elevated or extended
into a cognition.
Our entire cognitive faculty is, therefore, presented_with an - -
30 unbounded, but, also, inaccessible field—the field of the super-
‚sensible—in which we seek in vain for a territory, and on
which, therefore, we can have no realm for theoretical cog-
nition, be it for concepts of understanding or ofreason. This
field we must indeed occupy with ideas in the interest as well
35 of the theoretical as the practical employment of reason, but in

14 Critique of Judgement

connexion with the laws arising from the concept of freedom
we cannot procure for these ideas any but practical reality,
which, accordingly, fails to advance our theoretical cognition
one step towards the supersensible.
Albeit, then, between the realm of the natural concept, as the 5
176 sensible, and the realm of the concept of freedom, as the super-
sensible, there is a great gulf fixed, so that itis not possible to
pass from the former to the latter (by means of the theoretical
employment of reason), just as if they were so many separate
worlds, the first of which is powerless to exercise influence on 10
the second: still the latter is meanf to influence the former—
that is to say, the concept of freedom is meant to actualize in
the sensible world the end proposed by its laws ; and nature
must consequently also be capable of being regarded in such
a way that in the conformity to law of its form it at least
harmonizes with the possibility of the ends to be effectuated in
it according to the laws of freedom.—There must, therefore, be
a ground of the wd¢y of the surpersensible that lies at the basis of
nature, with what the concept of freedom contains in a practical
way, and although the concept of this ground neither theoreti- 20
cally nor practically attains to a knowledge of it, and so has no
peculiar realm of its own, still it renders possible the transition
from the mode of thought according to the principles of the
one to that according to the principles of the other.

H

5

III 25

THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT AS A MEANS OF CONNECTING
THE TWO PARTS OF PHILOSOPHY IN A WHOLE

THE Critique which deals with what our cognitive faculties
are capable of yielding a priori has properly speaking no realm
in respect of Objects; for it is not a doctrine, its sole business 30
being to investigate whether, having regard to the general
bearings of our faculties, a doctrine is possible by their means,

I: ntroduction 15

and if so, how. Its field extends to all their pretensions, with
a view to confining them within their legitimate bounds. But
what is shut out of the division of Philosophy may still be
admitted as a principal part into the general Critique of our
5 faculty of pure cognition, in the event, namely, of its containing
principles which are not in themselves available either for
theoretical or practical employment.
Concepts of nature contain the ground of all theoretical
cognition a friori and rest, as we saw, upon the legislative
ro authority of understanding.—The concept of freedom contains
the ground of all sensuously unconditioned practical precepts
a priori, and rests upon that of reason. Both faculties, therefore,
besides their application in point of logical form to principles
of whatever origin, have, in addition, their own peculiar
1g jurisdiction in the matter of their content, and so, there being
no further (a Zriort) jurisdiction above them, the division of
Philosophy into theoretical and practical is justified.
But there is still further in the family of our higher cognitive
faculties a middle term between understanding and reason.
20 This is judgement, of which we may reasonably presume by
analogy that it may likewise contain, if not a special authority
to prescribe laws, still a principle peculiar to itself upon which
laws are sought, although one merely subjective a Zriori, This
principle, even if it has no field of objects appropriate to it as
25 its realm, may still have some territory or other with a certain
character, for which just this very principle alone may be
valid.
But in addition to the above considerations there is yet (to
judge by analogy) a further ground, upon which judgement may
3o be brought into line with another arrangement of our powers
of representation, and one that appears to be of even greater
importance than that of its kinship with the family of cognitive
/ faculties. For all faculties of the soul, or capacities, are re-
ducible to three, which do not admit of any further derivation
35 from a common ground: the faculty of knowledge, the feeling

177

16 Critique of Judgement
178 of pleasure or displeasure, and the faculty of desire‘ For the

1 Where one has reason to suppose that a relation subsists between
concepts, that are used as empirical principles, and the faculty of pure
cognition a priort, it is worth while attempting, in consideration of this
connexion, to give them a transcendental definition—a definition, that is, 5
by pure categories, so far as these by themselves adequately indicate
the distinction of the concept in question from others. This course
follows that of the mathematician, who leaves the empirical data of his
problem indeterminate, and only brings their relation in pure synthesis
under the concepts of pure arithmetic, and thus generalizes his solution, Io
—I have been taken to task for adopting a similar procedure (Critique of
Practical Reason, Preface, p. 16) and fault has been found with my
definition of the faculty of desire, as a faculty which by means of its
representations 1s the cause of the actuality of the objects of those representa-
tons: for mere wishes would still be desires, and yet in their case every 15
one is ready to abandon all claim to being able by means of them alone
to call their Object into existence.—But this proves no more than the
presence of desires in man by which he is in contradiction with himself.
For in such a case he seeks the production of the Object by means of his
representation alone, without any hope of its being effectual, since he is a0
conscious that his mechanical powers (if I may so call those which are
not psychological), which would have to be determined by that repre-
sentation, are either unequal to the task of realizing the Object (by the
intervention of means, therefore) or else are addressed to what is quite
impossible, as, for example, to undo the past (O mihi praeteritos, &c.) or, 25

+ to be able to annihilate the interval that, with intolerable delay, divides
us from the wished-for moment.—Now, conscious as we are in such
fantastic desires of the inefficiency of our representations, (or even of
their futility,) as causes of their objects, there is still involved in every
wish a reference of the same as cause, and therefore the representation 30
of its causality, and this is especially discernible where the wish, as
longing, is an affection. For such affections, since they dilate the heart
and render it inert and thus exhaust its powers, show that a strain is
kept on being exerted and re-exerted on these powers by the representa-
tions, but that the mind is allowed continually to relapse and get languid 35
upon recognition of the impossibility before it. Even prayers for the
aversion of great, and, so far as we can see, inevitable evils, and many
superstitious means for attaining ends impossible of attainment by natural
means, prove the causal reference of representations to their Objects—

a causality which not even the consciousness of inefficiency for pro- 4°
ducing the effect can deter from straining towards it.—But why our
nature should be furnished with a propensity to consciously vain desires
is a teleological problem of anthropology. It would seem that were we _

Introduction 17

faculty of cognition understanding alone is legislative, if (as
must be the case where it is considered on its own account
free of confusion with the faculty of desire) this faculty, as that
of theoretical cognition, is referred to nature, in respect of which
5 alone (as phenomenon) it is possible for us to prescribe laws by
means of a priori concepts of nature, which are prone pure
„concepts of understanding. — For the faculty of desire, as
a higher faculty operating under the concept of freedom 1, only
reason (in which alone this concept has a place) prescribes
‚ıolaws a friori.—Now between the faculties of knowledge and
desire stands the feeling of pleasure, just as judgement is
Intermediate _ between understanding and reason. Hence we
may, provisionally at least, assume that judgement likewise
contains an a friort principle of its own, and that, since
15 pleasure or displeasure is necessarily combined with the faculty
of desire (be it antecedent to its principle, as with the lower
desires, or, as with the higher, only supervening upon its
determination by the moral law), it will effect a transition from
the 1 faculty of pure knowledge, i.e. from the realm of concepts
ao of nature, to that of the concept of freedom, just as in its logical
ee it makes possible the transition from understanding
to reason.
Hence, despite the fact of Philosophy being only divisible
iio twa se Gate he eee oe > practical, and
25 despite the fact of all that we may have to say of the special
principles of judgement having to be assigned to its theoretical
part, i.e. to rational cognition according to concepts of nature :
still the Critique of pure reason, which must settle this whole
question before the above system is taken in hand, so as to
30 substantiate its possibility, consists of three parts ; the Critique

not to be determined to the exertion of our power before we had assured
ourselves of the efficiency of our faculty for producing an Object, our
power would remain to a large extent unused. For as a rule we only
first learn to know our powers by making trial of them. This deceit of

35 vain desires is therefore only the result of a beneficent disposition in our
nature,

1193 c

18 Critique of Judgement
of pure understanding, of pure judgement, and of pure reason,

which faculties are called pure on the ground of their being
legislative a priori.

IV

JUDGEMENT AS A FACULTY BY WHICH LAWS ARE
PRESCRIBED 4 PRIORI

JUDGEMENT in general is the faculty_of thinking the par-

devia ag conus uatiee whe rl Ie dhe rer
the rule, principle, or law,) is given, then the judgement which
subsumes the particular under it és determinant, This is so even
where such a judgement is transcendental and, as such, provides
‘the conditions a priori in conformity with which alone sub-
sumption under that universal can be effected. If, however,
only the particular is given and the universal has to be found
for it, then the judgement is simply reflective.

The determinant judgement determines under universal
transcendental laws furnished by understanding and is sub-
sumptive only; the law is marked out for it a priori, and it
has no need to devise a law for its own guidance to enable it
to subordinate the particular in nature to the universal.—But
there are such manifold forms of nature, so many modifications,
as it were, of the universal transcendental concepts of nature,
left undetermined by the laws furnished by pure understanding
a priori as above mentioned, and for the reason that these laws
only touch the general possibility of a nature, (as an object of

so sense,) that there must needs also be laws in this behalf.
These laws, being empirical, may be contingent as far as the
Tight of ovr understanding goes, but still, if they are to be
called laws, (as the concept of a nature requires,) they must be
regarded as necessary on a principle, unknown ou BF
us, of the ınity of the manifold._ The reflective judgement
which is compelled to ascend from the particular in nature to
the universal, stands, therefore, in need of a principle. This

—_

15

25

3°

Introduction 19

principle it cannot borrow from experience, because what it has
to do is to establish just the unity of all empirical principles
under higher, though likewise empirical, principles, and thence
the possibility of the systematic subordination of higher and
5 lower. Such a transcendental principle, therefore, the reflective
judgemént can only give as a law from and to itself. It
cannot derive it from any other quarter (as it would then be
a determinant judgement). Nor can it prescribe it to nature,
for reflection on the laws of nature adjusts itself to nature, and
to not nature to the conditions according to which we strive to
obtain a concept of it,—a concept that is quite contingent in
respect of these conditions.
Now the principle sought can only be this: as universal laws
of ee in our understanding, which
15 prescribes them to nature (though only according to the
universal concept of it as nature), particular empirical laws
must be regarded, in respect of that which is left undetermined
in them by these universal laws, according to a unity such as
they would have if an understanding (though it be not ours)
ao had supplied them for the benefit of our cognitive faculties, so
as to render possible a system of experience according to
particular natural laws. This is not to be taken as implying
that such an understanding must be actually assumed, (for it is
only the reflective judgement which avails itself of this idea as
25 a principle for the purpose of reflection and not for determining
anything) ; but this faculty rather gives by this means a law to
itself alone and not to nature.
Now the concept of an Object, so far as it contains at the
same time the ground of the actuality of this Object, is called
30 its end, and the agreement of a thing with that constitution of
things which is only possible according to ends, is called the
finality of its form. Accordingly the principle of judgement, in
respect of the form of the things of nature under empirical laws
generally, is the fizality of nature in its multiplicity. In other
35 words, by this concept nature is represented as if an under- 181
c2

20 Critique of Judgement

standing contained the ground of the unity of the manifold of
its empirical laws. En

The_finality of nature is, therefore, a articular a Prior!
concept, which has its origin solely in the reflective judgement.
For we cannot ascribe to the products of nature anything like 5
a reference of nature in them to ends, but we can only make
use of this concept to reflect upon them in respect of the nexus
of phenomena in nature—a nexus given according to empirical
laws. Furthermore, this concept is entirely different from
practical finality (in human art or even morals), though it is ıo
doubtless thought after this analogy.

Vv

THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FORMAL FINALITY OF NATURE IS
A TRANSCENDENTAL PRINCIPLE OF JUDGEMENT.

A TRANSCENDENTAL principle is one_through which we 15
sepresent @ priori_the universal condition under which alone
things can become Objects of our cognition generally. A prin-
ciple, on the other hand, is called metaphysical, where it
represents a friori the condition under which alone Objects
whose concept has to be given empirically, may become further 20
determined a Zriori. Thus the principle of the cognition of
bodies as substances, and as changeable substances, is tran-
scendental where the statement is that their change must have
a cause: but it is metaphysical where it asserts that their
change must have an exierna/ cause. For in the first case 25
bodies need only be thought through ontological predicates
(pure concepts of understanding), e.g. as substance, to enable
the proposition to be cognized a prior? ; whereas, in the second
case, the empirical concept of a body (as a movable thing in
space) must be introduced to support the proposition, although, 30
once this is done, it may be seen quite a friori that the
latter predicate (movement only by means of an external cause)

Introduction 21

applies to body.—In this way, as I shall show presently, the
principle of the finality of nature (in the multiplicity of its
empirical laws) is a transcendental principle. For the concept
of Objects, regarded as standing under this principle, is only
5 the pure concept of objects of possible empirical cognition
generally, and involves nothing empirical. On the other hand 182
the principle of practical finality, implied in the idea of the
determination of a free wi//, would be a metaphysical principle,
because the concept of a faculty of desire, as will, has to be
to given empirically, i.e. is not included among transcendental
predicates. But both these principles are, none the less, not
empirical, but @ Zrori principles ; because no further experience
is required for the synthesis of the predicate with the empirical
concept of the subject of their judgements, but it may be
15 apprehended quite a prior7. So
That the concept of a finality of nature belongs to transcen-
dental principles is abundantly evident from the maxims of
judgement upon which we rely a friori in the investigation of,
nature, and which yet have to do with no more than the
ao possibility of experience, and consequently of the knowledge
of nature,—but of nature not merely in a general way, but as
determined by a manifold of particular laws.—These maxims
crop up frequently enough in the course of this science, though
only in a scattered way. They are aphorisms of metaphysical
25 wisdom, making their appearance in a number of rules the
necessity of which cannot be demonstrated from concepts.
‘ Nature takes the shortest way (lex parsimoniae) ; yet it makes
no leap, either in the sequence of its changes, or in the juxtaposi-
tion of specifically different forms (lex continu in natura) ; its
30 vast variety in empirical laws is, for all that, unity under a few
principles (principia praeter necessitatem non sunt multiplicanda)’ ;
and so forth.
If we propose to assign the origin of these elementary rules,
and attempt to do so on psychological lines, we go straight in
35 the teeth of their sense. For they tell us, not what happens,

22 Critique of Judgement

i.e. according to what rule our powers of judgement actually
discharge their functions, and how we judge, but how we ought
to judge; and we cannot get this logical objective necessity
where the principles are merely empirical. Hence the finality
of nature for our cognitive faculties and their employment, which 5
manifestly radiates from them, is a transcendental principle of
judgements, and so needs also a transcendental Deduction, by
means of which the ground for this mode of judging must be
traced to the a prior sources of knowledge.

Now, looking at the grounds of the possibilityofan experience, 10

183 the first thing, of course, that meets us is something necessary—

namely, the universal laws apart from which nature in general
(as an object of sense) cannot be thought. These rest on the
categories, applied to the formal conditions of all intuition
possible for us, so far as it is also given a Zriori. Under these rs
laws judgement is determinant ; for it has nothing else to do
than to subsume under given laws. For instance, understand-
ing says: all change has its cause (universal law of nature) ;
transcendental judgement has nothing further to do than to
furnish a priori the condition of subsumption under the concept 20
“of understanding placed before it: this we get in the succession
‘of the determinations of one and the same thing. Now for
nature in general, as an object of possible experience, that law
is cognized as absolutely necessary.—But besides this formal
time-condition, the objects of empirical cognition are deter- 25
mined, or, so far as we can judge @ Priori, are determinable, in
divers ways, so that specifically differentiated natures, over and
above what they have in common as things of nature in general,
are further capable of being causes in an infinite variety of
ways; and each of these modes must, on the concept of 30
a cause in general, have its rule, which is a law, and, conse-
quently, imports necessity : although owing to the constitution
and limitations of our faculties of cognition we may entirely
fail to see this necessity. Accordingly, in respect of nature’s
merely empirical laws, we must think in nature a possibility of 35

Introduction 23

an endless multiplicity of empirical laws, which yet are contin-
gent so far as our insight goes, i.e. cannot be cognized 4 priori.
In respect of these we estimate the unity of nature according
to empirical laws, and the possibility of the unity of experience,
kas a system according to empirical laws, to be contingent.
But, now, such a unity is one which must be necessarily pre-
supposed and assumed, as otherwise we should not have!

a thoroughgoing connexion of empirical cognition in a whole
of experience. For the universal laws of nature, while provid
10 ing, certainly, for such a connexion among things generically,
as things of nature in general, do not do so for them specifi-
cally as such particular things of nature. Hence judgement is
compelled, for its own guidance, to adopt it as an a priori
principle, that what is for human insight contingent in the
15 particular (empirical) laws of nature contains nevertheless unity
of law in the synthesis of its manifold in an intrinsically possible,
experience—unfathomable, though still thinkable, as such unity
may, no doubt, be for us. Consequently, as the unity of law
in a synthesis, whichis cognized by us in obedience to
ko a necessary aim (a need of understanding), though recognizeck
“at the same time as contingent, is represented as a finality of
Objects (here of nature), so judgement, which, in respect of
things under possible (yet to be discovered) empirical laws, is is
merely reflective, must regard nature in respect of the latter
25 according to a Principle of finality for our cognitive faculty,
which then Ainds expression in the above maxims of judgement.
"Now this transcendental concept of a finality of nature ist
neither a concept of nature nor of freedom, since it attributes(
nothing at all to the Object, i.e. to nature, but only represents.
30 the unique mode in which we must proceed in our reflection
upon the objects of nature with a view to getting a thoroughly
interconnected whole of experience, and so is a subjective
principle, i.e. maxim, of judgement. For this reason, too, just as

if it were a lucky chance that favoured us, we are rejoiced
(properly speaking relieved of a want) where we meet with such

24 Critique of Judgement

systematic unity under merely empirical laws: although we
must necessarily assume the presence of such a unity, apart
from any ability on our part to apprehend or prove its
existence.
In order to convince ourselves of the correctness of this 5
Deduction of the concept before us, and the necessity of
assuming it as a transcendental principle of cognition, let us
just bethink ourselves of the magnitude of the task. We have
to form a connected experience from given perceptions of a
nature containing a maybe endless multiplicity of empirical 10
laws, and this problem has its seat @ Zriori in our understand-
ing. This understanding is no doubt a Zriori in possession of
universal laws of nature, apart from which nature would be
incapable of being an object of experience at all. But over
and above this it needs a certain order of nature in its par- 15
ticular rules which are only capable of being brought to its
knowledge empirically, and which, so far as it is concerned,
are contingent. These rules, without which we would have no
“means of advance from the universal analogy of a possible
experience in general to a particular, must be regarded by 20
understanding as laws, i.e. as necessary—for otherwise they
would not form an order of nature—though it be unable to
cognize or ever get an insight into their necessity. Albeit,
185 then, it can determine nothing a Zriori in respect of these
(Objects), it must, in pursuit of such empirical so-called laws, 25
lay at the basis of all reflection upon them an a priori
principle, to the effect, namely, that a cognizable order of
nature is possible according to them. A principle of this kind
is expressed in the following propositions. There is_in_nature
a subordination of genera and species comprehensible by ys: 30
Each of these genera again approximates to the others ona
common principle, so that a transition may be possible from
“one to the other, and thereby to a higher genus: While it seems
at the outset unavoidable for our understanding to assume for
the specific variety of natural operations a like number of 35

Introduction 25

various kinds of causality, yet these may all be reduced to a
small number of principles, the quest for which is our business ;
and so forth. This adaptation of nature to our cognitive.
faculties is presupposed a Prior! by judgement on behalf of its
5 reflection upon it according to empirical laws. But under-
~ standing all the while recognizes it objectively as contingent,’
and it is merely judgement that attributes it to nature as tran-
scendental finality, i.e. a finality in respect of the Subject’s faculty
of cognition. For, were it not for this presupposition, we should
to have no order of nature in accordance with empirical laws, and,
consequently, no guiding-thread for an experience that has to
be brought to bear upon these in all their variety, or for an
investigation of them.
For it is quite conceivable that, despite all the uniformity of
15 the things of nature according to universal laws, without which
we would not have the form of general empirical knowledge at
all, the specific variety of the empirical laws of nature, with
. their effects, might still be so great as to make it impossible
for our understanding to discover in nature an intelligible
20 order, to divide its products into genera and species so as to
avail ourselves of the principles of explanation and com-
prehension of one for explaining and interpreting another, and
out of material coming to hand in such confusion (properly
speaking only infinitely multiform and ill-adapted to our power
25 of apprehension) to make a consistent context of experience.
Thus judgement, also, is equipped with an a Zriori principle
for the possibility of nature, but only in a subjective respect.
By means of this it prescribes a law, not to nature (as autonomy),
but_to itself (as heautonomy), to guide its reflection upon 186
zo nature. This law may be called the law of the specification of
nature in respect of its empirical laws. It is not one cognized
a priori in nature, but judgement adopts it in the interests of
a natural order, cognizable by our understanding, in the
division which it makes of nature’s universal laws when it
35 seeks to subordinate to them a variety of particular laws. So

26 Critique of Judgement

when it is said that nature specifies its universal laws on a
principle of finality for our cognitive faculties, i. e. of suitability
for the human understanding and its necessary function of
finding the universal for the particular presented to it by
perception, and again for varieties (which are, of course, common 5
for each species) connexion in the unity of principle, we do not
thereby either prescribe a law to nature, or learn one from it
by observation—although the principle in question may be
confirmed by this means. For it is not a principle of the de-
terminant but merely of the reflective judgement. All that is 10
intended is that, no matter what is the order and disposition of
nature in respect of its universal laws, we must investigate its
empirical laws throughout on that principle and the maxims
founded thereon, because only so far as that principle applies
can we make any headway in the employment of our under- 15
standing in experience, or gain knowledge.

VI

THE ASSOCIATION OF THE FEELING OF PLEASURE WITH
THE CONCEPT OF THE FINALITY OF NATURE

Tur conceived harmony of nature in the manifold of_its 20
articular laws with our need of finding universality of
rinciples for it must, so far as our insight goes, be deemed

contingent, but withal indispensable for the requirements of
our_understanding, and, consequently, a finality by which
nature is in accord with our aim, but only so far as this is 25
directed to knowledge.—The universal laws of understanding,
which are equally laws of nature, are, although arising from
spontaneity, just as necessary for nature as the laws of motion
ma na Thee origin does not presuppose any
regard to our cognitive faculties, seeing that it is only by their 30
means that we first come by any conception of the meaning of
187 a knowledge of things (of nature), and they of necessity apply

Introduction 27

to nature as Object of our cognition in general. But it is
contingent, so far as we can see, that the order of nature in its
particular laws, with their wealth of at least possible variety
and heterogeneity transcending all our powers of compre-

shension, should still in actual fact be commensurate with
these powers. To find out this order is an undertaking on
the part of our understanding, which pursues it with a regard
to a necessary end of its own, that, namely, of introducing into
nature unity of principle. This end must, then, be attributed

toto nature by judgement, since no law can be here prescribed
to it by understanding.

The attainment_of every aim_is coupled with _a feeling of
-pleasure. Now where such attainment has for its condition
a representation a priori—as here a principle for the reflective

15 judgement in general—the feeling of pleasure also is deter-
mined by a ground which is a Zrzorf and valid for all men:
ind that, too, merely by virtue of the reference of the Object
to our faculty of cognition. As the concept of finality here
takes no cognizance whatever of the faculty of desire, it differs
ao entirely from all practical finality of nature.

As a matter of fact, we do not, and cannot, find in ourselves
the slightest effect on the feeling of pleasure from the coin-
cidence of perceptions with the laws in accordance with the
universal concepts of nature (the Categories), since in their

ag case understanding necessarily follows the bent of its own
nature without ulterior aim. But, while this is so, the dis-
covery, on the other hand, that two or more_empirical
heterogeneous laws of nature are allied under one principle

“that embraces then both, ts the ground of a very appreciable
40 pleasure, often even of admiration, and such, too, as does not wear
even though we are already familiar enough with its object.
“Tris true that we no longer notice any decided pleasure in the
comprehensibility of nature, or in the unity of its divisions into
genera and species, without which the empirical concepts, that
35 afford us our knowledge of nature in its particular laws, would

28 Critique of Judgement

not be possible. Still it is certain that the pleasure appeared
in due course, and only by reason of the most ordinary ex-
perience being impossible without it, has it become gradually
fused with simple cognition, and no longer arrests particular
attention. Something, then, that makes us attentive in our §
estimate of nature to its finality for our understanding—an
endeavour to bring, where possible, its heterogeneous laws
under higher, though still always empirical, laws—is required,

188 in order that, on meeting with success, pleasure may be felt

in this their accord with our cognitive faculty, which accord 10
is regarded by us as purely contingent. As against this
a representation of nature would be altogether displeasing
to us, were we to be forewarned by it that, on the least in-
vestigation carried beyond the commonest experience, we
should come in contact with such a heterogeneity of its 15
laws as would make the union of its particular laws under
universal empirical laws impossible for our understanding.
For this would conflict with the principle of the subjectively
final specification of nature in its genera, and with our own
reflective judgement in respect thereof. 20
Vet this presupposition of judgement is so indeterminate
on the question of the extent of the prevalence of that ideal
finality of nature for our cognitive faculties, that if we are told
that a more searching or enlarged knowledge of nature, derived
from observation, must eventually bring us into contact with 25
a multiplicity of laws that no human understanding could
reduce to a principle, we can reconcile ourselves to the thought.
But still we listen more gladly to others who hold out to us
the hope that the more intimately we come to know the
secrets of nature, or the better we are able to compare it with 30
external members as yet unknown to us, the more simple shall
we find it in its principles, and the further our experience
advances the more harmonious shall we find it in the apparent
Heterogeneity of its empirical laws. For our judgement makes
it imperative upon us to proceed on the principle of the con- 35

Introduction 29

formity of nature to our faculty of cognition, so far as that
principle extends, without deciding—for the rule is not given
to us by a determinant judgement— whether bounds are any-
where set to it or not. For while in respect of the rational

5 employment of our cognitive faculty bounds may be definitely
determined, in the empirical field no such determination of
bounds is possible.

VII
THE AESTHETIC REPRESENTATION OF THE FINALITY OF
Io NATURE
T ich i rely subjective in the r ion of an

Object, i.e. what constitutes its reference to the Subject, not to
the object, is its aesthetic qualit . On the other hand, that
1g determination of the object (for the purpose of knowledge), is 189
“its logical validity. In thé cognition of an object of sense
oth sides resented conjointly. In the sense-represen-
tation of external things the Quality of space in which we intuite
them is the merely subjective side of my representation of them
ao (by which what the things are in themselves as Objects is left
quite open), and it is on account of that reference that the
object in being intuited in space is also thought merely as
a phenomemon. But despite its purely subjective Quality,
space is still a constituent of the knowledge of things as phe-
25 nomena. Sensation (here external) also agrees in expressing
a merely subjective side of our representations of external
things, but_one which is properly their matter (through which
“We are given something with real existence), just as space is
the mere a Zriori form of the possibility of their intuition ; and
30 SO sensation is, none the less, also employed in the cognition
of external Objects.
But that subjective side of a representation which is incapable
of Becoming an element-of cognition, is the pleasure-or displeasure

connected with it; for through it I cognize nothing in the

30 Critique of Judgement

object of the representation, although it may easily be the
result-of-the operation Of söme cognition or other. Now the
finality of a thing, so far as represented in our perception of it,
is in no way a quality of the object itself (for a quality of this
kind is not one that can be perceived), although it may be in- 5
ferred from a cognition of things. In the finality, therefore,
which is prior to the cognition of an Object, and which, even
apart from any desire to make use of the representation of it
for the purpose of a cognition, is yet immediately connected
with it, we have the subjective quality belonging to it that is 1

‘incapable of becoming a constituent of knowledge. Hence

‘tation of the finality—The only question is whether such

190

we only apply the term ‘final’ to the object on account of its
representation being immediately coupled with the feeling of
pleasure : and this representation itself is an aesthetic represen-

-

a representation of finality exists at all.

If pleasure is connected with the mere apprehension (afpre-
hensio) of the form of an object of intuition, apart from any
reference it may have toa concept for the purpose of a definite
cognition, this does not make the representation referable to 2
the Object, but solely to the Subject. In such a case the
pleasure can express nothing but the conformity of the Object
to the cognitive faculties brought into play in the reflective
judgement, and so far as they are in play, and hence merely
a subjective formal finality of the Object. For that apprehen-
sion of forms in the imagination can never take place without
the reflective judgement, even when it has no intention of so
doing, comparing them at least with its faculty of referring
intuitions to concepts. If, now, in this comparison, imagina-
tion (as the faculty of intuitions a riori) is undesignedly 3
brought into accord with understanding, (as the faculty of con-
cepts,) by means of a given representation, and a feeling of
pleasure is thereby aroused, then the object must be regarded
as final for the reflective judgement. A judgement of this kind
is an aesthetic judgement upon the finality of the Object, which 3

5

5

o

5

Introduction zı

does not depend upon any present concept of the object, and
does not provide one. When the form of an object (as opposed
to the matter of its representation, as sensation) is, ın the mere
“act of reflecting upon it, without regard to any concept to be
SObEINGE Lom iy santa as the ground of a pleasure in the
representation of ‘such an Object, then this pleasure is also
judged to be combined necessarily with the representation of
it, and so not merely for the Subject apprehending this form,
butfor all in general who pass judgement. The object 1s then
rSealled beautTal; and the zul of judging by means of such
"7 pleasure (and so also with universal validity) is called taste.
For since the ground of the pleasure is made to reside merely
in the form of the object for reflection generally, consequently
not in any sensation of the object, and without any reference,
15 either, toany concept that might have something or other in
view, it is with the conformity to law in the empirical employ-
ment of judgement generally (unity of imagination and under-
standing) in the Subject, and with this alone, that the repre-
sentation of the Object in reflection, the conditions of which
ao are universally valid a priori, accords. And, as this accordance
of the object with the faculties of the Subject is contingent, it
gives rise to a representation of a finality on the part of the
object in respect of the cognitive faculties of the Subject.
Here, now, is a pleasure which—as is the case with all
25 pleasure or displeasure that is not brought about through the
agency of the concept of freedom (i. e. through the antecedent
determination of the higher faculty of desire by means of pure
reason)—no concepts could ever enable us to regard as
necessarily connected with the representation of an object.
3o It_must always be only through r@feCtive perception that it is 191
cognized as conjoined with this representation. As with all
empirical judgements, it is, consequently, unable to announce
objective necessity or lay Claim to a priori validity. But,
then, the judgement of taste in fact t only lays claim, like every
35 other empirical judgement, to be valid for every one, and,”

32 Critique of Judgement

despite its inner contingency this is always possible. The only

Sa Sa.
point that is strange or out of the way about it, is that Lis not
an empirical concept, but a feeling of pleasure (and $0 not”
a concept at all), that is yet exacted from every one b the judge-

ment of taste, just asif it were a predicate united to the cOg-5
“ition of the Object, and that is meant to be conjoined with
its representation.

A singular empirical judgement, as, for example, the judge-
ment of one who perceives a movable drop of water in
a rock-crystal, rightly looks to every one finding the fact as 10
stated, since the judgement has been formed according to the
universal conditions of the determinant judgement under the
laws of a possible experience generally. In the same way one
who feels pleasure in simple reflection on the form of an object,
without having any concept in mind, rightly lays claim to the 15
agreement of every one, although this judgement is empirical
and a singular judgement. For the ground of this pleasure is
found in the universal, though subjective, condition of reflective
judgements, namely the final harmony of_an_ object (be it
a product of nature ren of 20
the faculties of cognition, (imagination and understanding,)
which are requisite for every empirical cognition. The pleasure
in judgements of_taste_is, therefore, dependent_doubtless
on an empirical representation, and cannot be united a priori
fo any concept (one cannot determine a Prior! what object 25
will be in accordance with taste or not—one must find
out the object that is so); but then it is only made the
determining ground of this judgement by virtue of our con-
sciousness of its resting simply upon reflection and the universal,
though only subjective, conditions of the harmony of that 30
reflection with the knowledge -of objects generally, for which
the form of the Object is final.

This is why judgements of taste are subjected to a Critique in
respect of their possibility. their possibility presupposes an

ziori principle, although that_princi ither a cognitive 35

Introduchon 33

_principle for understanding nor a practical_principle_for the 192
will, and is thus in no way determinant a prior?.
Susceptibility to pleasure arising from reflection on the forms
of things (whether of nature or of art) betokens, however, not
5 only a finality on the part of Objects in their relation to the
reflective judgement in the Subject, in accordance with the
concept of nature, but also, conversely, a finality on the part of
the Subject, answering to the concept of freedom, in respect
of the form, or even formlessness, of objects. The result is that
|| 10 the aesthetic judgement refers not merely, as a judgement of
taste, to the beautiful, but also, as springing from a higher
intellectual feeling, to the swdZime. Hence the above-mentioned
Critique of Aesthetic Judgement must be divided on these
lines into two main parts.

15 VIII

THE LocicaL REPRESENTATION OF THE FINALITY
OF NATURE

THERE are two ways in which finality may be represented in
an object given in experience. It may be made to turn on
20 what is purely subjective. In this case the object is considered
in respect of its form as present in apprehension (apprehensio)
prior to any concept ; and the harmony of this form with the
cognitive faculties, promoting the combination of the intuition
with concepts for cognition generally, is represented as a finality
25 of the form of the object. Or, on the other hand, the representa-
tion of finality may be made to turn on what is objective, in which
case it is represented as the harmony of the form of the object
with the possibility of the thing itself according to an antecedent
concept of it containing the ground of this form. We have
30 seen that the representation of the former kind of finality rests
on the pleasure immediately felt in mere reflection on the form
of the object. But that of the latter kind of finality, as it refers
1193 D

34 Critique of Judgement

the form of the Object, not to the Subject’s cognitive faculties
engaged in its apprehension, but to a definite cognition of the
object under a given concept, has nothing to do with a feeling
of pleasure in things, but only with understanding and its
estimate of them, Where the concept of an object is given, 5
the function of judgement, in its employment of that concept
for cognition, consists in presentation (exhibitio), i.e. in placing
beside the concept an intuition corresponding to it. Here it
may be that our own imagination is the agent employed, as in
the case of art, where we realize a preconceived concept of an ro
object which we set before ourselves as an end. Or the agent
may be nature in its technic, (as in the case of organic bodies,)
when we read into it our own concept of an end to assist our
estimate of its product. In this case what is represented
is not a mere jrva/ity of nature in the form of the thing, but 15
this very product as a watura/ end,—Although our concept
hat nature, in its empirical laws, is subjectively final in its
ei is in no way a coricept of the Object, but only a
principle of judgement for providing itself with concepts in the
vast multiplicity of nature, so that it may be able to take its 20
bearings, yet, on the analogy of an end, as it were a regard to
our cognitive faculties is here attributed to nature. Narural
eauty may, therefore, be looked on as the fresenfation ©
‚concept of formal, 1. e. merely subjective, finality and vazuralends
‘as the presentation of the concept ofa real, i.e. objective, finality. 25
"The former of these we estimate by taste (aesthetically by means
weason (logically according to Concepts).
On these considerations is based the division of the Critique
of Judgement into that of the aesthetic and the 7elrological 30
Judgement. _By the first is meant the faculty of estimating
Formal finality (otherwise called subjective) by the feeling of
pleasure or displeasure, by the second the faculty of estimating

the real finality (objective) of nature by understanding and
reason.
3

—

or

Introduction 35

In a Critique of Judgement the part dealing with aestheti
judgement is essentially relevant, as it alone contains a principle
introduced by judgement completely a friori as the basis of its
reflection upon nature. This is the principle of nature’s formal

5 finality for our cognitive faculties in its particular (empirical)
laws—a principle without which understanding could not feel
itself at home in nature : whereas no reason is assignable a prio71,
nor is so much as the possibility of one apparent from the concept
of nature as an object of experience, whether in its universal or

to in its particular aspects, why there should be objective ends of
nature, i.e. things only possible as natural ends. But it is only
judgement that, without being itself possessed a friori of a
principle in that behalf, in actually occurring cases (of certain
products) contains the rule for making use of the concept of

1g ends in the interest of reason, after that the above transcen- 194
dental principle has already prepared understanding to apply to
nature the concept of an end (at least in respect of its form).

But the transcendental principle by which a finality of nature,
in its subjective reference to our cognitive faculties, is

20 represented in the ‚form of a thing as a principle of its
estimation, leaves quite undetermined the question of where
and in what cases we have to make our estimate of the object
as a product according to a principle of finality, instead of
simply according to universal laws of nature. It resigns to the

25 aesthetic judgement the task of deciding the conformity_of
this product (in ıts form) to our cognitive faculties as
-a question of taste (a matter which the aesthetic judgement
decides, not by any harmony with concepts, but by_ feeling).
On the other hand judgement as teleologically employed

30 assigns the determinate conditions under which something
(e.g. an organized body) is to be estimated after the idea of
an end of nature. But it can adduce no principle from the
concept of nature, as an object of experience, to give it its
authority to ascribe a vitor? to nature a reference to ends, or

35 even only indeterminately to assume them from actual ex-

D2

b6 Critique of Judgement

perience in the case of such products. The reason of this is
that in order to be able merely empirically to cognize objective
finality in a certain object, many particular experiences must be
collected and reviewed under the unity of their principle —
jAesthetic_ judgement is, therefore, a special faculty of estima-5
ting according to a rule, but not according to concepts. The
teleological is not a special faculty, but only general reflective
judgement proceeding, as it always does in theoretical cog-
nition, according to concepts, but in respect of certain objects
of nature, following special principles—those, namely, of a1o
judgement that is merely reflective and does not determine
Objects. Hence, as regards its application, it belongs to the
theoretical part of philosophy, and on account of its special
principles, which are not determinant, as principles belonging
to doctrine have to be, it must also form a special part of thers
Critique. On the other hand the aesthetic judgement con-
tributes nothing to the cognition of its objects. Hence it
must only be allocated to the Critique of the judging Subject
and of its faculties of knowledge so far as these are capable of
possessing a priort principles, be their use (theoretical or 20
practical) otherwise what it may—a Critique which is the
propaedeutic of all philosophy.

195 IX
JOINDER OF THE LEGISLATIONS OF UNDERSTANDING
AND REASON BY MEANS OF JUDGEMENT 25
UNDERSTANDING prescribes laws a friori for nature as an
Object of sense, so that we may have a theoretical knowledge
of it in a possible experience. Reason prescribes laws a priori
for freedom and its peculiar causality as the supersensible
in the Subject, so that we may have a purely practical know- 30
ledge. The realm of the concept of nature under the one
legislation, and that of the concept of freedom under the other,
are completely cut off from all reciprocal influence, that they
might severally (each according to its own principles) exert
upon the other, by the broad gulf that divides the super- 35

Introduction 37

sensible from phenomena. The concept of freedom determines
nothing in respect of the theoretical cognition of nature; and
the concept of nature likewise nothing in respect of the
practical laws of freedom. To that extent, then, it is not
5 possible to throw a bridge from the one realm to the
other.—Yet although the determining grounds of causality
according to the concept of freedom (and the practical rule that
this contains) have no place in nature, and the sensible cannot
determine the supersensible in the Subject; still the converse
10 is possible (not, it is true, in respect of the knowledge of nature,
but of the consequences arising from the supersensible and
bearing on the sensible). So much indeed is implied in
the concept of a causality by freedom, the operation of which,
in conformity with the formal laws of freedom, is to take effect
1g in the world. The word cause, however, in its application to
the supersensible only signifies the ground that determines the
causality of things of nature to an effect in conformity with
their appropriate natural laws, but at the same time also in
unison with the formal principle of the laws of reason—a
20 ground which, while its possibility is impenetrable, may
still be completely cleared of the charge of contradiction
that it.is alleged to involve. The effect in accordance with

1 One of the various supposed contradictions in this complete dis-
tinction of the causality of nature from that through freedom, is expressed
25 in the objection that when I speak of hindrances opposed by nature to
causality according to laws of freedom (moral laws) or of assistance lent
to it by nature, I am all the time admitting an influence of the former upon
the latter. But the misinterpretation is easily avoided, if attention is
only paid to the meaning of the statement. The resistance or further-
30 ance is not between nature and freedom, but between the former as
phenomenon and the effects of the latter as phenomena in the world of
sense, Even the causality of freedom (of pure and practical reason) is
the causality of a natural cause subordinated to freedom (a causality of
the Subject regarded as man, and consequently as a phenomenon), and
35 one, the ground of whose determination is contained in the intelligible,
that is thought under freedom, in a manner that is not further or other-
wise explicable (just as in the case of that intelligible that forms the
supersensible substrate of nature).

38 Critique of Judgement

196 the concept of freedom is the final end which (or the mani-
festation of which in the sensible worldyis to exist, and this
presupposes the condition of the possibilit¥ of that end in nature
Tre. in the nature of the Subject as a being of the sensible
world, namely, as man). Itis so presupposed a priort, and with- 5
out regard to the practical, by judgement. This faculty, with its
concept of a finality of nature, provides us with the mediating
concept between concepts of nature and the concept of freedom
—a concept that makes possible the transition from the pure
theoretical [legislation of understanding] to the pure practical 10
[legislation of reason | and from conformity to law in accordance
with the former to final ends according to the latter. For through
that concept we cognize the possibility of the final end that can
only be actualized in nature and in harmony with its laws.

Understanding, by the possibility of its supplying a Aviori 15
laws for nature, furnishes a proof of the fact that nature is
‘cognized by us only as phenomenon, and in so doing points to
‘its having a supersensible substrate ; but this substrate it leaves
quite undetermined. Judgement by the a priori principle of its
estimation of nature ee Teco rule particular laws 20
provides this supersensible substrate (within as well as without
us) with determinability through the intellectual faculty, But
reason gives determination to the same a prior? by its practical
Taw. Thus judgement makes possible the transition from the
realm of the concept of nature to that of the concept of freedom. 23
~ In respect of the faculties of the _soul_generally, regarded
as higher faculties, i.e. as faculties containing an autonomy,
understanding is the one that contains the constitutive a priori
principles for the faculty of cognition (the theoretical knowledge
of nature). The feeling of pleasure and displeasure is provided 30
for by the judgement wits independence rau soneepis and
"front sensations that refer to the determination of the faculty
-197 of desire and would thus be capable of being immediately
practical. For the faculty of desire there is reason, which is
practical without mediation of any pleasure of whatsoever 35

Introduchon 39

origin, and which determines for it, as a higher faculty, the
final end that is attended at the same time with pure intel-
lectual delight in the Object. —Judgement’s concept of a finality
of nature falls, besides, under the head of natural concepts, but
5 only asa regulative principle of the cognitive faculties—although
the aesthetic judgement on certain objects (of nature or of art)
which occasions that concept, is a constitutive principle in respect
of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. The spontaneity in
the play of the cognitive faculties whose harmonious accord con-
10 tains the ground of this pleasure, makes the concept in question;
in its consequences, a suitable mediating link connecting the_
realm of the concept of nature with that of the concept of
freedom, as this accord at the same time promotes the sensibility
of the mind for moral feeling. The following table may facilitate
15 the review of all the above faculties in their systematic unity."

List of Mental Faculties Cognitive Faculties
Cognitive faculties Understanding
Feeling of pleasure and displeasure Judgement
Faculty of desire Reason

20 A priori Principles Application
Conformity to law Nature
Finality_ - u Art
Final End Freedom

1 It has been thought somewhat suspicious that my divisions in pure
25 philosophy should almost always come out threefold. But it is due to
the nature of the case. Ifa division is to be a priori it must be either
analytic, according to the law of contradiction—and then it is always
twofold (quodlibet ens est aut A aut non A)—or else it is synthetic. If
it is to be derived in the latter case from a priori concepts (not, as in
30 mathematics, from the @ prior intuition corresponding to the concept,)
then, to meet the requirements of synthetic unity in general, namely
(1) a condition, (2) a conditioned, (3) the concept arising from the union
of the conditioned with its condition, the division must of necessity be
trichotomous.

DIVISION OF THE ENTIRE WORK

FIRST PART
CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

FIRST SECTION
ANALYTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

FIRST BOOK

ANALYTIC OF THE BEAUTIFUL

SECOND BOOK

ANALYTIC OF THE SUBLIME

SECOND SECTION
DIALECTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

SECOND PART!
CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT

FIRST DIVISION

ANALYTIC OF TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT

SECOND DIVISION

DIALECTIC OF TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT

APPENDIX

METHODOLOGY OF TELEOLOGICAL JUDGEMENT

1 A translation of this part is here omitted, being outside the scope of
the present work.

THE CRITIQUE OF JUDGEMENT

PART I
CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

FIRST SECTION 203
ANALYTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

FIRST BOOK
ANALYTIC OF THE BEAUTIFUL

FIRST MOMENT

OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE}; MOMENT OF QUALITY

$ı
The judgement of taste is aesthetic.

Iz-we-wistrto discern whether anything is beautiful or not, we
do not refer the representation of it to the Object by means of

understanding with a view to cognition, but by means of the im-
15 agination (acting perhaps in conjunction with understanding) we

refer the representation to the Subject and its feeling of pleasure _

or displeasure. (The judgement of taste,)therefore, is not a
“cognitive judge judgement, and so not logical, but is aesthetic—which |
means that it is one whose _determining ground cannot be

—_—

20 | The definition of taste here relied upon is that it is the faculty of
estimating the beautiful. But the discovery of what is required for
calling an object beautiful must be reserved for the analysis of judge-
ments of taste. In my search for the moments to which attention is paid
by this judgement in its reflection, I have followed the guidance of the

25 logical functions of judging (for a judgement of taste always involves a
reference to understanding). I have brought the moment of quality first
under review, because this is what the aesthetic judgement on the beau-
tiful looks to in the first instance.

42 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

Uther than_subjective. “very reference of representations is
capable of being objective, even that of sensations (in which
Tase it signifies the real in an empirical representation). The
204 one exception to this is the feeling of pleasure or displeasure.
This denotes nothing in the object, but is a feeling which the 5
Subject has of itself and of the manner in which it is affected
by the representation. gta
To apprehend a regular and appropriate building with one’s
cognitive faculties, be the mode of representation clear or
confused, is quite a different thing from being conscious of 10
this representation with an accompanying sensation of delight.
Here the representation is referred wholly to the Subject,
and what is more to its feeling of life—under the name of
the feeling of pleasure or displeasure—and this forms the basis
of a quite separate faculty of discriminating and estimating, that 15
contributes nothing to knowledge. All it does is to compare
the given representation in the Subject with the entire faculty
of representations of which the mind is conscious in the feeling
of its state. Given representations in a judgement may be
empirical, and so aesthetic ; but the judgement which is pro- 20
nounced by their means is logical, provided it r&fers them to
the Object. Conversely, be the given representations even
rational, but referred in a judgement solely to the Subject (to
its feeling), they are always to that extent aesthetic.

§ 2 a5
The delight which determines the judgement of
taste is independent of all interest.

THE delight which we connect with the representation of the
real existence of an object is called interest. “Such a delight,
therefore, always involves a reference to the faculty of desire, 30
either as its determining ground, or else as necessarily implicated
with its determining ground.f Now, where the question is

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. First Moment 43

whether something is beautiful, we do not want to know,
whether-we, or any one else, are, or even could be, concerned
in the real existence of the thing, but rather what estimate we
form of it on mere ace wins or reflection). If
§ any one asks me whether I consider that the palace I see before
me is beautiful, I may, perhaps, reply that I do not care for
things of that sort that are merely made to be gaped at. Or I
may reply in the same strain as that Iroquois sackem who said
that nothing in Paris pleased him better than the eating-houses.,
10 I may even goa step further and inveigh with the vigour of 205
a Rousseau against the vanity of the great who spend the sweat)
of the people on such superfluous things. Or, in fine, I may:
quite easily persuade myself that if I found myself on an unin-
habited island, without hope of ever again coming among men,
ı5 and could conjure such a palace into existence by a mere wish,
I should still not trouble to do so, so long as I had a hut there
that was comfortable enough for me. All this may be admitted
and approved ; only it is not the point now at issue. All one
wants to know is whether the mere representation of the object
20 is to my liking, no matter how indifferent I may be to the real
er able * It-isquite
plain that in order to say that the object 7s deazäful, and.to.
show that I have taste, everything turns on the meaning which
I can_give to this representation, and not on any re which

25 ‘és me dependent on the real existence of the objec ‚very
one must allow that a judgement on the beautiful ch is
tinged with the slightest interest, is very partial and not a pure
judgement_of taste, One must not be in the least prepos-
sessed in favour of the real existence-of the thing, but must

30 preserve complete indifference in this respect, in order to play
the pai judgé in matters of ea

This proposition, which is of the trtfmost importance, cannot
be better explained than by contrasting the pure disinterested !

1 A judgement upon an object of our delight may be wholly disinterested
35 but withal very interesting, i.e. it relies on no interest, but it produces

44 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

delight which appears in the judgement of taste with that allied
to an interest—especially if we can also assure ourselves that
there are no other kinds of interest beyond those presently to

be mentioned.

§ 3 5
Delight IN THE AGREEABLE 15 coupled with interest.

That is AGREEABLE which the senses find pleasing in sensation.
This at once affords a convenient opportunity for condemning
and directing particular attention to a prevalent confusion of
the double meaning of which the word ‘sensation’ is capable. 10
All delight (as is said or thought) is itself sensation (of a

206 pleasure). Consequently everything that pleases, and for the
TE according to its
iferent degrees, or its relations to other agreeable sensations,
is attractive, charming, delicious, enjoyable, &c. But if this is
conceded, then impressions of sense, which determine inclination,
or principles of reason, which determine the will, or mere con-
templated forms of intuition, which determine judgement, are
all on a par in everything relevant to their effect upon the
feeling of pleasure, for this would be agreeableness in the 20
sensation of one’s state; and since, in the last resort, all the
elaborate work of our faculties must issue in and unite in the
practical as its goal, we could credit our faculties with no other
appreciation of things and the worth of things, than that con-
sisting in the gratification which they promise. ae 25
attained is in the end immaterial ; and, as the choice of the
means is here the only thing that can make a difference, men
might indeed blame one another for folly or imprudence, but
never for baseness or wickedness ; for they are all, each accord-

4

5

one. Of this kind are all pure moral judgements. But, of themselves, 30
judgements of taste do not even set up any interest whatsoever. Only
in society is it ınferesting to have taste—a point which will be explained
in the sequel.

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. First Moment 45

ing to his own way of looking at things, pursuing one goal,
which for each is the gratification in question.

When a modification of the feeling of pleasure or displeasure
is termed sensation, this expression is given quite a different

§ meaning to that which it bears when I call the representation of
a thing (through sense as a receptivity pertaining to the faculty
of knowledge) sensation. For in the latter case the representa-
tion is referred to the Object, but in the former it is referred
solely to the Subject and is not available for any cognition, not

10 even for that by which the Subject cognzzes itself.

Now in the above definition the word sensation is used to
denote an objective representation of sense; and, to avoid con-
tinually running the risk of misinterpretation, we shall call that
which must always remain purely subjective, and is absolutely

15 incapable of forming a representation of an object, by the

familiar name of feeling. "The green colour of the meadows
balan fo ec coon, a tie a!
sense ; but its agreeableness to sudyjective sensation, by which
no object is represented: re. to feeling, through whic e
20 object is Tegarded as an Object of delight (which involves
no cognition of the object).

Now, that a judgement on an object by which its agreeable-
ness is affirmed, expresses an interest in it, is evident from the
fact that through sensation it provokes a desire for similar objects,

2x consequently the delight presupposes, not the simple judgement
about it, but the bearing its real existence has upon my state so
far as affected by such an Object. Hence we do not_merely
say Sethe antenne Maat pias Dat that i peatiies I do
rt accord it a simple approval, but inclination is aroused by
30 it, and where agreeableness is of the liveliest type a judgement
on the character of the Object is so entirely out of place, that
those who are always intent only on enjoyment (for that is the

word used to denote intensity of gratification) would fain dis-
pense with all judgement.

207

46 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

$4
Delight is THE GOOD is coupled with interest.

That is good which by means of reason commends itself by

its mere concept, We call that good for something (useful)
which only pleases as a means ; but that which pleases on its 5
own account we call good in itself. in Both cases tS COMED
of an end is implied, and consequently the relation of reason
to (at least possible) willing, and thus a delight in the ex¢stence
of an Object or action, i.e. some interest or other.

To deem something good, I must always know what sort of 10
a thing the object is intended to be, i.e. I must have a concept -
of it. That is not necessary to enable me to see beauty in
a thing. Flowers, free patterns, lines aimlessly intertwining—
technically termed foliage,—have no signification, depend upon
no definite concept, and yet please. Delight in the beautiful ı;
must depend upon the reflection on an object precursory to
some (not definitely determined) concept. It is thus also
differentiated from the agreeable, which rests entirely upon
sensation.

In many cases, no doubt, the agreeable and the good seem 20
convertible terms. Thus it is commonly said that all (especi-
ally lasting) gratification is of itself good; which is almost
equivalent to saying that to be permanently agreeable and to
be good are identical. But it is readily apparent that this is
merely a vicious confusion of words, for the concepts appro- 25

208 priate to these expressions are far from interchangeable. The
agreeable, which, as such, represents the object solel in
principles of reason through the concept of an end, to be, as an
‘object of will, called good. But that the reference to delight is 30
wholly different where what gratifies is at the same time called

god, is evident from the fact that with the good the question

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. First Moment 47

always is whether it is mediately or immediately good, i.e, useful
dt good in itself; whereas with_the agreeable this point can
never arise, since the word always means what pleases immedi-
ately—and it is just the same with what I call beautiful.
5s Eveni yday parlance a distinction is drawn between
the agreeable and the good. é do not-scruple to say of
a dish that stimulates the palate with spices and other condi-
ments that it is agreeable—owning all the while that it is not
good: because, while it immediately sa¢isfies the senses, it is
ro mediately displeasing, i.e. in the eye of reason that looks
ahead to the consequences. Even in our estimate of health
this same distinction may be traced. To all that possess it, it
is immediately agreeable—at least negatively, i.e. as remoteness
of all bodily pains. But, if we are to say that it is good, we
15 must further apply to reason to direct it to ends, that is, we
must regard it as a state that puts us in a congenial mood
for all we have to do. Finally, in respect of happiness every
one believes that the greatest aggregate of the pleasures
of life, taking duration as well as number into account, merits
20 the name of a true, nay even of the highest, good. But reason
sets its face against this too. Agreeableness is enjoyment.
But if this is all that we are bent on Te wenig be Iöcleh t be
scrupulous about the means that procure it for us—whether it
be obtained passively by the bounty of nature or actively and
as by the work of our own hands. But that there is any intrinsic
worth in the real existence of a man who merely lives for
enjoyment, however busy he may be in this respect, even when
in so doing he serves others—all equally with himself intent
only on enjoyment—as an excellent means to that one end,
30 and does so, moreover, because through sympathy he shares
all their gratifications,—this is a view to which reason will
never let itself be brought round. “Only by what a man does
heedless of enjoyment, in complete freedom and independently
of what he can procure passively from the hand of nature, does
35 he give to his existence, as the real existence of a person, an 209

48 Critique of Judgement
Part 1. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

absolute worth. Happiness, with all its plethora of pleasures,
is far from being an unconditioned good."

But, despite all this difference between the agreeable and
the good, they both agree in being invariably coupled with an
interest in their object. This is true, not alone of the agree- 5
able, $ 3, and of the mediately good, i.e. the useful, which pleases
as a means to some pleasure, but also of that which is good
absolutely and from every point of view, namely the moral
good which carries with it the highest interest. vFor the good
is the Object of will, i.e. of a rationally determined faculty of 10
desire). But to will something, and to take a delight in its
existence, i.e. to take an interest in it, are identical,

$5
Comparison of the three specifically different kinds of delight.

BoTH the Agreeable and the Good involve a reference to 15
the faculty of desire, and are thus attended, the former with
a delight pathologically conditioned (by stimuli), the latter
with a pure practical delight. Such delight is determined
not merely by the representation of the object, but also
by the represented bond of connexion between the Subject 20
and the real existence of the object. It is not merely
the object, but also its real existence, that pleases. On
the other hand the judgement of taste is simply contem-
plative, i.e. it is a judgement which is indifferent as to_the
existence of an object, and’ only decides how its character 25
stands with the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. But not
even is this contemplation itself directed to concepts ; for the

1 An obligation to enjoyment is a patent absurdity. And the same,
then, must also be said of a supposed obligation to actions that have
merely enjoyment for their aim, no matter how spiritually this enjoy- 3°
ment may be refined in thought (or embellished), and even if it be a
mystical, so-called heavenly, enjoyment.

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. First Moment 49

judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement (neither
a theoretical one nor a practical), and hence, also, is not
ounded on concepts, nor yet intentionally directed to them.
Five agreeable, the beautiful, and the good thus denote
5 tree different retattons-of representations to-the-feeling of
pleasure and displeasure, as a feeling in respect of which we
distinguish different objects or modes of representation. Also,
the-corresponding expressions which indicate our satisfaction
in them are different. The agreeable is what GRATIFIES a man ;
tothe deautiful what simply PLEASES him ; the good what is
ESTBEMED (approved), i.e. that on which he sets an objective
worth; Agreeableness isa : significant factor even with irrational
animals ; beauty has purport and significance only for human
Een i.e. for beings at once animal and rational (but not
15 merely for them as rational—intelligent beings—but only for
them as at once animal and rational) ; whereas the good is good
for every rational being in general ;—a proposition which can
only receive its complete justification and explanation in the,
sequel.' Of all these three kinds of delight, that of taste in
20 the beautiful may be said to be the one and only disin-
terested and free delight ; for, with_it, no interest, whether of

"sense or reason, extorts approval. And so we may say that
“delight, in the three cases mentioned, is related to inclination, to
favour, or to respect. For Favour is the only free liking. An
25 object of inclination, and one which a law of reason imposes
upon our desire, leaves us no freedom to turn anything into an
object of pleasure. All interest presupposes a want, or calls
one forth ; and, being a ground determining approval, deprives

the judgement on the object of its freedom. EUR
30 So far as the interest of inclination in the case of the
agreeable goes, every one says: Hunger is the best sauce ; and
people with a healthy appetite relish everything, so long as it is
something they can eat. Such delight, consequently, gives
no indication of taste having anything to say to the choice.
35 Only when men have got all they want can we tell who among

1193 E

210

211

50 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

the crowd has taste or not; Similarly there may be correct
habits (conduct) 1 without Virtue, politeness without good-will,
propriety without honour, &c. For where the moral law
dictates, there is, objectively, no room left for free choice as to
what one has to do; and to show taste in the way one carries 5
out these dictates, or in estimating the way others do so, is
a totally different matter from displaying the moral frame of
one’s mind. For the latter involves a command and produces
a need of something, whereas moral taste only plays with the
objects of delight without devoting itself sincerely to any. 10

DEFINITION OF THE BEAUTIFUL DERIVED FROM THE
FIRST MOMENT

Taste is the faculty of estimating an object or a mode of
representation by means of a delight or aversion apart from
any interest. The object of such a delight is called deautiful. 15

SECOND MOMENT

OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE: MOMENT OF QUANTITY

$6
The beautiful is that which, apart from concepts, is represented
Ze: as the Object Of a UNIVERSAL delight. 20

Tuis definition of the beautiful i is deducible from the_fore-

going definition of it as an object of delight ay apart from ; any
interest. For where any one is conscious that his delight in

ew
an object is with him independent of interest, it is nahe

that he should look on the object as one containing a a ground 4
of delight for allmen. For, since the ‘delight i is not based on any

inclination of the Subject (or on any other deliberate interest),

but “the | Subject feels himself completely /ree in respect_of the

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Second Moment 51

liking which he accords to the object, he can find as reason for
ie an Prem condone fe which | his own subjective
self fight alone be be party. party. Hence he must regard it. it as s resting oni
what he may also presuppose in every other person ; and there-
5 foré-hé must believe that he has reason for demanding a similar
delight from every one. Accordingly he will speak of the beauti-
ful as if beauty were a quality of the object and the judgement
logical (formin a_cognition of the Object by concepts of it) ;
although it is only aesthetic, and contains merely a reference
to of the representation of the object to the Subject ;—because
it still bears this resemblance to the logical judgement, that it
may be presupposed to be valid for all men. But this univer-
sality cannot spring from concepts. For from concepts there is
no transition to the feeling of pleasure or displeasure (save in
ı5 the case of pure practical laws, which, however, carry an
interest with them; and such an interest does not attach
, to the pure judgement of taste). The result is that the judgeN\ 212
ment of taste, with its attendant consciousness of detachment
from all interest, must involve a claim to validity for all
zo men, and must do so apart from universality attached to
Objects, i.e. there must be coupled with it a claim to subjective
universality.

$7

Comparison of the beautiful with the agreeable and the good
25 by means of the above characteristic.

As regards the agreeable every one concedes that his judge-
ment, which he bases on a private feeling, and in which he
declares that an object pleases him, is restricted merely to
himself personally. Thus he does not take it amiss if, when

30 he says that Canary-wine is agreeable, another corrects the
expression and reminds him that he ought to say: It is agree-
able zo me. This applies not only to the taste of the tongue,
the palate, and the throat, but to what may with any one be
agreeable to eye or ear. A violet colour is to one soft and

E 2

52 Critique of Judgement
Part 1. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

lovely : to another dull and faded. One man likes the tone
of wind instruments, another prefers that of string instruments.
To quarrel over such points with the idea of condemning
another’s judgement as incorrect when it differs from our own,
as if the opposition between the two judgements were logical, 5
"would be folly. With the agreeable, therefore, the axiom holds
good : Every one.has his own_taste (that of sense).

The beautiful stands_on quite a different footing. It would,
on “the contrary, be ridiculous if any one who plumed
himself on his taste were to think of justifying himself by 10
saying: This object (the building we see, the dress that
person has on, the concert we hear, the poem submitted to our
criticism) is beautiful for me. For if it merely pleases kin, he
must not call it deautifu. Many things may for him possess
charm and agreeableness—no one cares about that ; but when rs
he puts a thing on a pedestal and calls it beautiful, he demands
the same delight from others. He judges not merely for him-
self, but for all men, and then speaks of beauty as if it were
a property of things. Thus he says the ¢Azmg is beautiful ; and
itis not as if he counted on others agreeing in his judgement 20

213 of liking owing to his having found them in such agree-
ment on a number of occasions, but he demands this agreement
of them. He blames them if they judge differently, and denies
them | taste, which he stil still requires of them as something they—
ought to have; and to this extent it is not open to men to say: 25
Every one has his own taste. This would be equivalent to
saying that there is no such thing at all as taste, i.e. no aesthetic
brat men capable of making a rightful claim upon the assent

f all men.

Yet even in the case of the agreeable we find that the 30
estimates men form do betray a prevalent agreement among
them, which leads to our crediting some with taste and denying
it to others, and that, too, not as an organic sense but as
a critical faculty in respect of the agreeable generally. So of

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Second Moment 53

one who knows how to entertain his guests with pleasures (of
enjoyment through all the senses) in such a way that one and
all are pleased, we say that he has taste. But the universality
here is only understood in a comparative sense; and the rules
5that apply are, like all empirical rules, gezeral only, not
universal, —the latter being what the judgement of taste upon
the beautiful deals or claims to deal in. It is a judgement in
respect of sociability so far as resting on empirical rules. In
respect of the good it is true that judgements also rightly assert
10a claim to validity for every one; but the good is only repre-
sented as an Object of universal delight dy means of a concept,
which is the case neither with the agreeable nor the beautiful.

§ 8
In a judgement of taste the universality of delight is only
15 represented as subjective.

Tus particular form of the universality of an aesthetic
judgement, which is to be met with in a judgement of taste, is
a significant feature, not for the logician certainly, but for the
transcendental philosopher. It calls for no small effort on his
20 part to discover its origin, but in return it brings to light
a property of our cognitive faculty which, without this analysis,
would have remained unknown. *
First, one must get firmly into one’s mind that by the
judgement of taste (upon the beautiful) the delight in angry
25 object is imputed to every one, yet without being founded on
a concept (for then it would be the good), and that this claim’
to universality is such an essential factor of a judgement by
which we describe anything as deauzifu/, that were it not for its
being present to the mind it would never enter into any one’s
30 head to use this expression, but everything that pleased without‘
a concept would be ranked as agreeable. For in respect of the
agreeable every one is allowed to have his own opinion, and
no one insists upon others agreeing with his judgement of

54 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

taste, which is what is invariably done in the judgement of
taste about beauty. The first of these I may call the taste
of sense, the second, the taste..of_reflection : the first laying
down judgements imerely private,the second, on the other
hand, judgements ostensibly of general validity (public), but 5
both alike being aesthetic (not practical) judgements about an
object merely in Seca ohare bearings HCE vepicacatation on
the feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Now it does seem
strange that while with the taste of sense it is not alone ex-
perience that shows that its judgement (of pleasure or displeasure to
in something) is not universally valid, but every one willingly
refrains from imputing this agreement to others (despite the
frequent actual prevalence of a considerable consensus of
general opinion even in these judgements), the taste of
reflection, which, as experience teaches, has often enough to 15
put up with a rude dismissal of its claims to universal validity
of its judgement (upon the beautiful), can (as it actually does)
find it possible for all that, to formulate judgements capable of
demanding this agreement in its universality. Such agreement
it does in fact require from every one for each of its judgements 20
of taste,—the persons who pass these judgements not
quarrelling over the possibility of such a claim, but only failing
in particular cases to come to terms as to the correct application
of this faculty: j =
First of all we have her& to note that a universality which 25
does not rest upon concepts of the Object (even though these
are only empirical) is in no way logical, but aesthetic, i.e. does
not involve any objective quantity of the judgement, but only
one that is subjective. For this universality I use the expression
general validity, which denotes the validity of the reference of 30
a representation, not to the cognitive faculties, but to _the
feging-ef-plemure or displeasure for every Subject. (The
Sr expression, however, may also be employed for the logical
215 quantity of the judgement, provided we add odjective universal

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Second Moment 55

validity, to distinguish it from the merely subjective validity
which is always aesthetic.)
Now a jud t_ that has objective universal validit AL. ‚has

5 everything which is a under: a2 given n concept, it is
valid also for ‘all who represent an object byt means of. this
concept. pt. But from: a subjective universal vali “dity, i. i.e. the aes-

thetic, that d does not es not rest on any concept, no conclusion can can be
drawn to the logical ; ; ; because judgements o of that kind have no no
1o bearing upon the Obje But for this very reason the. aesthetic
universality : attributed to a judgement must also be of a special
kind, seeing that it does not join the predicate. of beauty to
. [ the concept of the Object taken in its entire logical sphere, and
yet does extend this predicate over the whole sphere of Judging

15 Subjects.

In their logical quantity all judgements of taste are singular
judgements. For, since I must present the object immediately
to my feeling of pleasure or displeasure, and that, too, without
the aid of concepts, such judgements cannot have the quantity

20 of judgements with objective general validity. Vet by taking
the singular representation of the Object of the judgement of
taste, and by comparison converting it into a concept according
to the conditions determining that judgement, we can arrive
at a logically universal judgement. For instance, by a judge-

25 ment of taste I describe the rose at which I am looking as
beautiful. The judgement, on the other hand, resulting from
the comparison of a number of singular representations: Roses
in general are beautiful, is no longer pronounced as a purely
aesthetic judgement, but as a logical judgement founded on

30o one that is aesthetic. Now the judgement, ‘The rose is
agreeable’ (to smell) is also, no doubt, an aesthetic and
singular judgement, but then it is not one of taste but of
sense. For it has this point of difference from a judgement of
taste, that the latter imports an aesthetic quantity of univer-

35 Sality, i.e. of validity for every one which is not to be met with

2h6

56 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

in a judgement upon the agreeable. It is only judgements
upon the good which, while also determining the delight ın an
object, possess logical and not mere aesthetic universality ; for
it is as involving a cognition of the Object that they are valid
of it, and on that account valid for every one. 5
In forming an estimate of Objects merely from concepts, all
representation of beauty goes by the board. There can,
therefore, be no rule according to which any one is to be com-
pelled to recognize anything as beautiful. Whether a dress, a
house, or a flower is beautiful is a matter upon which one declines 10
to allow one’s judgement to be swayed by any reasons or prin-
ciples. We want to get a look at the Object with our own
eyes, just as if our delight depended on sensation. And yet,
if upon so doing, we call the object beautiful, we believe
ourselves to be speaking with a uniyersal voice, and lay claim 15
to the concurrence of every one, whereas no private sensation
would be decisive except for the observer alone and %zs liking.
Here, now, we may perceive that nothing is postulated in
the judgement of taste but such a universal voice in respect of
delight that is not mediated by concepts ; consequently, only 20
the Zossibility of an aesthetic judgement capable of being at
the“same time deemed valid for every one. The judgement of
taste itself does not postudaze the agreement of every one (for
it is only competent for a logically universal judgement to do
this, in that it is able to bring forward reasons) ; it only zpuces 45
this agreement to every one, as an instance of the rule in respect
of which it looks for confirmation, not from concepts, but from
the concurrence of others. The universal voice is, therefore,
only an idea—resting upon grounds the investigation of which
is here postponed. It may be a matter of uncertainty whether 30
a person who thinks he is laying down a judgement of taste
is, in fact, judging in conformity with that idea; but that
this idea is what is contemplated in his judgement, and that,
consequently, it is meant to be a judgement of taste, is pro-

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Second Moment 57

claimed by his use of the expression ‘beauty’. For himself
he can be certain on the point from his mere consciousness of
the separation of everything belonging to the agreeable and the
good from the delight remaining to him; and this is all for

5 which he promises himself the agreement of every one—a claim
which, under these conditions, he would also be warranted in
making, were it not that he frequently sinned against them, and
thus passed an erroneous judgement of taste.

$9
10 Investigation of the question of the relative priority in a judge-
ment of taste of the Feeling Of pleasure and the estimating
of the object.
THE solution of this problem is the key to the Critique of
taste, and so is worthy of all attention.

15 Were the pleasure in a given object to be the antecedent,
and were the universal communicability of this pleasure to be
all that the judgement of taste is meant to allow to the
representation of the object, such a sequence would be self-
contradictory. For a pleasure of that kind would be nothing

20 but the feeling of mere agreeableness to the senses, and so, from
its very nature, would possess no more than private validity,
seeing that it would be immediately dependent on the repre-
sentation through which the object zs given.

Hence it is the universal capacity for being communicated

25 incident to the mental state in the given representation which,
as the subjective condition of the judgement of taste, must be
fundamental, with the pleasure in the object as its consequent.
Nothing, however, is capable of being universally communicated
but cognition and representation so far as appurtenant to

30 cognition. For it is only as thus appurtenant that the repre-
sentation is objective, and it is this alone that gives it a
universal point of reference with which the power of repre-
sentation of every one is obliged to harmonize. If, then,

217

58 Critique of Judgement
Part I, Critique of clesthetic Judgement

the determining ground of the judgement as to this universal
communicability of the representation is to be merely sub-
jective, that is to say, is to be conceived independently of any
concept of the object, it can be nothing else than the mental
state that presents itself in the mutual relation of the powers of 5
representation so far as they refer a given representation ¢o
cognition in general.

= The cognitive powers brought into play by this representation
are here engaged in a tree play, since no definite concept
restricts them to a particular rule of cognition. Hence the 10
mental state in this representation must be one of a feeling of
the free play of the powers of representation in a given re-
presentation for a cognition in general. Now a representation,
whereby an object is given, involves, in order that it may become

a source of cognition at all, imaginartion for bringing together 15
the manifold of intuition, mu RER Tain for the unity

2
of the concept uniting the represtitrtions. This state of /rre
flav of the cognitive facultics attending a representation by
which an object is given must admit of universal communication:
because cognition, as a definition of the Object with which 20
given representations (in any Subject whatever) are to accord, is_
the one and only representation which is valid for every one.

As the subjective universal communicability of the mode
of representation in a judgement of taste is to subsist apart
from the presupposition of any definite concept, it can be 35

218 nothing else than the mental state present in the free play of
imagination and understanding (so far as these are in mutual
accord, as is requisite for cogaiffon in general): for we are
conscious that this subjective relation suitable for a cognition in
general must be just as valid for every one, and consequently 30
as universally communicable, as is any determinate cognition,
which always rests upon that relation as its subjective condition.

Now this purely subjective (aesthetic) estimating of the
object, or of the representation through which it is given, is

Book I, Analytic of the Beautiful. Second Moment 59

antecedent to the pleasure in it, and is the basis of this
pleasure in the harmony of the cognitive faculties. Again, the
above-described universality of the subjective conditions of
estimating objects forms the sole foundation of this universal
5 subjective validity of the delight which’we connect with the
representation of the object that we call beautiful.

That an ‘ability to communicate one’s mental state, even,
though ‘it be only in respect of our cognitive faculties, is
attended with a pleasure, is a fact which might easily be

yo demonstrated from the natural propensity of mankind to
social life, i.e. empirically and psychologically. But what we have
here in view calls for something more than this, In a judge-
ment of taste the pleasure felt by us is exacted from every one
else as necessary, just as if, when we call something beautiful,

1s beauty was to be regarded as a quality of the object forming part
of its inherent determination according to concepts ; although
beauty is for itself, apart from any reference to the feeling of
the Subject, nothing. But the discussion of this question must
be reserved until we have answered the further one of whether,

a0 and how, aesthetic judgements are possible a priori,

At present we are exercised with the lesser question of the
way in which we become conscious, in a judgement of taste,
of a reciprocal subjective common accord of the powers of
cognition. Is _ it aesthetically by sensation and our mere

as internal ee ee ea Be of our
intentional activity in bringing these powers into play ?

Now if the given representation occasioning the judgement
of taste were a concept which united understanding and
imagination in the estimate of the object so as to give a

30 Cognition of the Object, the consciousness of this relation
would be intellectual (as in the objective schematism of judge-
ment dealt with in the Critique). But, then, in that case the
judgement would not be laid down with respect to pleasure
and displeasure, and so would not be a judgement of taste.

35 But, now, the judgement of taste determines the Object,

219

60 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

independently of concepts, in respect of delight and of the
predicate of beauty. There is, therefore, no other way for the
subjective unity of the relation in question to make itself known
than by sensation. The quickening of both faculties (imagina-
tion and understanding) to an indefinite, but yet, thanks to 5
the given representation, harmonious activity, such as belongs
to cognition generally, is the sensation whose universal com-
municability is postulated by the judgement of taste. An
objective relation can, of course, only be thought, yet in so far
as, in respect of its conditions, it is subjective, it may be felt in 10
its effect upon the mind, and, in the case of a relation (like that
of the powers of representation to a faculty of cognition
generally) which does not rest on any concept, no_other
consciousness of it is possible beyond that through sensation
‘of its effect upon the mind—an effect consisting in the more 15
facile play of both mental powers (imagination and understand-
ples quick Ir Gi: mutual accord. A representation
“which is singular and independent of comparison with other
representations, and, being such, yet accords with the conditions
of the universality that is the general concern of understanding, 2°
is one that brings the cognitive faculties into that proportionate
accord which we require for all COEMITTON andl WETEh we therefore
‘deém valid for every one who is so constituted as to judge by
means of understanding and sense conjointly (i.e. for every
man). 25

DEFINITION OF THE BEAUTIFUL DRAWN FROM THE
SECOND MOMENT

The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, pleases
universally. :

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 6x

THIRD MOMENT

OF JUDGEMENTS OF TASTE: MOMENT OF THE RZLATION OF THE
ENDS BROUGHT UNDER REVIEW IN SUCH JUDGEMENTS

$ I0
5 Finality in general.

Ler_ us define the meaning of ‘an end’ in transcendental
terms (i.e. without pr ing anything empirical, such as
the feeling of pleasure). An end is the object of a concept so
far as this concept is regarded as the cause of the öbject (the

10 real ground of its possibility) ; and the causality of a concept in
respect of its Object is finality (forma finals). Where, then,
not the cognition of an object merely, but the object itself (its
form or real existence) as an effect, is thought to be possible
only through a concept of it, there we imagine an end. The

15 representation of the effect is here the determining ground of
its cause and takes the lead of it. The consciousness of the
causality of a representation in respect of the state of the Sub-
ject as one tending fo preserve a continuance of that state, may
here be said to denote in a general way what is called pleasure ;

ao whereas displeasure is that representation which contains the
ground for converting the state of the representations into their
opposite (for hindering or removing them).

The faculty of desire, so far as determinable only through
concepts, i.e. so as to act in conformity with the representation

25 of an end, would be the will. But an Object, or state of mind,
or even an action may, although its possibility does not neces-
sarily presuppose the representation of an end, be called final
simply on account of its possibility being only explicable and
intelligible for us by virtue of an assumption on our part of

302 fundamental causality according to ends, i.e. a will that
would have so ordained it according to a certain represented

220

62 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

rule. Finality, therefore, may exist apart from an end, in so
far as we do not locate the causes of this form in a will, but
yet are able to render the explanation of its possibility intelli-
gible to ourselves only by deriving it from a will. Now we are
not always obliged to look with the eye of reason into what we 5
observe (i.e. to consider it in its possibility). So we may at
least observe a finality of form, and trace it in objects—though
by reflection only—without resting it on an end (as the material
of the nexus finalis).

Co
221 $ II Io

The sole foundation of the judgement of taste is the FORM OF
FINALITY of an object (or mode of representing it).

WHENEVER an end is regarded as a source of delight it always
imports an interest as determining ground of the judgement on
the object of pleasure. Hence the judgement of taste cannot 15
rest on any subjective end as its ground. But neither can any
representation of an objective end, i.e. of the possibility of the
object itself on principles of final connexion, determine the
judgement of taste, and, consequently, neither can any concept
of the good. For the judgement of taste is an aesthetic and 2°
not a cognitive judgement, and so does not deal with any concept
of the nature or of the internal or external possibility, by this
or that cause, of the object, but simply with the relative bearing
of the representative powers so far as determined by a repre-
sentation. 25

Now this relation, present when an object is characterized as
is by the judgment of taste pronounced valıd for Every one;
incapable of containing the determining ground of the judge- 3°

ment as the representation of the perfection of the object or the
concept of the good. We are thus left with the subjective

Book I. Analytic ofthe Beautiful. Third Moment 63

finality in the representation of an object, exclusive of any
end (objective or subjective)—consequently the bare form of
finality in the representation whereby an object is given to us,
so far as we are conscious of it—as that which is alone capable

5 of constituting the delight which, apart from any concept, we
estimate as universally communicable, and so of forming the
determining ground of the judgment of taste.

$12
The judgement of taste rests upon a priori grounds.

ıo To determine @ priori the connexion of the feeling of
pleasure or displeasure as an effect, with some representation
‘or other (sensation or concept) as its cause, is utterly im-
possible ; for that would be a causal relation which, (with ob-
jects of experience,) is always one that can only be cognized 222
15 @ posteriori and with the help oexperien®. True, in the
Critique of Practical Reason we did actually derive a priori
from universal moral concepts the feeling of respect (as a par-
ticular and peculiar modification of this feeling which does not
strictly answer either to the pleasure or displeasure which we
zo receive from empirical objects). But there we were further
able to cross the border of experience and call in aid a causality
resting on a supersensible attribute of the Subject, namely that
of freedom. But even there it was not this feeding exactly
that we deduced from the idea of the moral as cause, but from
25 this was derived simply the determination of the will. But the
mental state present in the determination of the will by any
means is at once in itself a feeling of pleasure and identical
with it, and so does not issue from it as an effect. Such an
effect must only be assumed where the concept of the moral
30 4S a good precedes the determination of the will by the law;
for in that case it would be futile to derive the pleasure com-
bined with the concept from this concept as a mere cognition.
Now the pleasure in aesthetic judgements stands on a similar

64 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

footing: only that here it is merely contemplative and does
not bring about an interest in the Object; whereas in the
moral judgement it is practical. The consciousness of mere
formal finality in the play of the cognitive faculties of the Sub-
ject attending a representation whereby an object is given, is 5
the pleasure itself, because it involves a determining ground of
the Subject’s activity in respect of the quickening of its cogni-,
tive powers, and thus an internal causality (which is final) in
respect of cognition generally, but without being limited to
a definite cognition, and consequently a mere form of the sub- 10
jective finality of a representation in an aesthetic judgement.
This pleasure is also in no way practical, neither resembling
that from the pathological ground of agreeableness nor that
from the intellectual ground of the represented good. But
still it involves an inherent causality, that, namely, of preserving 15
a continuance of the state of the representation itself and the
active engagement of the cognitive powers without ulterior
aim. We dwed? on the contemplation of the beautiful because
this coritémplation Strengthens and reproduces itself, Th plation strengthens and reproduces itself. The
case is analogous (but analogous only) to the way we linger on 20
a charm in the representation of an object which keeps arresting
the attention, the mind all the while remaining passive.

§ 13
Lhe pure judgement of taste is independent of charm and
2 emotion. 25

Every interest vitiates the judgement of taste and robs it of
its impartiality. This is especially so where instead of, like
the interest of reason, making finality take the lead of the
feeling of pleasure, it grounds it upon this feeling—which is
what always happen in aesthetic judgements upon anything so 30
far as it gratifies or pains. Hence judgements so influenced
can either lay no claim at all toa universally valid delight, or

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 65

else must abate their claim in proportion as sensations of the

kind in question enter into the determining grounds of taste.

Taste that requires an added element of charm and emotion for

its delight, not to speak of adopting this as the measure of its
5 approval, has not yet emerged from barbarism.

And yet charms are frequently not alone ranked with
beauty (which ought properly to be a question merely of the
form) as supplementary to the aesthetic universal delight, but
they have been accredited as intrinsic beauties, and con-

10 sequently the matter of delight passed off for the form. This
is a misconception which, like many others that have still an
underlying element of truth, may be removed by a careful
definition of these concepts.

A judgement of taste which is uninfluenced_by charm or

1g emotion, (though these may be associated with the delight in

“the beautiful,) and whose determining ground, therefore, is
simply finality of form, is a pure judgement of taste.

§ 14
Exemplification.

20 AESTHETIC, just like theoretical (logical) judgements, are
divisible into empirical and pure. The first are those by
which agreeableness or disagreeableness, the second those by
which beauty, is predicated of an object or its mode of
representation. The former are judgements of sense (material

25 aesthetic judgements), the latter (as formal) alone judgements
of taste proper.

A judgement of taste, therefore, is only pure so far as its
determining ground is tainted with no merely empirical
delight. But such a taint is always present where charm or

30 emotion have a share in the judgement by which something is
to be described as beautiful.

Here now there is a recrudescence of a number of specious

1193 F

224

66 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

pleas that go the length of putting forward the case that charm
is not merely a necessary ingredient of beauty, but is even of
itself sufficient to merit the name of beautiful. A mere
colour, such as the green of a plot of grass, or a mere tone
(as distinguished from sound or noise), like that of a violin, is 5
described by most people as in itself beautiful, notwithstand-
ing the fact that both seem to depend merely on the matter of
the representations—in other words, simply on sensation, which
only entitles them to be called agreeable. But it will at the

same time be observed that sensations of colour as well as of to
tone are only entitled to be immediately regarded as beautiful

where, in either case, they are Zure. ‘This is a determination
which at once goes to their form, and it is the only one
which these representations possess that admits with certainty
of being universally communicated. For it is not to be 15
assumed that even the quality of the sensations agrees in all
Subjects, and we can hardly take it for granted that the agree-
ableness of a colour, or of the tone of a musical instrument,
which we judge to be preferable to that of another, is given a
like preference in the estimate of every one. 20
Assuming with Zwler that colours are isochronous vibrations
(pulsus) of the aether, as tones are of the air set in vibration
by sound, and, what is most important, that the mind not alone
perceives by sense their effect in stimulating the organs, but
also, by reflection, the regular play of the impressions, (and 25
consequently the form in which different representations are
united,)— which I], still, in no way doubt—then colour and
tone would not be mere sensations. They would be nothing
short of formal determinations of the unity of a manifold of
sensations, and in that case could even be ranked as intrinsic 30
beauties.
But ‚the purity of a simple mode of sensation means that
its uniformity is not disturbed or broken by any foreign
“serisation. It belongs merely to the form; for abstraction

ix Er. LoAr

a7

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 67

may there be made from the quality of the mode of such
sensation (what colour or tone, if any, it represents). For this
reason all simple colours are regarded as beautiful so far as
pure. Composite colours have not this advantage, because, 225

5 not being simple, there is no standard for estimating whether
they should be called pure or impure.

But as for the beauty ascribed to the object on account of
its form, and the supposition that it is capable of being
enhanced by charm, this is a common error and one very

10 prejudicial to genuine, uncorrupted, sincere taste. Neverthe-
less charms may be added to beauty to lend to the mind,
beyond a bare delight, an adventitious interest in the repre-
sentation of the object, and thus to advocate taste and its
cultivation. This applies especially where taste is as yet crude

15 and untrained. But they are positively subversive of the
judgement of taste, if allowed to obtrude themselves as
grounds of estimating beauty. For so far are they from con-
tributing to beauty, that it is only where taste is still weak
and untrained, that, like aliens, they are admitted as a favour,

20 and only on terms that they do not violate that beautiful
form. eee

In painting, sculpture, and in fact in all the formative arts,
in architecture and horticulture, so far as fine arts, the design

_is what is essential. Here it is not what gratifies in sensation

25 but merely what pleases by its form, that is the fundamenta
prerequisite for taste. The colours which give brilliancy to
the sketch are part of the charm. They may no doubt, in
their own way, enliven the object for sensation, but make it
really worth looking at and beautiful they cannot. Indeed,

30 more often than not the requirements of the beautiful form

, restrict them to a very narrow compass, and, even where
charm is admitted, it is only this form that gives them a place/
of honour.

All form of objects of sense (both of external and also,

35 mediately, of internal sense) is either figure or play. In the

F2

68 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

latter case it is either play of figures (in space: mimic and
dance), or mere play of sensations (in time). The charm of
colours, or of the agreeable tones of instruments, may be added :
but the design in the former and the composition in the latter
constitute fhe proper object of the pure judgementof taste. To 5
‚say that the purity alike of colours and-of-tones,-or their variety
and contrast, seem to contribute to beauty, is by no means to
imply that, because in themselves agreeable, they therefore
yield an addition to the delight in the form and one on
a par with it. The real meaning rather is that they make 10
22Qthis form more clearly, definitely, and completely intuitable,
~and besides stimulate the representation by their charm, as

y excite and sustain the attention directed to the object
itself.

‘ Even what is called aruamentation ( parerga), i.e. what is.15
only anadjunct, and not an.intrinsic constituent in the complete
representation of the object, in augmenting the delight of taste
does so only by means of its form. Thus it is with the frames
of pictures or the drapery on statues, or the colonnades of
palaces. But if the ornamentation does not itself enter into 20
the composition of ‘the beautiful form—if it is introduced like

a gold frame merely to win approval for the picture by means
of its charm—it is then called fmery and takes away from
the genuine beauty.

Emotion—a sensation where an agreeable feeling is pro- 25
‘duced merely by means of a momentary check followed by
a more powerful outpouring of the vital force—is quite foreign
to beauty. Sublimity (with which the feeling of emotion is
connectedy requires, however, a different standard of estima-
tion from that relied upon by taste. A pure judgement of 30
taste has, then, for its determining ground neither charm nor
emotion, in a word, no sensation as matter of the aesthetic
judgement.

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 69

§ 15
The judgement of taste ts entirely independent of the

concept of perfection.

Objective finality can only be cognized by means of a reference

5 of the manifold to a definite end, and hence only through
a concept. This alone makes it clear that the beautiful, which
is estimated on the ground of a mere formal finality, i.e. a
finality apart from an end, is wholly independent of the repre-
sentation of the good. For the latter presupposes an objec-

10 tive finality, i.e. the reference of the object to a definite end.
Objective finality is either external, i.e. the w/ddity, or-internal,
ie. the aes ofthe object. That the delight in an object
on account Of which we call it beautiful is incapable of resting
on the representation of its utility, is abundantly evident from

15 the two preceding articles ; for in that case, it would not be an
immediate delight in the object, which latter is the essential
condition of the judgement upon beauty. But in an objective,
internal finality, i.e. perfection, we have what is more akin to
the predicate of beauty, and so this has been held even by

20 philosophers of reputation to be convertible with beauty,
though subject to the qualification: where it is thought tn
a confused way. In a Critique of taste it is of the utmost
importance to decide whether beauty is really reducible to the
concept of perfection.

25 For estimating objective finality we always require the con-
cept of an end, and, where such finality has to be, not an
external one (utility), but an internal one, the concept of an
internal end containing the ground of the internal possibility of

’ the object. Now an end is in general that, the concept of

30 which may be regarded as the ground of the possibility of the

‚ object itself. So in order to represent an objective finality in
a thing we must first have a concept of what sort of a thing it
ts to be. The agreement of the manifold in a thing with this

227

70 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

concept (which supplies the rule of its synthesis) is the guaé-
tative perfection of the thing. Quantitative perfection is entirely
distinct from this. It consists in the completeness of anything
after its kind, and is a mere concept of quantity (of totality).
In its case the question of what the thing is to be is regarded 5
as definitely disposed of, and we only ask whether it
is possessed of a// the requisites that go to make it such.
What is formal in the representation of a thing, i.e. the agree-
ment of its manifold with a unity (i.e. irrespective of what it is
to be) does not, of itself, afford us any cognition whatsoever of 10
‘Objective finality. For since abstraction is made from this
unity as end (what the thing is to be) nothing is left but the
subjective finality of the representations in the mind of the
Subject intuiting. This gives a certain finality of the representa-
tive state of the Subject, in which the Subject feels itself quite
at home in its effort to grasp a given form in the imagination,
but no perfection of any Object, the latter not being here
thought through any concept. For instance, if in a forest
I light upon a plot of grass, round which trees stand in a circle,
and if I do not then form any representation of an end, as that 20
it is meant to be used, say, for country dances, then not the least

228 hint of a concept of perfection is given by the mere form. To
suppose a formal odjeczive finality that is yet devoid of an end,
i.e. the mere form of a perfection (apart from any matter or
concept of that to which the agreement relates, even though
there was the mere general idea of a conformity to law) is
a veritable contradiction.

Now the judgement of taste is an aesthetic judgement,
i.e. one resting on subjective grounds. No concept can be its
determining ground, and hence not one of a definite end. 30
Beauty, therefore, as a formal subjective finality, involves no
thought whatsoever of a perfection of the object, as a would-
be formal finality which yet, for all that, is objective: and
the distinction between the concepts of the beautiful and the

cal

5

iS}
o

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 71

good, which represents both as differing only in their logical
form, the first being merely a confused, the second a clearly
defined, concept of perfection, while otherwise alike in content
and origin, all goes for nothing: for then there would be no
5 specific difference between them, but the judgement of taste
would be just as much a cognitive judgement as one by which
something is described as good—just as the man in the street,
when he says that deceit is wrong, bases his judgement on con-
fused, but the philosopher on clear grounds, while both appeal
10 in reality to identical principles of reason. But I have already
stated that an aesthetic judgement is quite unique, and affords
_absolutely no, (Hot even a confused,) knowledge of the Object.
It is only through a logical judgement that we get knowledge.

The aesthetic judgement, on the other hand, refers the repre-
15 sentation, by which an Object is given, solely to the Subject,
and brings to our notice no quality of the object, but only the
final form in the determination of the powers of representa-
tion engaged upon it. The judgement is called aesthetic for

the very reason that its determining ground cannot be a con-

20 cept, but is rather the feeling See ram
concert in the play of the méntal powers as_a thing only
capable of being felt. If, on the other hand, confused con-
cepts, and the objective judgement based on them, are going
to be called aesthetic, we shall find ourselves with an under-

25 standing judging by sense, or a sense representing its objects
by concepts—a mere choice of contradictions. The faculty
of concepts, be they confused or be they clear, is understand-
ing; and although understanding has (as in all judgements) its
röle in the judgement of taste, as an aesthetic judgement,

30 its role there is not that of a faculty for cognizing an object,
but of a faculty for determining that judgement and its
representation (without a concept) according to its relation
to the Subject and its internal feeling, and for doing so in so far
as that judgement is possible according to a universal rule,

229

72 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

§ 16
A judgement of taste by which an object is described as beautiful
nder the condition of a definite concept is not pure.

rue are two kinds of beauty: free beauty (pudchritudo
vaga), or beauty which is merely dependent (pulchritudo 5
adhaerens). The first presupposes no concept of what the
object should be ; the second does presuppose such a concept
and, with it, an answering perfection of the object. Those of
the first kind are said to be (self-subsisting) beauties of this
thing or that thing ; the other kind of beauty, being attached 10
to a concept (conditioned beauty), is ascribed_to Objects which
come under the concept of a particular end I

Flowers are free beauties of nature. ardly any one but
a botanist knows the true nature of a flower, and even he,
while recognizing in the flower the reproductive organ of the
plant, pays no attention to this natural end when using his taste
to judge of its beauty. Hence no perfection of any kind—no
internal finality, as something to which the arrangement of the
manifold is related—underlies this judgement. Many birds
(the parrot, the humming-bird, the bird of paradise), and
a number of crustacea, are self-subsisting beauties which are
not appurtenant to any object defined with respect to its end,
but please freely and on their own account. So designs 4 /a
grecque, foliage for framework or on wall-papers, &c., have no
intrinsic meaning; they represent nothing—no Object under 25
a definite concept—and_are free beauties, We may also rank
in the same class what in music are called fantasias (without
a theme), and, indeed, all music that is not set to words,

In the estimate of a free beauty (according to mere form) we
have the pure judgement of taste. No concept is here pre- 30
supposed of any end for which the manifold should serve

230 the given Object, and which the latter, therefore, should
represent—an incumbrance which would only restrict the

-

5

»

fe)

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 73

freedom of the imagination that, as it were, is at play in the
contemplation of the outward form.
But the beauty of man (including under this head that of
a man, woman, or child), the beauty of a horse, or of a building
(such as a church, palace, arsenal, or summer-house), pre-
supposes a concept of the end that defines what the thing has
© be, and consequently & cept_of its ection; and ıs
“therefore merely appendant beauty. Now, just as it is a clog
“on the purity of the judgement of taste to have the agreeable
10 (of sensation) joined with beauty to which properly only the
form is relevant, so to combine the good with beauty, (the good,
namely, of the manifold to the thing itself according to its end,)
mars its purity.
Much might be added to a building that would immediately
15 please the eye, were it not intended for a church. A figure
might be beautified with all manner of flourishes and light but
regular lines, as is done by the New Zealanders with their
tattooing, were we dealing with anything but the figure of
a human being. And here is one whose rugged features
20 might be softened and given a more pleasing aspect, only he
has got to be a man, or is, perhaps, a warrior that has to
have a warlike appearance.
Now the delight in the manifold of a thing, in reference to
the internal end that determines its possibility, is a delight based
25 on a concept, whereas delight in the beautiful is such as does
not presuppose any concept, but is immediately coupled with
The representation ‘through which the object is given (not
through which it is thought). If, now, the judgement of taste
in respect of the latter delight is made dependent upon the
30 end involved in the former delight as a judgement of reason,
and is thus placed under a restriction, then it is no longer a
free and pure judgement of taste.
Taste, it is true, stands to gain by this combination of
intellectual delight with the aesthetic. For it becomes fixed,
35 and, while not universal, it enables rules to be prescribed for

74 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

it in respect of certain definite final Objects. But these rules
“are then not rules of taste, but merely rules for_establishing
a union of taste with reason, 1.e._of the beautiful_with the
‘good—rules by which the former becomes available as an
intentional instrument in respect of the latter, for the purpose 5
of bringing that temper of the mind which is self-sustaining
231 and of subjective universal validity to the support and main-
tenance of that mode of thought which, while possessing
objective universal validity, can only be preserved by a reso-
lute effort. But, strictly speaking, perfection neither gains by 10
beauty, nor beauty by perfection. The truth is rather this,
when we compare the representation through which an object is
given to us with the Object (in respect of what it is meant to
be) by means of a concept, we cannot help reviewing it also in
‘respect of the sensation in the Subject. Hence there results
a gain to the entire faculty of our representative power when
harmony prevails between both states of mind.
~ In respect of an object with a definite internal end, a judge-
ment of taste would only be pure where the person judging
either has no concept of this end, or else makes abstraction 20
from it in his judgement. But in cases like this, although
such a person should lay down a correct judgement of taste,
since he would be estimating the object as a free beauty, he
would still be found fault with by another who saw nothing in
its beauty but a dependent quality (i.e. who looked to the end
of the object) and would be accused by him of false taste,
though both would, in their own way, be judging correctly: the
one according to what he had present to his senses, the other
according to what was present in his thoughts. This distinction
enables us to settle many disputes about beauty on the part of 30
critics ; for we may show them how one side is dealing with
free beauty, and the other with that which is dependent: the

former passing a pure judgement of taste, the latter one that
is applied intentionally.

5

»

5

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful, Third Moment 73

a7
The Ideal of beauty.
TYERE_can-be-no-objective. rule of taste by. which _what_is
beautiful may be defined by means of concepts. For every

5 judgement Trom that source is sosthatic™= determining
ground is the feeling of the Subject, and uat any concept of an
Object. It isonly throwing away Tabour to look for a principle

“OF taste that affords a universal criterion of the beautiful by
definite concepts; because what is sought is a thing im-

to possible and inherently contradictory. But in the universal-
communicability of the sensation (of delight or aversion)—a
communicability, too, that exists apart from any concept—
in the accord, so far as possible, of all ages and nations 232
as to this feeling in the representation of certain objects, we

1g have the empirical criterion, weak indeed and scarce sufficient
to raise a presumption, of the derivation of a taste, thus con-
firmed by examples, from grounds deep-seated and shared
alike by all men, underlying their agreement in estimating the
forms under which objects are given to them.

20 For this reason some products of taste are looked on as
exemplary—not meaning thereby that by imitating others taste
may be acquired. For taste must be an original faculty ;
whereas one who imitates a model, while showing skill com-
mensurate with his success, only displays taste as himself a

25 critic of this model.! Hence it follows that the highest model,

’ the archetype of taste, is a mere idea, which each person must

beget in his Own consciousness, and according to-which-te

‘ Models of taste with respect to the arts of speech must be composed

in a dead and learned language; the first, to prevent their having to

30 suffer the changes that inevitably overtake living ones, making dignified

expressions become degraded, common ones antiquated, and ones newly

coined after a short currency obsolete ; the second to ensure its having

a grammar that is not subject to the caprices of fashion, but has fixed
rules of its own.

76 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

must form his estimate of everything that is an Object of taste,
or that is an example of critical taste, and even of universal
taste itself. Properly speaking, an_zdea signifies a concept of
reason, and an zdea/ the representation of an individual existence
“as adequate to an idea. Hence this archetype of taste—which 5
rests, indeed, upon reason’s indeterminate idea of a maxi-
mum, but is not, however, capable of being represented by
means of concepts, but only in an individual presentation—
may more appropriately be called the ideal of the beautiful.
While not having this ideal in our possession, we still strive to 10
‘beget it within us. But it is bound to be merely an ideal of
the imagination, seeing that it rests, not upon concepts, but
upon the presentation—the faculty of presentation being the
imagination.—Now, how do we arrive at such an ideal of

eauty? Is it a riori or empirically? Further, what species 15
of the beautiful admits of an ideal?

First of all, we do well to observe that the beauty for which
an ideal has to be sought cannot be a beauty that is free and
at large, but must be one fixed by a concept of objective finality.
Hence it cannot belong to the Object of an altogether pure 20
judgement of taste, but must attach to one that is partly in-

233 tellectual. In other words, where an ideal is to have place
among the grounds upon which any estimate is formed, then
beneath grounds of that kind there must lie some idea of
reason according to determinate concepts, by which the end 25
underlying the internal possibility of the object is deter-
mined @ priori. An ideal of beautiful flowers, of a beautiful
suite of furniture, or of a beautiful view, is unthinkable. But,
it may also be impossible to represent an ideal of a beauty
dependent on definite ends, e. g. a beautiful residence, a beau- 30
tiful tree, a beautiful garden, &c., presumably because their
ends are not sufficiently defined and fixed by their concept,
with the result that their finality is nearly as free as with beauty
that is quite a? /arge. Only what has in itself the end of its

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 77

real existence—only maz that is able himself to determine his
ends by reason, or, where he has to derive them from external
perception, can still compare them with essential and universal
ends, and then fürfher pronounce aesthetically upon their accord
5with such ends, only he, among all objects in the world, admits,
therefore, of an ideal of Beauty, just as humanity in his person,
as intelligence, alone admits of the ideal of Zerfection. -
Two factors are here involved. First, there is the aesthetic
normal idea, which is an individual intuition (of the imagina-
ıotion). This represents the norm by which we judge of a man
as a member of a particular animal species. Secondly, there is
the rational idea. This deals with the ends of humanity so far as
capable of sensuous representation, and converts them into

a principle for estimating his outward form, through which these
1g ends are revealed in their phenomenal effect. The normal
idea must draw from experience the constituents which it
requires for the form of an animal of a particular kind. But
the greatest finality in the construction of this form—that which
would serve as a universal norm for forming an estimate of

20 each individual of the species in question—the image that,
as it were, forms an intentional basis underlying the technic of
nature, to which no separate individual, but only the race as a
whole, is adequate, has its seat merely in the idea of the judg-
ing Subject. Yet it is, with all its proportions, an aesthetic

a5 idea, and, as such, capable of being fully presented zx concreto
ina model image. Now, how is this effected? In order to
render the process to some extent intelligible (for who can
wrest nature’s whole secret from her?), let us attempt a
psychological explanation.

30 Itis of note that the imagination, in a manner quite incom-
prehensible to us, is able on occasion, even after a long lapse of
time, not alone to recall the signs for concepts, but also to
reproduce the image and shape of an object out of a countless
number of others of a different, or even of the very same, kind.

35 And, further, if the mind is engaged upon comparisons, we

234

73 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

may well suppose that it can in actual fact, though the process
is unconscious, superimpose as it were one image upon another,
and from the coincidence of a number of the same kind
arrive at a mean contour which serves as a common stan-
dard for all. Say, for instance, a person has seen a thousand 5
full-grown men. Now if he wishes to judge normal size
determined upon a comparative estimate, then imagination (to
my mind) allows a great number of these images (perhaps the
whole thousand) to fall one upon the other, and, if I may be
allowed to extend to the case the analogy of optical presenta- 10
tion, in the space where they come most together, and within
the contour where the place is illuminated by the greatest con-
centration of colour, one gets a perception of the average size,
which alike in height and breadth is equally removed from the
extreme limits of the greatest and smallest statures ; and this 15
is the stature of a beautiful man. (The same result could be
obtained in a mechanical way, by taking the measures of all
the thous ais a Pa their heights, and their
breadths (and thicknesses), and dividing the sum in each case by
a thousand.) But the power of imagination does all this by 20
means of a dynamical effect upon the organ of internal sense,
arising from the frequent apprehension of such forms. If,
again, for our average man we seek on similar lines for the
average head, and for this the average nose, and so on, then we
get the figure that underlies the normal idea of a beautiful man 25
in the country where the comparison is instituted. For this
reason a negro must necessarily (under these empirical con-
ditions) have a different normal idea of the beauty of forms
from what a white man has, and the Chinaman one different
from the European. And the process would be just_the same 30
with the model of a _beamtiful-horse or dog (of a. particular
breed).—This »orma/ idea is not_derived _from proportions
taken from experience as definite rules: rather is it according
to this idea that rules for forming estimates first become pos-

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Third Moment 179

sible. It is an intermediate between all singular intuitions of
ndividuals, with their manifold variations—a floating image
for the whole genus, which nature has set as an archetype under-
lying those of her products that belong to the same species, but 235
5 which in no single case she seems to have completely attained.
/ But the normal idea is far from giving the complete archetype
| of beauty in the genus. It only gives the form that constitutes
the indispensable condition of all beauty, and, consequently,
only correctness in the presentation of the genus. It is, as the
10 famous Doryphorus of Polycletus was called, the ve (and
Myron’s Cow might be similarly employed for its kind). It
cannot, for that very reason, contain anything specifically
characteristic ; for otherwise it would not be the zormal idea
for the genus. Further, it is not by beauty that its presenta-
15 tion pleases, but merely because it does not contradict any of
the conditions under which alone a thing belonging to this
genus can be beautiful. The presentation is merely academi-
cally correct.’ ;
But the ideal of the beautiful is still something different j
20 from its normal idea. For reasons already stated it is only to\
be sought in the Auman figure. Here the ideal consists in the
expression of the moral, apart from which the object would not
please at once universally and positively (not merely negatively

1 It will be found that a perfectly regular face—one that a painter

25 might fix his eye on for a model—ordinarily conveys nothing. This is
because it is devoid of anything characteristic, and so the idea of the
race is expressed in it rather than the specific qualities of a person.
The exaggeration of what is characteristic in this way, i.e. exaggeration
violating the normal idea (the finality of the race), is called caricature.
30 Also experience shows that these quite regular faces indicate as a rule
internally only a mediocre type of man; presumably—if one may assume
that nature in its external form expresses the proportions of the internal
—because, where none of the mental qualities exceed the proportion
requisite to constitute a man free from faults, nothing can be expected
35 in the way of what is called gentus, in which nature seems to make a
departure from its wonted relations of the mental powers in favour of
some special one. *

236

80 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

in a presentation academically correct). The visible expression
of moral ideas that govern men inwardly can, of course, only
be drawn from experience ; but their combination with all that
our reason connects with the morally good in the idea of the
highest finality—benevolence, purity, strength, or equanimity, 5
&c.—may be made, as it were, visible in bodily manifestation
(as effect of what is internal), and this embodiment involves
a union of pure ideas of reason and great imaginative power,
in one who would even form an estimate of it, not to speak
of being the author of its presentation. The correctness of 10
such an ideal of beauty is evidenced by its not permitting
any sensuous charm to mingle with the delight in its Object,
in which it still allows us to take a great interest. This fact in
turn shows that an estimate formed according to such a standard
can never be purely aesthetic, and that one formed according 15
to an ideal of beauty cannot be a simple judgement of taste.

DEFINITION OF THE BEAUTIFUL DERIVED FROM THIS
THIRD MOMENT

Beauty is the form of fnality in an object, so far as per-
ceived in it apart from the representation of an end. 20

1 As telling against this explanation, the instance may be adduced, that
there are things in which we see a form suggesting adaptation to an
end, without any end being cognized in them—as, for example, the stone
implements frequently obtained from sepulchral tumuli and supplied
with a hole, as if for [inserting] a handle ; and although these by their 25
shape manifestly indicate a finality, the end of which is unknown, they
are not on that account described as beautiful. But the very fact of their
being regarded as art-products involves an immediate recognition that
their shape is attributed to some purpose or other and to a definite end,
For this reason there is no immediate delight whatever in their con- 30
templation. A flower, on the other hand, such as a tulip, is regarded
as beautiful, because we meet with a certain finality in its perception,
which, in our estimate of it, is not referred to any end whatever.

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Fourth Moment 8

FOURTH MOMENT

OF THE JUDGEMENT OF TASTE: MOMENT OF THE MODALITY
OF THE DELIGHT IN THE OBJECT
§ 18
5 Nature of the modality in a judgement of taste.

I may assert in the case of every representation that the
synthesis of a pleasure with the representation (as a cognition)
is at least possible. Of what I call agreeable I assert that it

actually causes pleasure in me. But what we have in mind in ~

10 the case of the deautiful is a necessary reference on its part to
delight, However, this necessity is of a special kind. It is not
a theoretical objective necessity—such as would let us cognize
a priori that every one will feel this delight in the object that
is called beautiful by me. Nor yet is it a practical necessity,

13 in which case, thanks to concepts of a pure rational will in
which free agents are supplied with a rule, this delight is the
necessary consequence of an objective law, and simply means
that one ought absolutely (without ulterior object) to act in
a certain way. Rather, being such a necessity as is thought

20 in an aesthetic judgement, it can only be termed exemplary.
In other words it is a necessity of the assent of al/ to a judge-
ment regarded as exemplifying a universal rule incapable of
formulation. Since an aesthetic judgement is not an objective
or cognitive judgement, this necessity is not derivable from

25 definite concepts, and so is not apodictic. Much less is it
inferable from universality of experience (of a thorough-going
agreement of judgements about the beauty of a certain object).
For, apart from the fact that experience would hardly furnish
evidences sufficiently numerous for this purpose, empirical

30 judgements do not afford any foundation for a concept of the
necessity of these judgements.

1193 G

237

82 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

§ 19
The subjective necessity attributed to a judgement of taste
is conditioned.

THE judgement of taste exacts agreement from every one;
and a person who describes. “something as beautiful insists that 5
every one ought to give the object i in question ‚his approval and~
follow suit in describing it as beautiful. The ‘ought in aestl in aesthetic
judgements, therefore, despite an accordance with all the

‘requisite data for passing judgement, is still only pronounced
conditionally. We are suitors for agreement from every one jo

else, because we are fortified with a ground common to all. all.

“vided we were always assured of the correct subeuni@tion of
ı the case under that ground as the rule of approval.

§ 20 15

The condition of the necessity advanced by a judgement of
taste is the idea of a common sense.

WERE judgements of taste (like cognitive judgements) in
possession of a definite objective principle, then one who in his
238 judgement followed such a principle would claim unconditioned ,,
necessity for it. Again, were they devoid of any principle, as
are those of the mere taste of sense, then no thought of any
necessity on their part would enter one’s head. Therefore
they must have a subjective principle, and one which deter-
“mines what pleasés-Or displeases, by means of feeling only and , j
not through concepts, but yet with universal validity. Such
a principle, however, could only be regarded as a common
sense. This differs essentially from common understanding,
which is also sometimes called common sense (sensus communis):
for the judgement of the latter is not one by feeling, but always 30

Book I, Analytic of the Beautiful. Fourth Moment 83

one by concepts, though usually only in the shape of obscurely
represented principles.
The judgement of taste, therefore, depends on our pre-
supposing the existence of a common sense. (But this is not
5 to be taken’ to mean some external sense, but the effect arising
from the free play of our powers of cognition.) Only under
the presupposition, I repeat, of such a common sense, are we
able to lay down a judgement of taste.

§ 21
10 Have we reason for presupposing a contmon sense ?

Coenitions and judgements must, together with their atten-
dant conviction, admit of being universally communicated ;
for otherwise a correspondence with the Object would not be
due to them. They would be a conglomerate constituting

15 a mere subjective play of the powers of representation, just as
scepticism would have it. But if cognitions are to admit_of
communication, then our mental state, i.e. the way the cog-

GAS RES a TE Tor COG generally, and, in fact,
the relative proportion suitable for a representation (by which

20 an object is given to us) from which cognition is to result, must
also admit of being universally communicated, as, without this,

which is the subjéttive condition of the act of knowing, know-
ledge, as an effect, would not arise. And this is always what
actually happens where a given object, through the intervention
2g of sense, sets the imagination at work in arranging the manifold,
and the imagination, in turn, the understanding in giving to
this arrangement the unity of concepts. But this disposition
of the cognitive powers has a relative proportion differing with
the diversity of the Objects that are given. However, there

30 must be one in which this internal ratio suitable for quickening

(one faculty by the other) is best adapted for both mental powers

in respect of cognition (of given objects) generally ; and this 239

disposition can only be determined through feeling (and not by
G2

84 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

concepts). Since, now, this disposition itself must admit of
being universally communicated, and hence also the feeling
of it (in the case of a given representation), while again, the
universal communicability of a feeling presupposes a common
sense; it follows that our assumption of it is well founded. 5
And here, too, we do not have to take our stand on psycho-
logical observations, but we assume a common sense as the
necessary condition of the universal communicability of our
knowledge, which is presupposed in every logic and every

principle of knowledge that is not one of secu 3 10
ais ‚er (EL eur Ltr ze s

The necessity of the universal assent that is thought in a judge-
ment of taste, is a subjective necessity which, under the pre-
supposition of a common sense, is represented as objective.

§ 22

Ty all judgements by which we describe anything as beautiful 15
we tolerate no_one else being.of.a different opinion, and in
faking up this position we do not rest our judgement upon
concepts, but only on our feeling. Accordingly we introduce
this fundamental feeling not as a private feeling, but as a
public sense. Now, for this purpose, experience cannot 20
be made the ground of this common sense, for the latter is
invoked to justify judgements containing an ‘“ought’”. _The_
assertion is not that every one zZ fall in with our judgement,-
“Dut rather that every one ough? to agree with it. Here I put
forward-my judgement of taste as an example of the judge- 25
ment of common sense, and attribute to it on that account
exemplary validity. Hence common sense is a mere ideal
norm. With this as presupposition, a judgement that acccords
with it, as well as the delight in an Object expressed in that
judgement, is rightly converted into a rule for every one. For 30
the principle, while it is only subjective, being yet assumed as
subjectively universal (a necessary idea for every one), could, in

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. Fourth Moment 85

what concerns the consensus of different judging Subjects,
demand universal assent like an objective principle, provided
we were assured of our subsumption under it being correct.
This indeterminate norm of a common sense is, as a matter
3 of fact, presupposed by us; as is shown by our presuming to
lay down judgements of taste. But does such a common
sense in fact exist as a constitutive principle of the possibility
of experience, or is it formed for us as a regulative principle
by a still higher principle of reason, that for higher ends first
1o seeks to beget in us a common sense? Is taste, in other
words, a natural and original faculty, or is it only the idea of
one that is artificial and to be acquired by us, so that a judge-
ment of taste, with its demand for universal assent, is but
a requirement of reason for generating such a consensus, and
15 does the ‘ ought’, i.e. the objective necessity of the coincidence
of the feeling of all with the particular feeling of each, only
betoken the possibility of arriving at some sort of unanimity in
these matters, and the judgement of taste only adduce an
example of the application of this principle? These are
20 questions which as yet we are neither willing nor in a position
to investigate. For the present we have only to resolve the
faculty of taste into its elements, and to unite these ultimately
in the idea of a common sense.

DEFINITION OF THE BEAUTIFUL DRAWN FROM THE
25 FOURTH MOMENT

The beautiful is that which, apart from a concept, is cognized
as object of a zecessary delight.

GENERAL REMARK ON THE FIRST SECTION OF THE ANALYTIC

The result to be extracted from the foregoing analysis is in
30 effect this: that everything runs up into the concept of taste
as a critical faculty by which an object is estimated in reference

240

86 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

to the free_con iy of the imagination. If, now,
imagination must in the judgement of taste be_regarded in
its freedom, then, to begin with, it Is not taken as reproductive,
as in its subjection to the laws of association, but as productive
and exerting an activity of its own (as originator of arbitrary 5
forms of possible intuitions). And although in the apprehension
of a given object of sense it is tied down to a definite form of
this Object and, to that extent, does not enjoy free play, (as it
does in poetry,) still it is easy to conceive that the object may
supply ready-made to the imagination just such a form of the 10
241 arrangement of the manifold, as the imagination, if it were left

to itself, would freely project in harmony with the generat
‘conformity to law of te understanding. But that the zmagination
‘should be both free and of aself conformable to law, i.e. carry
‘autonomy with it, is a contradiction. The understanding alone 15
gives the law. Where, however, the imagination is compelled
to follow a course laid down by a definite law, then what the
form of the product is to be is determined by concepts ; but,
in that case, as already shown, the delight is not delight in the
beautiful, but in the good, (in perfection, though it be no more 20
than formal perfection), and the judgement is not one due to
taste. Hence it is only a conformity to law without a law, and
a subjective harmonizing of the imagination and the under-

Standing without an objective one—which latter would mean
that the representation was referred to a definite concept of the 25

object—that can consist with the free conformity to law of the
understanding (which has also been called finality apart from
an end) and with the specific character of a judgement of
taste.

Now geometrically regular figures, a circle, a square, a cube, 30
and the like, are commonly brought forward by critics of taste
as the most simple and unquestionable examples. of beauty.
And yet the very reason why they are called regular, is because
the only way of representing them is by looking on them as mere

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. General Remark 87

presentations of a determinate concept by which the figure has
its rule (according to which alone it is possible) prescribed for
it. One or other of these two views must, therefore, be wrong :
either the verdict of the critics that attributes beauty to such

s figures, or else our own, which makes finality apart from any
concept necessary for beauty.

One would scarce think it necessary for a man to have taste
to take more delight in a circle than in a scrawled outline, in
an equilateral and equiangular quadrilateral than in one that

10 is all lob-sided, and, as it were, deformed. The requirements
of common understanding ensure such a preference without the
least demand upon taste. Where some purpose is perceived, as,
for instance, that of forming an estimate of the area of a plot of
land, or rendering intelligible the relation of divided parts to

15 one another and to the whole, then regular figures, and those
of the simplest kind, are needed ; and the delight does nat
rest immediately upon the way the figure strikes the eye, but
upon its serviceability for all manner of possible purposes. A
room with the walls making oblique angles, a plot laid_out in

20 garden in_a similar way, even any es
well in the figure of anımals (e.g. being one-eyed) as im that of
buildings, or of flower-beds, is displeasing because of its

erversity of form, not alone in a practical way in respect of
some definite üse tO which the thing may be put, but for

tel dep Seater
25a at looks manner of possible~purposes.
With the judgem € the case is different. For, when
it is purest i elıght or aversion iMmediately with the
hare ntempla Ton © object irrespective of its use or of
ae
ny end.

The regularity that conduces to the concept of an object is,
in fact, the indispensable condition (conditio sine gua non) of
grasping the object as a single representation and giving to the
manifold its determinate form. This determination is an end
in respect of knowledge; and in this connexion it is invariably

35 coupled with delight (such as attends the accomplishment of

242

88 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

any, even problematical, purpose). Here, however, we have
merely the value set upon the solution that satisfies the
problem, and not a free and indeterminately final entertainment
of the mental powers with what is called beautiful. In the
latter case understanding is at the service of imagination, in the 5
former this relation is reversed.

With a thing that owes its possibility to a purpose, a building,
or even an animal, its regularity, which COMststs in symmetry,
must express the “ay of the intuition accompanying the
Concept of its end, and belongs with it to cognition, _But where to
all that is intended is the maintenance of a free play of the
powers of representation (subject, however, to the condition
that there is to be nothing for understanding to take exception
to), in_ornamental gardens, in the decoration of rooms, in all
kinds of furniture that_shows good taste, &c., regularity in the 15
Shape of constraint is to be avoided as faras possible. Thus
English taste in gardens, and fantastic taste in furniture, push
the Rectum of Imagination to the verge of what is grotesque—
the idea being that in this divorce from all constraint of rules
the precise instance is being afforded where taste can exhibit its
perfection in projects of the imagination to the fullest extent.

All stiff_regularity (such as borders on mathematical regu-
‘larity) is inherently repugnant to taste, in that the contemplation
of it affords us no lasting entertainment. Indeed, where it has

243 neither cognition nor some definite practical end expressly in 25
view, we get heartily tired of it. On the other hand, anything
that gives the imagination scope for unstudied and final play
as-atways fresh to us. We do not grow to hate the very sight
of it. Marsden tr his description of Sumatra observes that the
free beauties of nature so surround the beholder on all sides 30
that they cease to have much attraction for him. On the
other hand he found a pepper garden full of charm, on coming
across it in mid-forest with its rows of parallel stakes on which
the plant twines itself. From all this he infers that wild, and

»

fe)

Book I. Analytic of the Beautiful. General Remark 89

in its appearance quite irregular beauty, is only pleasing as
a change to one whose eyes have become surfeited with regular
beauty. But he need only have made the experiment of
passing one day in his pepper garden to realize that once the
s regularity has enabled the understanding to put itself in accord
with the order that is its constant requirement, instead of the
object diverting him any longer, it imposes an irksome con-
straint upon the imagination: whereas nature subject to no
constraint of artificial rules, and lavish, as it there is, in its
10 luxuriant variety can supply constant food for his taste. Even
a bird’s song, which we can reduce to no musical rule, seems
to have more freedom in it, and thus to be richer for taste, |
than the human voice singing in accordance with all the rules
that the art of music prescribes; for we grow tired much
15 sooner of frequent and lengthy repetitions of the latter. Yet
here most likely our sympathy with the mirth of a dear little
creature is confused with the beauty of its song, for if exactly
imitated by man (as has been sometimes done with the notes
of the nightingale) it would strike our ear as wholly destitute
20 Of taste.
Further, beautiful objects have to be distinguished from
beautiful views of objects (where the distance often prevents a
a latter case taste appears to fasten,
not so much on what the imagination grasps in this field, as on
25 the incentive it receives to indulge in poetic fiction, i.e. in the
peculiar fancies with which the mind entertains itself as it is
being continually stirred by the variety that strikes the eye. It
is just as when we watch the changing shapes of the fire or of
arippling brook: neither of which are things of beauty, but
3o they convey a charm to the imagination, because they sustain
its free play.

244 ,

90 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

SECOND BOOK
ANALYTIC OF THE SUBLIME

§ 23
Transition from the faculty of estimating the beautiful to that
of estimating the sublime.

THE beautiful and the sublime agree on the point of pleasing
on their own account. Further they agree in not presupposing
either a judgement of sense or one logically determinant, but
one of reflection. Hence it follows that the delight does not
depend upon a sensation, as with the agreeable, nor upon
a definite concept, as does the delight in the good, although
it has, for all that, an indeterminate reference to concepts.
Consequently the delight is connected with the mere presenta-
tion or faculty of presentation, and is thus taken to express the
accord, in a given intuition, of the faculty of presentation, or
the imagination, with the facu/ty of concepts that belongs to
understanding or reason, in the sense of the former assisting
the latter. Hence both kinds of judgements are singular, and
yet such as profess to be universally valid in respect of every
Subject, despite the fact that their claims are directed merely
to the feeling of pleasure and not to any knowledge of the
object.

There are, however, also important and striking differences
between the two. The beautiful in nature is a question of the
form of the Oben mi ee aa
‘sublime is to be found in an object even devoid of form, so
Tar as it immediately involves, or else by its presence provokes,
a representation of /mitlessness, yet with a super-added thought
of its totality. Accordingly the beautiful seems to be regarded
as a presentation of an indeterminate concept of understanding,

5

30

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 91

the sublime as a presentation of an indeterminate concept of
reason. Hence the delight is in the former case coupled with
the representation of Quality, but in this case with that of
Quantity. Moreover, the former delight is very different from
5 the latter in kind. For the beautiful is directl j
a feeling of the furtherance of life, and is thus compatible with
“charms and a playful imagination. On the other hand, the 245
a ple that only arises indirectly,
being brought about by the feeling of a momentary check to
10 the vital forces followed at once by a discharge all the more
powerful, and so it is an emotion that seems to be no sport, but
“dead €arnest in the affairs of the imagination. Hence charms
“Gre repugnantto it; and, since the mind is not simply attracted
by the object, but is also alternately repelled thereby, the
15 delight in the sublime does not so much involve positive

pleasure as admiration or respect, 1.€. merits the name of
Tem on
a negatıve pleasure,

But the most important and vital distinction between the
sublime and the beautiful is certainly this: that if, as is allow-

20 able, we here confine our attention in the first instance to the
sublime in Objects of nature, (that of art being always restricted
by the conditions of an agreement with nature,) we observe
that whereas natural beauty (such as is self-subsisting) conveys

a finality in its form making the object appear, as if were,
25 preadapted to our power "of judgement, so that it thus forms of
-~tself an object of our delight, that which, without our indulging
in any refinements of thought, but, simply in our apprehension
of it, excites the feeling of the sublime, may appear, indeed,
in point of form to contravene the ends of our power of judge-

30 ment, to be ill-adapted to our faculty of presentation, and to
be, as it were, an outrage - on the imagination, and yet it is

judged all the more sublime on that account.

From this it may be seen at once that we express ourselves

on the whole inaccurately if we term any Object of nature
35 sublime, although we may with perfect propriety call many such

92 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

objects beautiful. For how can that which is apprehended as
inherently contra-final be noted with an expression of approval?
All that we can say is that the object lends itself to the pre-
sentation of a sublimity discoverable in the mind. | For the
sublime, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be contained 5
in any sensuous form, but rather concerns ideas of reason,
which, although no adequate presentation of them is possible,
may be excited and called into the mind by that very inade-
-quacy itself which does admit of sensuous presentation. Thus
the broad ocean agitated by storms cannot be called sublime. to
Its aspect is horrible, and one must have stored one’s mind in
246 advance with a rich stock of ideas, if such an intuition is to raise
it to the pitch of a feeling which is itself sublime—sublime
because the mind has been incited to abandon sensibility, and
employ itself upon ideas involving higher finality. 15
Self-subsisting natural beauty reveals to us a technic of
nature which shows it in the light of a system ordered in
accordance with laws the principle of which is not to be found
within the range of our entire faculty of understanding. This
principle is that of a finality relative to the employment of judge- 20
ment in respect of phenomena which have thus to be assigned,
not merely to nature regarded as aimless mechanism, but also
to nature regarded after the analogy of art. Hence it gives
a veritable extension, not, of course, to our knowledge of
Objects of nature, but to our conception of nature itself— 25
nature as mere mechanism being enlarged to the conception
of nature as art—an extension inviting profound inquiries as
to the possibility of such a form. But in what we are wont to
call sublime in nature there is such an absence of anything
leading To_particular objective principles and corresponding 30
forms of nature, that_it is rather in its chaos, or in its wildest
and most irregular disorder and desolation, provided_it gives
signs of magnitude and power, that nature chiefly excites the
ideas of the sublime.” Hence we see that the concept of the

‚Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 93

sublime in nature is far less important and rich in consequences
than that of its beauty. It gives on the whole no indication of
“anything final in nature itself, but only in the possible epJoy-
ment of our intuitions of it in inducing a feeling in our own
sselves of a finality quite independent of nature. For the
beautiful in nature we must seek a ground external to ourselves,
but for the sublime one merely in ourselves and the attitude
of mind that introduces sublimity into the representation of
ature. This is a very needful preliminary remark. It
10 entirely separates the ideas of the sublime from that of
a finality of ature, and makes the theory of the sublime
a mere appendage to the aesthetic estimate of the finality
f nature, because it does not give a representation of any
particular form in nature, but involves no more than the
1g development of a final employment by the imagination of

its own representation.

§ 24
Subdivision of an investigation of the feeling of the sublime,

In the division of the moments of an aesthetic estimate of

20 objects in respect of the feeling of the sublime, the course of
the Analytic will be able to follow the same principle as in the
analysis of judgements of taste. For, the judgement being one
of the aesthetic reflective judgement, the delight in the sublime,
just like that in the beautiful, must in its Quantity be shown
25 to be universally valid, in its Quality independent of interest,
in its Relation subjective finality, and the latter, in its Modality,
necessary. Hence the method here will not depart from the
lines followed in the preceding section: unless something is
made of the point that there, where the aesthetic Judgement
30 bore on the form of the Object, we began with the investigation
of its Quality, whereas here, considering the formlessness that

may belong to what we call Sublime, we begin with that of its

Quantity, as first moment of the aesthetic judgement on the

287

94 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

sublime—a divergence of method the reason for which is
evident from $ 23.

But the analysis of the sublime obliges a division not required
by that of the beautiful, namely one into the mathematically
and the dyzamically sublime. 5

For the feeling of the sublime involves as its characteristic
feature a mental movement combined with the estimate of the
object, whereas taste in respect of the beautiful presupposes
that the mind is in _ves¢/u/_contemplation, and preserves it in
this state. But this movement has to be estimated as subjec- 10
tively final (since the sublime pleases). Hence it is referred
through the imagination either to the facu/ty of cognition or to
that of desive; but to whichever faculty the reference is made the
finality of the given representation is estimated only in respect
of these faculties (apart from end or interest). Accordingly the 15
first is attributed to the Object as a mathematical, the second
as a dynamical, affection of the imagination. Hence we get the
above double mode of representing an Object as sublime.

A. THE MATHEMATICALLY SUBLIME

§ 25 20
Definition of the term ‘sublime’.

Sublimeis the name given to what is absolutely great. But
to be great and to be a magnitude are entirely different concepts
(magnitudo and guantitas). In the same way to assert without
qualification (simpliciter) that something is great, is quite a dif- 25
ferent thing from saying that it is absolutely great (absolute, non
comparative magnum). The latter is what is beyond all com-
parison great.—What, then, is the meaning of the assertion
that anything is great, or small, or of medium size? What is
indicated is not a pure concept of understanding, still less an 30
intuition of sense ; and just as little is it a concept of reason,

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 95
A. The Mathematically Sublime

for it does not import any principle of cognition. It must,
therefore, be a concept of judgement, or have its source in one,
and must introduce as basis of the judgement a subjective
finality of the representation with reference to the power of
§ judgement. Given a multiplicity of the homogeneous together
constituting one thing, and we may at once cognize from the
thing itself that it is a magnitude (quantum). No comparison
with other things is required. But to determine Zow great it
“is always requires something else, which itself has magnitude,
ro for its measure. "Now, since in the estimate of magnitude we
have to take into account not merely the multiplicity (number
of units) but also the magnitude of the unit (the measure),
and since the magnitude of this unit in turn always requires
something else as its measure and as the standard of its
15 comparison, and so on, we see that the computation of the
magnitude of phenomena is, in all cases, utterly incapable of
affording us any absolute concept of a magnitude, and can,
instead, only afford one that is always based on comparison.
If, now, I assert without qualification that anything is great,
20 it would seem that I have nothing in the way of a comparison
present to my mind, or at least nothing involving an objective
measure, for no attempt is thus made to determine how great
the object is. But, despite the standard of comparison being
merely subjective, the claim of the judgement is none the less
25 one to universal agreement ; the judgements: ‘That man is
beautiful’ and ‘He is tall’ do not purport to speak only for
the judging Subject, but, like theoretical judgements, they
demand the assent of every one.
Now in a judgement that without qualification describes
30 anything as great, it is not merely meant that the object has
a magnitude, but greatness is ascribed to it pre-eminently among
many other objects of a like kind, yet without the extent of
this pre-eminence being determined. Hence a standard is
certainly laid at the basis of the judgement, which standard is

249

96 ‘Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement
{

presupposed to be: one that can be taken as the same for every
one, but which is available only for an aesthetic estimate of
the greatness, and not for one that is logical (mathematically

determined), for the standard is a merely subjective one under
lying the reflective judgement upon the greatness. Furthermore, 5
oe eran Ue oe average size
of the men known to us, of animals of a certain kind, of trees,
of houses, of mountains, and so forth. Or it may be a standard
given a priori, which by reason of the imperfections of the
judging Subject is restricted to subjective conditions of presen- 10
tation zu concreto: as, in the practical sphere, the greatness of
a particular virtue, or of public liberty and justice in a country ;
or, in the theoretical sphere, the greatness of the accuracy or
inaccuracy of an experiment or measurement, &c.

Here, now, it is of note that, although we have no interest rg
whatever in the Object, i.e. its real existence may be a matter
of no concern to us, still its mere greatness, regarded even as
devoid of form, is able to convey a universally communicable
delight and so involve the consciousness of a subjective finality
in the employment of our cognitive faculties, but not, be it.20
remembered, a delight in the Object, for the latter may be
formless, but, in contradistinction to what is the case with the
beautiful, where the reflective judgement finds itself set to
a key that is final in respect of cognition generally, a delight in
an extension affecting the imagination itself, 25

If (subject as above) we say of an object, without qualifica-
tion, that it is great, this is not a mathematically determinant,
but a mere reflective judgement upon its representation, which
is subjectively final for a particular employment of our cognitive
faculties in the estimation of magnitude, and we then always 30
couple with the representation a kind of respect, just as we do
a kind of contempt with what we call absolutely small. More-
over, the estimate of things as great or small extends to
everything, even to all their qualities. Thus we call even

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 97
A, The Mathematically Sublime

their beauty great or small. The reason of this is to be found 250
in the fact that we have only got to present a thing in intuition,
as the precept of judgement directs, (consequently to represent it
aesthetically,) for it to be in its entirety a phenomenon, and

5 hence a quantum.

If, however, we call anything not alone great, but, without
qualification, absolutely, and in every respect (beyond all com-
parison) great, that is to say, sublime, we soon perceive that
for this it is not permissible to seek an appropriate standard

10 outside itself, but merely in itself. It is a greatness comparable
to itself alone. Hence it comes that the sublime is not to be
looked for in the things of nature, but only in our own ideas.

But it must be Ieft to the Deduction to show in which of them

it resides I
15 The above definition may also be expressed in this way:
that is sublime in comparison with which all else is small, Here
we Teddi at nothing can be given in nature, no matter
how great we may judge it to be, which, regarded in some other
relation, may not be degraded to the level of the infinitely
zo little, and nothing so small which in comparison with some
still smaller standard may not for our imagination be enlarge
to the greatness of a world. Telescopes have put within our
reach an abundance of material to go upon in making the first
observation, and microscopes the same in making the second.
25 Nothing, therefore, which can be an object of the senses is to
be termed sublime when treated on this footing. But precisely
because there is a striving in our imagination towards progress
ad infinitum, while reason demands absolute totality, as a real .
idea, that same inability on the part of our faculty for the
30 estimation of the magnitude of things of the world of sense to
attain to this idea, is the awakening of a feeling of a supersensible
faculty within us ; and it is the use to which judgement naturally
puts particular objects on behalf of this latter feeling, and not
the object of sense, that is absolutely great, and every other
1193 H

UJ \
98 ' Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

\
contrasted employment small. Consequently itis the disposition
of soul evoked by a particular representation engaging the atten-
tion of the reflective judgement, and not the Object, that is
to be called sublime.

The foregoing formulae defining the sublime may, therefore, 5
be supplemented by yet another: Ze sublime is that, the mere
capacity of thinking which evidences a faculty of mind transcend
Thy every standard of sense.

§ 26

The estimation of the magnitude of natural things requisite 10
for the idea of the sublime.

- THE estimation of magnitude by means of concepts of
number (or their signs in algebra) is mathematical, but that in
mere intuition (by the eye) is aesthetic. Now we can only get
definite concepts of ow great anything is by having recourse 15
to numbers (or, at any rate, by getting approximate measure-
ments by means of numerical series progressing ad infinitum),
the unit being the measure; and to this extent all logical
estimation of magnitude is mathematical. But, as the magni-
tude of the measure has to be assumed as a known quantity, 20
if, to form an estimate of this, we must again have recourse to
numbers involving another standard for their unit, and con-
sequently must again proceed mathematically, we can never
arrive at a first or fundamental measure, and so cannot get any
definite concept of a given magnitude. The estimation of the 25
magnitude of the fundamental measure musf, therefore, consist
merely in the immediate grasp which we can get of It in
intuition, and the use to which our imagination can put this in
presenting the numerical concepts: i.e. all estimation of the
magnitude of objects of nature 1s in the last resort aesthetic 30
(i.e, subjectively and not objectively determined).

Now for the mathematical estimation of magnitude there is,

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 99
A, The Mathematically Sublime

of course, no greatest possible (for the power of numbers extends
to infinity), but for the aesthetic estimation there certainly is,
and of it I say that where it is considered an absolute measure
beyond which no greater is possible subjectively (i.e. for the
5 judging Subject), it then conveys the idea of the sublime, and
calls forth that emotion which no mathematical estimation of
magnitudes by numbers can evoke (unless in so far as the
fundamental aesthetic measure is kept vividly present to the
imagination): because the latter presents only the relative
1o Magnitude due to comparison with others of a like kind,
whereas the former presents magnitude absolutely, so far as the
mind can grasp it in an intuition.
To take in a quantum intuitively in the imagination so as to
be able to use it as a measure, or unit for estimating magnitude
15 by numbers, involves two operations of this faculty: apprehen-
sion (apprehensio) and comprehension (comprehensio aesthetica).
Apprehension presents no difficulty: for this process can be
carried on ad infinitum ; but with the advance of apprehension
comprehension becomes more difficult at every step and soon
20 attains its maximum, and this is the aesthetically greatest
fundamental measure for the estimation of magnitude. For if
the apprehension has reached a point beyond which the
representations of sensuous intuition in the. case of the parts
first apprehended begin to disappear from the imagination as
25 this advances to the apprehension of yet others, as much, then,
is lost at one end as is gained at the other, and for comprehen-
sion we get a maximum which the imagination cannot exceed.
This explains Savary’s observations in his account of Egypt,
‘that in order to get the full emotional effect of the size of
30 the Pyramids we must avoid coming too near just as much
as remaining too far away. For in the latter case the repre-
sentation of the apprehended parts (the tiers of stones) is
but obscure, and produces no effect upon the aesthetic judge-
ment of the Subject. In the former, however, it takes the eye
H2

252

100 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

some time to complete the apprehension from the base to the
summit; but in this interval the first tiers always in part
disappear before the imagination has taken in the last, and so
the comprehension is never complete.—The same explanation
may also sufficiently account for the bewilderment, or sort of 5

perplexity, which, as is said, seizes the visitor on first entering
St. Peter’s in Rome. For here a feeling comes home to him
of the inadequacy of his imagination for presenting the idea
of a whole within which that imagination attains its maximum,
md rts fruitless efforts to extend this limit, recoils upon 10
itself, but in so doing succumbs to an emotional delight.

At present I am not disposed to deal with the ground of
this delight, connected, as it is, with a representation in which
we would least of all look for it—a representation, namely, that
lets us see its own inadequacy, and consequently its subjective 15
want of finality for our judgement in the estimation of mag-
nitude—but confine myself to the remark that if the aesthetic
judgement is to be pure (unmixed with any teleological judgement
which, as such, belongs to reason), and if we are to give a suit-
able example of it for the Critique of aesthetic judgement, we 20
must not point to the sublime in works of art, e.g. buildings,
statues and the like, where a human end determines the form
as well as the magnitude, nor yet in things of nature, ¢hat in

253 their very concept import a definite end, e.g. animals of a recognized
natural order, but in rude nature merely as involving mag- 25
nitude (and only in this so far as it does not convey any charm
or any emotion arising from actual danger). For ina represen-
tation of this kind nature contains nothing monstrous (nor what
is either magnificent or horrible)—the magnitude apprehended
may be increased to any extent provided imagination is able to 30
grasp it all in one whole. An object is monstrous where by its
size it defeats the end that forms its concept. The colossal is
The mere presentation of a concept which 1s almost too great
for presentation, i.e. borders on the relatively monstrous ; for

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 101
A. The Mathematically Sublime

the end to be attained by the presentation of a concept is made
harder to realize by the intuition of the object being almost too
great for our faculty of apprehension.—A pure judgement upon
the sublime must, however, have no end belonging to the

5 Object as its determining ground, if it is to be aesthetic and
not to be tainted with any judgement of understanding or
reason.

Since whatever is to be a source of pleasure, apart from
interest, to the merely reflective judgement must involve in its
10 representation subjective, and, as such, universally valid finality
—though here, however, no finality of the form of the object
underlies our estimate of it (as it does in the case of the beau-
tıful)—the question arises, What_is this subjective finality,
and what enables it to be prescribed as a norm_so as to yield
15 a ground for universally valid delight in the mere estimation of
magnitude, and that, foo, in a case where it is pushed to the point
at which our faculty of imagination breaks down in presenting
the concept of a magnitude, and proves unequal to its task ?
In the successive aggregation of units requisite for the
20 representation of magnitudes the imagination of itself advances
ad infinitum without let or hindrance—understanding, how-
ever, conducting it by means of concepts of number for which
the former must supply the schema. This procedure belongs
to the logical estimation of magnitude, and, as such, is doubt-
25 less something objectively final according to the concept of an
end (as all measurement is), but it is not anything which for
the aesthetic judgement is final or pleasing. Further, in this
intentional finality there is nothing compelling us to tax the 254
"Ulmost powers of the imagination, and drive it as far.as.eyer it
30 can reach in its presentations, so as to enlarge the size of the
measure, and thus make the single intuition holding the many
in one (the comprehension) as great as possible. For in“the
estimation of magnitude byt understanding (arithmetic) we

102 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

get just as far, whether the comprehension of the units is
pushed to the number 10 (as in the decimal scale) or only to 4
(as in the quaternary); the further production of magnitude
being carried out by the successive aggregation of units, or, if
the quantum is given in intuition, by apprehension, merely pro- 5
gressively (not comprehensively), according to an adopted
principle of progression. In this mathematical estimation of
magnitude understanding is as well served and as satisfied
whether imagination selects for the unit a magnitude which
one can take in at a glance, e.g. a foot, or a perch, or else a to
German mile, or even the earth’s diameter, the apprehension of
which is indeed possible, but not its comprehension in an
intuition of the imagination (i.e. it is not possible by means
of a comprehensio aesthetica, though quite so by means of a
comprehensio logica in a numerical concept). In each case 15
the logical estimation of magnitude advances ad injinitum with
nothing to stop it.

The mind, however, hearkens now to the voice of reason,
which for all given magnitudes—even for those which can
never be completely apprehended, though (in sensuous repre- 20
sentation) estimated as completely given—requires totality, and
consequently comprehension in ove intuition, and which calls
for a presentation answering to all the above members of a
progressively increasing numerical series, and does not exempt
even the infinite (space and time past) from this requirement, 25
but rather renders it inevitable for us to regard this infinite (in
the judgement of common reason) as completely given (i.e.
given in its totality).

But the infinite is absolutely (not merely comparatively) great.
In’comparison with this all else (in the way of magnitudes of the 30
same order) is small. But the point of capital importance is that
the mere ability even to think it as a whole indicates a faculty
of mind transcending every standard of sense. For the latter
would entail a comprehension yielding as unit a standard

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 103
A. The Mathematically Sublime

bearing to the infinite a definite ratio expressible in numbers,
which is impossible. Still the seve ability even to think the given
infinite without contradiction, is something that requires the
presence in the human mind of a faculty that is itself supersen-
5 sible. For it is only through this faculty and its idea of a nou-
menon, which latter, while not itself admitting of any intuition,
is yet introduced as substrate underlying the intuition of the
world as mere phenomenon, that the infinite of the world of sense,
in the pure intellectual estimation of magnitude, is completely
1o comprehended under a concept, although in the mathematical
estimation dy means of numerical concepts it can never be com-
pletely thought. Even a faculty enabling the infinite of super-
sensible intuition to be Given (in its intelligible sub-
strate), transcends every standard of sensibility, and is great
15 beyond SI-GOMpATSON Sven with the faculty of mathematical
estimation : not, of course, from a theoretical point of view that
looks to the_interests of our faculty of knowledge, but as a
broadening of the mind that from another (the practical) point
erg to pass beyond the narrow
20 confines of sensibility.

Nature, therefore, is sublime in such of its phenomena as in
their intuition convey the idea of their infinity. But this can
only occur through the inadequacy of even the greatest effort
of our imagination in the estimation of the magnitude of an

25 object. But, now, in the case of the mathematical estimation of
magnitude imagination is quite competent to supply a measure
equal to the requirements of any object. For the numerical
concepts of the understanding can by progressive synthesis
make any measure adequate to any given magnitude. Hence

30 it must be the gesthetic estimation of magnitude in which we
get at once a feeling of the effort towards a comprehension that

exceeds the faculty of imagination for mentally grasping the”

progressive apprehension in a whole of intuition, and, with it,

2 perception of the inadequacy of this faculty, which has no

255

104 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

bounds to its progress, for taking in and using for the estimation
of magnitude a fundamental measure that understanding could
turn to account without the least trouble. Now the proper
unchangeable fundamental measure of nature is its absolute
whole, which, with it, regarded as a phenomenon, means 5
infinity comprehended. But, since this fundamental measure is
a self-contradictory concept, (owing to the impossibility of the
absolute totality of an endless progression,) it follows that where
the size of a natural Object is such that t the imagination spends
its whole faculty of comprehension upon it in vain, it, must 10
cary our concept of nature to a supersensible substrate —
imderlying both nature and our faculty of thought) which is
oot beyond every standard of sense. Thus, instead of the

N 56 object, it is rather the cast of the mind in appreciating it that
we have to estimate as sublime. 15

Therefore, just as the aesthetic judgement in its estimate of
the beautiful refers the imagination in its free play to the
‘understanding, to bring out its agreement with the concepés of
‚the latter in general (apart from their determination) : so in its
Sstimate of a thing as sublime it refers that faculty to reason to 20
bring out its subjective accord with zdeas of reason (indétermin-
‘ately indicated), i.e. to induce a temper of mind conformable
to that which the influence of definite (practical) ideas would
produce upon feeling, and in common accord with it.

This makes it evident that true sublimity must be sought 25
only in the mind of the judging Subject, and not in the Object
of nature that occasions this attitude by the estimate formed of
it. Who would apply the term ‘sublime’ even to shapeless
mountain masses towering one above the other in wild disorder,
with their pyramids of ice, or to the dark tempestuous ocean, 30
‚or such like things? But in the contemplation of them, with-
out any regard to their form, the mind abandons itself to the
imagination and to a reason placed, though quite apart from any
Mefinite end, in conjunction therewith, and merely broadening

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 105
A, The Mathematically Sublime

its view, and it feels itself elevated in its own estimate of itself
on finding all the might of imagination still unequal to its ideas.
We get examples of the mathematically sublime of nature in
mere intuition in all those instances where our imagination is
5 afforded, not so much a greater numerical concept as a large
unit as measure (for shortening the numerical series). A tree
judged by the height of man gives, at all events, a standard for
a mountain ; and, supposing this is, say, a mile high, it can
serve as unit for the number expressing the earth’s diameter, so
toas to make it intuitable ; similarly the earth’s diameter for the
known planetary system ; this again for the system of the Milky
Way ; and the immeasurable host of such systems, which go by
the name of nebulae, and most likely in turn themselves form
such a system, holds out no prospect of a limit. Now in the
15 aesthetic estimate of such an immeasurable whole, the sublime
does not lie so much in the greatness of the number, as in the
fact that in our onward advance we always arrive at proportion-
ately greater units. The systematic division of the cosmos
conduces to this result. For it represents all that is great in/257
20 nature as in turn becoming little; or, to be more exact, it
represents our imagination in all its boundlessness, and with it
nature, as sinking into insignificance before the ideas of reason,
once their adequate presentation is attempted.

ee § 27
25 Quality of the delight in our estimate of the sublime.

THE feeling of our incapacity to attain to an idea ¢hat is a law

Jor us, 18 RESPECT. Now the idea of the comprehension of any
“phenomenon whatever, that may be given us, in a whole of
intuition, is an idea imposed upon us by a law of reason, which
30 recognizes no definite, universally valid and unchangeable
measure except the absolute whole. But our imagination, even
when taxing itself to the uttermost on the score of this required

58

106 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Cnitique of Aesthetic Judgement

comprehension of a given object in a whole of intuition, (and
so with a view to the presentation of the idea of reason,)
betrays its limits and its inadequacy, but still, at the same time,
its proper vocation of making itself adequate to the same as
alaw. Therefore the feeling of the sublime in nature is respect 5
for our own vocation, which we attribute to an Object of nature
by a certain subreption (substitution of a respect for the Object
in place of.one for the idea of humanity in our own self—the
Subject) ; and this feeling renders, as it were, intuitable the
supremacy of our cognitive faculties on the rational side over 10
the greatest faculty of sensibility.

The feeling of the sublime is, therefore, at once a feeling of
displeasure, arising from the inadequacy of imagination in the
aesthetic estimation of magnitude to attain to its estimation by
reason, and a simultaneously awakened pleasure, arising from 15
this very judgement of the inadequacy of the greatest faculty
of sense being in accord with ideas of reason, so far as the
effort to attain to these is for us a law. It is, in other words,
for us a law (of reason), which goes to make us what we are,
that we should esteem as small in comparison with ideas of 20
reason everything which for us is great in nature as an object
of sense ; and that which makes us alive to the feeling of this
supersensible side of our being harmonizes with that law. Now
the greatest effort of the imagination in the presentation of the
unit for the estimation of magnitude involves in itself a reference 25
to something adso/utely great, consequently a reference also to
the law of reason that this alone is to be adopted as the supreme
measure of what is great. Therefore the inner perception of the
inadequacy of every standard of sense to serve for the rational
estimation of magnitude is a coming into accord with reason’s 3°
laws, and a displeasure that makes us alive to the feeling of the
supersensible side of our being, according to which it is
final, and consequently a pleasure, to find every standard of
sensibility falling short of the ideas of reason.

Book II, Analytic of the Sublime 107
A. The Mathematically Sublime

The mind feels itself se¢ 7 motion in the representation of the
sublime in nature; whereas in the aesthetic judgement upon
what is beautiful therein it is in ves¢fu7 contemplation. This
movement, especially in its inception, may be compared with

5 a vibration, i.e, with a rapidly alternating repulsion and attraction
produced by one and the same Object. The point of excess
for the imagination (towards which it is driven in the appre-
hension of the intuition) is like an abyss in which it fears to
lose itself; yet again for the rational idea of the supersensible

to it is not excessive, but conformable to law, and directed to
drawing out such an effort on the part of the imagination: and
so in turn as much a source of attraction as it was repellent to
mere sensibility. But the judgement itself all the while stead-
fastly preserves its aesthetic character, because it represents,

15 without being grounded on any definite concept of the Object,
merely the subjective play of the mental powers (imagination
and reason) as harmonious by virtue of their very contrast.”
For just as in the estimate of the beautiful imagination and'
understanding by their concert generate subjective finality of

20 the mental faculties, so imagination and reason do so here by
their conflict—that is to say they induce a feeling of our possess-
ing a pure and self-sufficient reason, or a faculty for the estima-ı
tion of magnitude, whose pre-eminence can only be made
intuitively evident by the inadequacy of that faculty which ir

25 the presentation of magnitudes (of objects of sense) is itself
unbounded.

Measurement of a space (as apprehension) is at the same
time a description of it, and so an objective movement in the
imagination and a progression. On the other hand the com-

30 prehension of the manifold in the unity, not of thought, but of
intuition, and consequently the comprehension of the succes-
sively apprehended parts at one glance, is a retrogression that
removes the time-condition in the progression of the imagina- 2f9,
tion, and renders co-existence intuitable. Therefore, since the

108 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

time-series is a condition of the internal sense and of an
intuition, it is a subjective movement of the imagination by
which it does violence to the internal sense—a violence which
must be proportionately more striking the greater the quantum
which the imagination comprehends in one intuition. The 5
effort, therefore, to receive in a single intuition a measure for
magnitudes which it takes an appreciable time to apprehend,
is a mode of representation which, subjectively considered,
is contra-final, but, objectively, is requisite for the estimation
of magnitude, and is consequently final. Here the very same 10
violence that is wrought on the Subject through the imagination
is estimated as final for the whole province of the mind.

The guatity of the feeling of the sublime consists in its
being, in respect of the faculty of forming aesthetic estimates,
a feeling of displeasure at an object, which yet, at the same 15
time, is represented as being final—a representation which
derives its possibility from the fact that the Subject’s very
incapacity betrays the consciousness of an unlimited faculty of
the same Subject, and that the mind can only form an aesthetic
estimate of the latter faculty by means of that incapacity. 20

In the case of the logical estimation of magnitude the im-
possibility of ever arriving at absolute totality by the progressive
measurement of things of the sensible world in time and space
was cognized as an objective impossibility, i.e. one of ¢hinking
the infinite as given, and not as simply subjective, i.e. an in- 25
capacity for grasping it ; for nothing turns there on the amount
of the comprehension in one intuition, as measure, but every-
thing depends on a numerical concept. But in an aesthetic
estimation _of magnitude the numerical concept must drop
out of count or undergo a change. The only thing that is final 30

for such estimation is the comprehension on the part of imagina-
tion in respect of the unit of measure (the concept oni
the successive production of the concept of magnitude béing

consequently avoided).—If, now, a magnitude begins to tax the

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 109
A. The Mathematically Sublime

utmost stretch of our faculty of comprehension in an intuition,
and still numerical magnitudes—in respect of which we are
conscious of the boundlessness of our faculty—call upon the
imagination for aesthetic comprehension in a greater unit,

5 the mind then gets a feeling of being aesthetically confined
within bounds. Nevertheless, with a view to the extension of
imagination necessary for adequacy with what is unbounded in
our faculty of reason, namely the idea of the absolute whole, 260
the attendant displeasure, and, consequently, the want of

to finality in our faculty of imagination, is still represented as
final for ideas of reason and their animation. But in this very
way the aesthetic judgement itself is subjectively final for
reason as source of ideas, i.e. of such an intellectual compre-
hension as makes all aesthetic comprehension small, and the

1g object is received as sublime with a pleasure that is only
possible through the mediation of a displeasure.

B. THE ee SUBLIME IN NATURE
§ 28
Nature as Might.

20 Might is a power which is superior to great hindrances. It
is termed dominion if it is also superior to the resistance of
that which itself possesses might. Nature considered in an
aesthetic judgement as might that has no dominion over us, is
dynamically sublime. aaa

25 If we are to estimate nature as dynamically sublime, it must
be represented as a source of fear (though the converse, that
every object that is a source of fear is, in our aesthetic judge-
ment, sublime, does not hold). For in forming an aesthetic
estimate (no concept being present) the superiority to hin-

3o drances can only be estimated according to the greatness of
the resistance. Now that which we strive to resist is an evil,

TIO Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

and, if we do not find our powers commensurate to the task,
an object of fear. Hence the aesthetic judgement can only
deem nature a might, and so dynamically sublime, in so far as
it is looked upon as an object of fear.

But we may look upon an object as fearful, and yet not be 5
afraid of it, if, that is, our estimate takes the form of our simply
picturing to ourselves the case of our wishing to offer some
resistance to it, and recognizing that all such resistance would
be quite futile. So the righteous man fears God without being
afraid of Him, because he regards the case of his wishing to 10
resist God and His commandments as one which need cause

261 Aim no anxiety. But in every such case, regarded by him as
not intrinsically impossible, he cognizes Him as One to be
feared.
~ One who is in a state of fear can no more play the part of 15
a judge of the sublime of nature than one captivated by
inclination and appetite can of the beautiful. He flees from
he sight of an object filling him with dread; and it is im-
possible to take delight in terror that is seriously entertained.
Hence the agreeableness arising from the cessation of an 20
uneasiness is @ state of joy. But this, depending upon deliver-
ance from a danger, is a rejoicing accompanied with a resolve
never again to put oneself in the way of the danger : in fact we
do not like bringing back to mind how we felt on that occa-
sion—not to speak of going in search of an opportunity for
experiencing it again.

— Bold, overhanging, and, as it were, threatening rocks, thunder-
clouds piled up the vault of heaven, borne along with flashes
and peals, volcanoes in all their violence of destruction,
hurricanes leaving desolation in their track, the boundless 30
ocean rising with rebellious force, the high waterfall of some
mighty river, and the like, make our power of resistance
of trifling moment in comparison with their might. But,
provided our own position is secure, their aspect is all the more

ne

5

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 1II
B. The Dynamically Sublime

attractive for its fearfulness ; and we readily call these objects
“subtime, because they raise the forces of the soul above the

_ eight of vulgar commönplace, and discover within us a power
of resistance of quite another kind, which gives us courage to
5 be able to measure ourselves against the seeming omnipotence
of nature.
“Tr the immeasurableness of nature and the incompetence
of our faculty for adopting a standard proportionate to the
aesthetic estimation of the magnitude of its vea/m, we found
ro our own limitation. But with this we also found in our rational
faculty another non-sensuous standard, one which has that
infinity itself under it as unit, and in comparison with which
everything in nature is small, and so found in our minds
a pre-eminence over nature even in its immeasurability. Now
1g in just the same way the irresistibility of the might of nature
forces upon us the recognition of our physical helplessness as
beings of nature, but at the same time reveals a faculty of
estimating ourselves as independent of nature, and discovers
2 pre-eminence above nature that is the foundation of a self-
20 preservation of quite another kind from that which may be
assailed and brought into danger by external nature. This
saves humanity in our own person from humiliation, even
though as mortal men we have to submit to external violence.
In this way external nature is not estimated in our aesthetic
25 judgement as sublime so far as exciting fear, but rather because
it challenges our EN (one not of nature) to regard as
small those things which we are wont to be solicitous
(worldiy goods, health, and life), and hence to regard its
might (to which in these matters we are no doubt subject) as
30 exercising over us and our personality no such rude dominion
that we should bow down before it, once the question becomes
one_of our highest principles and For asserting or forsaking
them, Therefore nature is here called sublime merely because
it raises the imagination to a presentation of those case, in

262

112 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

which the mind can make itself sensible of the appropriate
sublimity of the sphere of ıts own being, even above mature,

This estimation of ourselves loses nothing by the fact that
we must see ourselves safe in order to feel this soul-stirring
delight—a fact from which it might be plausibly argued that, as 5
there is no seriousness in the danger, so there is just as little
seriousness in the sublimity of our faculty of soul. For here
the delight only concerns the province of our faculty disclosed
in such a case, so far as this faculty has its root in our
nature; notwithstanding that its development and exercise 10
is left to ourselves and remains an obligation. Here indeed
there is truth—no matter how conscious a man, when he
stretches his reflection so far abroad, may be of his actual
present helplessness.

This principle has, doubtless, the appearance of being too 15
far-fetched| and subtle, and so of lying beyond the reach of
an aesthetic judgement. But observation of men proves the
reverse, and that it may be the foundation of the commonest
judgements, although one is not always conscious of its presence.
For what is it that, even to the savage, is the object of the 20
greatest*admiration? It is a man who is undaunted, who
knows no fear, and who, therefore, does not give way to
danger, but sets manfully to work with full deliberation. Even
where civilization has reached a high pitch there remains this
special reverence for the soldier ; only that there is then further 25
required of him that he should also exhibit all the virtues
of peace—gentleness, sympathy and even becoming thought
for his own person ; and for the reason that in this we recognize
that his mind is above the threats of danger. And so, com-
paring the statesman and the general, men may argue as they 30

263 please as to the pre-eminent respect which is due to either
above the other ; but the verdict of the aesthetic judgement is
for the latter. War itself, provided it is conducted with order
and a sacred respect for the rights of civilians, has something

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 113
B. The Dynamically Sublime

sublime about it, and gives nations that carry it on in such
a manner a stamp of mind only the more sublime the more
numerous the dangers to which they are exposed, and which.
they are able to meet with fortitude. On the other hand,
5a prolonged peace favours the predominance of a mere com-
mercial spirit, and with it a debasing self-interest, cowardice,
and effeminacy, and tends to degrade the character of the
nation. ~
So far as sublimity is predicated of might, this solution of
10 the concept of it appears at variance with the fact that we are
wont to represent God in the tempest, the storm, the earthquake,
and the like, as presenting Himself in His wrath, but at the
same time also in His sublimity, and yet here it would be alike
folly and presumption to imagine a pre-eminence of our minds
15 over the operations and, as it appears, even over the direction
of such might. Here, instead of a feeling of the sublimity of
our own nature, submission, prostration, and a feeling of utter
helplessness seem more to constitute the attitude of mind
befitting the manifestation of such an object, and to be that also
20 more customarily associated with the idea of it on the occasion
of a natural phenomenon of this kind. In religion, as a rule,
prostration, adoration with bowed head, coupled with contrite,
timorous posture and voice, seems to be the only becoming
demeanour in presence of the Godhead, and accordingly most
25 nations have assumed and still observe it. Yet this cast of
mind is far from being intrinsically and necessarily involved in
the idea of the szb/mity of a religion and of its object. The
man that is actually in a state of fear, finding in himself good
reason to be so, because he is conscious of offending with his
30 evil disposition against a might directed by a will at once
irresistible and just, is far from being in the frame of mind for
admiring divine greatness, for which a temper of calm reflec-
tion and a quite free judgement are required. Only when he
becomes conscious of having a disposition that 1s uprightmd

1193 I

114 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

u. do those operations of might serve to stir

within him the idea of the sublimity of this Being, so far as he
recognizes the existence in himself of a sublimity of disposition
consonant with His will, and is thus raised above the dread of
such operations of nature, in which he no longer sees God 5

2®&% pouring forth the vials of the wrath. Even humility, taking
the form of an uncompromising judgement—upon_his_short-
comings, which, with the consciousness of good intentions,
might readily be glossed over on the ground of the frailty of
human nature, is a sublime temper of the mind voluntarily to 10
undergo the pain of remorse as a means of more and more
effectually eradicating its cause. In this way religion is
intrinsically distinguished from superstition, which latter rears
in the mind, not reverence for the sublime, but dread and
apprehension of the all-powerful Being to whose will terror- 15
stricken man sees himself subjected, yet without according
Him due honour. From this nothing can arise but grace-
begging and vain adulation, instead of a religion consisting in
a good life.

Sublimity, therefore, does not reside in_any of the things of 20
San

nature, but only in our owr{ mini, in so far as we may become
conscious of our superiorityvevér nature within, and thus also
over nature without us (as exerting influence upon us). Every-
thing that provokes this feeling in us, including the might? of
nature which challenges our st is then, though ım- 25
en aod ea ear ander presupposition of
this idea within us, and in relation to it, that we are capable of
attaining to the idea of the sublimity of that Being which
inspires deep respect in us, not by the mere display of its might
in nature, but more by the faculty which is planted in us of 30
estimating that might without fear, and of regarding our estate
as exalted above it.

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 115
B. The Dynamically Sublime

§ 29
Modatity of the judgement on the sublime in nature.

BEAUTIFUL nature contains countless things as to which we
at once take every one as in their judgement concurring with
5 our own, and as to which we may further expect this concurrence
without facts finding us farastray. But in respect of our judge-
ment upon the sublime in nature we cannot so easily vouch
for ready acceptance by others. For a far higher degree of
culture, not merely of the aesthetic judgement, but also of
10 the faculties of cognition which lie at its basis, seems to be
requisite to enable us to lay down a judgement upon this
high distinction of natural objects.
The proper mental mood for a feeling of the sublime pos-
tulates the mind’s susceptibility for ideas, since it is precisely in
15 the failure of nature to attain to these—and consequently only
under presupposition of this susceptibility and.of the straining

of the imagination to use nature as a schema for ideas—that

there is something forbidding to sensibility, but which, for all
that, has an attraction for us, arising from the fact of its being

20 a dominion which reason exercises over sensibility with a view

to extending it to the requirements of its own realm (the
‘practical) and letting it look out beyond itself into the infinite,
which for it is an abyss. In fact, without the development
of moral ideas, that which, thanks to preparatory culture, we
25 call sublime, merely strikes the untutored_man as terrifying.

He will see in the evidences which the ravages of nature
give of her dominion, and in the vast scale of her might,
compared with which his own is diminished to insignificance,
only the misery, peril, and distress that would compass the
30 man who was thrown to its mercy. So the simple-minded,
and, for the most part, intelligent, Savoyard peasant, (as Herr
von Sassure relates,) unhesitatingly called all lovers of snow-
12

116 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

mountains fools. And who can tell whether he would have
been so wide of the mark, if that student of nature had taken
the risk of the dangers to which he exposed himself merely, as '
most travellers do, for a fad, or so as some day to be able to
give a thrilling account of his adventures? But the mind of 5
Sassure was bent on the instruction of mankind, and soul-
stirring sensations that excellent man indeed had, and the
reader of his travels got them thrown into the bargain.

But the fact that culture is requisite for the judgement upon
the sublime in nature (more than for that upon the beautiful) 10
does not involve its being an original product of culture and
something introduced in a more or less conventional way into
society. Rather is it in human nature that its foundations are
laid, and, in fact, in that which, at once with common under-
standing, we may expect every one to possess and may require 15
of him, namely, a native capacity for the feeling for (practical)
ideas, i.e. for moral feeling.

This, now, is the foundation of the necessity of that agreement
between other men’s judgements upon the sublime and our own,

which we make our own imply. For just as we taunt a man 20

who is quite inappreciative when forming an estimate of an
object of nature in which we see beauty, with want of zasze, so
we say of aman who remains unaffected in the presence of
what we consider sublime, that he has no feeling. But we
demand both taste and feeling of every man, and, granted 25

$66 some degree of culture, we give him credit for both. Still, we

.

do so with this difference: that, in the case of the former,
since judgement there refers the imagination merely to the
understanding, as the faculty of concepts, we make the réquire-
ment as a matter of course, whereas in the case of the latter, 3°
since here the judgement refers the imagination to reason, as
a faculty of ideas, we do so only under a subjective’ presupposi-
tion, (which, however, we believe we are warranted in making,)
namely, that of the moral feeling in man. And, on this

Book II. Analytic of the\Sublime 177
B. The Dynamically Sublime

4

assumption, we attribute necessity to the latter aesthetic judge-
ment also.
In this modality of aesthetic judgements, namely their‘
assumed necessity, lies what is for the Critique of Judgement
5a moment of capital importance. For this is exactly what
makes an a griori principle apparent in their case, and lifts
them out of the sphere of empirical psychology, in which other-
wise they would remain buried amid the feelings of gratification
and pain (only with the senseless epithet of fier feeling), so as
10 to place them, and, thanks to them, to place the faculty of
judgement itself, in the class of judgements of which the
basis of an a@ prior? principle is the distinguishing feature,
and, thus distinguished, to introduce them into transcendental
philosophy.

15 GENERAL REMARK UPON THE EXPOSITION OF AESTHETIC
REFLECTIVE JUDGEMENTS

In relation to the feeling of pleasure an object is to be counted
either as agreeable, or beautiful, or sublime, or good (absolutely),
(iucundum, pulchrum, sublime, honestum).

2o As the motive of desires the agreeadle is invariably of one
and the same kind, no matter what its source or how specifically
different the- representation (of sense and sensation objectively
considered). Hence in estimating its influence upon the mind
the multitude of its charms (simultaneous or successive) is

25 alone relevant, and so only, as it were, the mass of the agree-
able sensation, and it is only by its Quantity, therefore, that this
can be made intelligible. Further it in no way conduces
to our culture, but belongs only to mere enjoyment.—The
beautiful, on the other hand, requires the representation of a

30 certain Quality of the Object, that permits also of being under-
stood and reduced to concepts, (although in the aesthetic
judgement it is not so reduced,) and it cultivates, as it instructs

267

118 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

us to attend to finality in the feeling of pleasure.—The suölime
consists merely in the ve/ation exhibited by the estimate of the
serviceability of the sensible in the representation of nature for
a possible supersensible employment.—The absolutely good,
estimated subjectively according to the feeling it inspires, (the 5
Object of the moral feeling, ) as the determinability of the powers
of the Subject by means of the representation of an absolutely
necessitating law, is principally distinguished by the modality of
a necessity resting upon concepts a griori, and involving not
a mere claim, but a command upon every one to assent, and 10
belongs intrinsically not to the aesthetic, but to the pure in-
tellectual judgement. Further, it is not ascribed to nature but
to freedom, and that in a determinant and not a merely reflective
judgement. But the dererminability of the Subject by means of
This idea, and, what is more, that of a Subject which can be 15
sensible, in the way of a modification of its state, to hindrances
on the part of sensibility, while, at the same time, it can by sur-
mounting them feel superiority over them—a determinability,
in_other words, as moral feeling—is still so allied to aesthetic
judgement and its formal conditions as to be capable of being 20
Pressed into the Service of the aesthetic representation of the
conformity to law of action from duty, i.e. of the representation
of this as sublime, or even as beattiful, without forfeiting its
purity—an impossible result were one to make it naturally
bound up with the feeling of the agreeable. 25
~ The net result to be extracted from the exposition so far
given of both kinds of aesthetic judgements may be summed
up in the following brief definitions:

The beautiful is what pleases in the mere estimate formed
of it (consequently not by intervention of any feeling of sense 3°
in accordance with a concept of the understanding). From this
it follows at once that it must please apart from all interest.

The sublime is what pleases immediately by reason of its
opposition to the interest of sense.

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 119

General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

Both, as definitions of aesthetic universally valid estimates,
have reference to subjective grounds. In the one case the
reference is to grounds of sensibility, in so far as these are
final on behalf of the contemplative understanding, in the

5 other case in so far as, in their 052osition to sensibility, they
are, on the contrary, final in reference to the ends of prac-
tical reason. Both, however, as united in the same Subject,
are final in reference to the moral feeling. The beautiful
prepares us to love something, even nature, apart from any

to interest: the sublime to esteem something highly even in
opposition to our (sensible) interest.

The sublime may be described in this way: It is an object 264
(of nature) the representation of which determines the mind to
regard the elevation of nature beyond our reach as equivalent to

15 a presentation of ideas.

In a literal sense and according to their logical import, ideas
cannot be presented. But if we enlarge our empirical faculty
of representation (mathematical or dynamical) with a view to
the intuition of nature, reason inevitably steps forward, as the

20 faculty concerned with the independence of the absolute totality,
and calls forth the effort of the mind, unavailing though it be,

0 make the representation of sense adequate to this to
This effort, and the feeling of en of the idea b
eans of imagination, is itself @ presentation of the subjectiv

25 RENT) oFour mind ie the employment of the imagination in
the interests of the mind’s supersensible province, and compels
us subjectively to 7%in% nature itself in its totality as a presenta-
tion of something supersensible, without our being able to
effectuate this presentation objectively.

30 For we readily see that nature in space and time falls entirely
short of the unconditioned, consequently also of the absolutely
great, which still the commonest reason demands. And by
this we are also reminded that we have only to do with nature
as phenomenon, and that this itself must be regarded as the

120 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

mere presentation of a nature-in-itself (which exists in the idea
of reason). But this idea of the supersensible, which no doubt
we cannot further determine—so that we cannot coguize nature
as its presentation, but only #77 it as such—is awakened in
us by an object the aesthetic estimating of which strains the 5
imagination to its utmost, whether in respect of its extension
(mathematical), or of its might over the mind (dynamical).
For it is founded upon the feeling of a sphere of the mind
which altogether exceeds the realm of nature (i.e. upon the
moral feeling), with regard to which the representation of the ro
object is estimated as subjectively final.

As a matter of fact, a feeling for the sublime in nature
is hardly thinkable unless in association with an attitude of
mind resembling the moral. And though, like that feeling,
the immediate pleasure in the beautiful in nature presupposes 15
and cultivates a certain Zierality of thought, i.e. makes our
delight independent of any mere enjoyment of sense, still it

represents freedom ather as in Jay than as exercising a law-
269 ordained_fuxction, which is the genuine characteristic of

human morality, where reason has to impose its dominion 20
upon sensibility~ There is, however, this qualification, that in
the aesthetic judgement upon the sublime this dominion is
represented as exercised through the imagination itself as an
instrument of reason.

Thus, too, delight | in the sublime in nature is only negative 25
(shereas that in the beautiful is are): that is to say it is a
feeling of imagination by its own act depriving itself of its
freedom by receiving a final determination in accordance with
a law other than that of its empirical employment. In this
way it gains an extension and a might greater than that which 30
it sacrifices. But the ground of this is concealed from it, and
in its place it /ee/s the sacrifice or deprivation, as well as its
cause, to which it is subjected. «The astonishment,amounting
almost to terror, the awe and thrill of devout feeling, that takes

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 121

General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

hold of one when gazing upon the prospect of mountains
ascending to heaven, deep ravines and torrents raging there,
deep-shadowed solitudes that invite to brooding melancholy,
and the like—all this, when we are assured of our own safety, is
5 not actual fear Rather is it an_attempt to gain access to it
through imagination, for the purpose of feeling the might of
tee henley ae the movement_of the mind thereby
“aroused with its serenity, and of thus being superior to internal
EI een can have
een For the imagina-
ion, in accordance with laws of association, makes our state of
contentment dependent upon physical conditions. But acting
in accordance with principles of the schematism of judgement,
(consequently so far as it is subordinated to freedom,) it is at
15 the same time an instrument of reason and its ideas] But in
this capacity it is a might enabling us to assert our independence
as against the influences of nature, to degrade what is great
in respect of the latter to the level of what is little, and thus
to locate the absolutely great only in the proper estate of
20 the Subject. This reflection of aesthetic judgement by which it
raises itself to the point of adequacy with reason, though without
any determinate concept of reason, is still_a representation of
the object_as subjectively final, by virtue even of the objective
inadequacy of the imagination in its greatest extension for meet-
25 ing the demands of reason (as the faculty of ideas).

Here we have to attend generally to what has been already
adverted to, that in the Transcendental Aesthetic of judge-
ment there must be no question of anything but pure aesthetic
judgements. Consequently examples are not to be selected

30 from such beautiful or sublime objects as presuppose the con-
cept of anend. For then the finality would be either teleo-
logical, or based upon mere sensations of an object (gratification
or pain) and so, in the first case, not aesthetic, and, in the
second, not merely formal. So, if we call the sight of the

2708

122 Critique of Judgement,
: Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

Starry heaven sud/ime, we must not found our estimate of it
upon any concepts of worlds inhabited by rational beings, with
the bright spots, which we see filling the space above us, as
their suns moving in orbits prescribed for them with the wisest
regard to ends. But we must take it, just as it strikes the eye, 5
as a broad and all-embracing canopy: and it is merely under
such a representation that we may posit the sublimity which
the pure aesthetic judgement attributes to this object. Similarly,
as to the prospect of the ocean, we are not to regard it as we,
with our minds stored with knowledge on a variety of matters, 10
(which, however, is not contained in the immediate intuition,)
are wont to represent it in ¢hough?, as, let us say, a spacious
realm of aquatic creatures, or as the mighty reservoirs from
which are drawn the vapours that fill the air with clouds of
moisture for the good of the land, or yet as an element which no 15
doubt divides continent from continent, but at the same time
affords the means of the greatest commercial intercourse be-
tween them—for in this way we get nothing beyond teleological
judgements. Instead of this we must be able to see sublimity
in the ocean, regarding it, as the poets do, according to what 20
‘the impression upon the eye reveals, as, let us say, in its calm,
a clear mirror of water bounded only by the heavens, or, be it
disturbed, as threatening to overwhelm and engulf everything.
The same is to be said of the sublime and beautiful in the
human form. Here, for determining grounds of the judgement, 25
we must not have recourse to concepts of ends sudserwd by
‘all its limbs and members, or allow their accordance with these
ends to ¢xflwence our aesthetic judgement, (in such case no
longer pure,) although it is certainly also a necessary condition
“of aesthetic delight that they should not conflict with these 30
ends. Aesthetic finality is the conformity to law of judgement
in its freedom. “The delight in the object depends upon the
Teference which we seck to give to the imagination, subject to
the proviso that it is to entertain the mind in a free activity.

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 123
General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

If, on the other hand, something else,—be it sensation or con-
cept of the understanding —determines the judgement, it is then
conformable to law, no doubt, but not an act of /ree judgement.
Hence to speak of intellectual beauty or sublimity is to use
5 expressions which, in the frst place, are not quite correct.
For these are aesthetic modes of representation which would
be entirely foreign to us were we merely pure intelligences
(or if we even put ourselves in thought in the position of
such). Secondly, although both, as objects of an intellectual
to (moral) delight, are compatible with aesthetic delight to the
extent of not zes#sg-upon any interest, still, on the other
hand, there is a difficulty in the way of their alliance with such
delight, since their function is to Avoduce an interest, and, on
the assumption that the presentation_has to accord with
15 delight in the aesthetic estimate, this interest could onty- be
effected by means of an interest of sense combined with it in
the-presentätion. But in this way the intellectual finality
would be violated and rendered impure.
The object of a pure and unconditioned intellectual delight
zois the moral law in the might which it exerts in us over all
antecedent motives of the mind. Now, since it is only
through sacrifices that this might makes itself known to us
aesthetically, (and this involves a deprivation of something—
though in the interests of inner freedom—whilst in turn
25 it reveals in us an unfathomable depth of this supersensible
faculty, the consequences of which extend beyond reach of
the eye of sense,) it follows that the delight, looked at from
the aesthetic side (in reference to sensibility) is negative, i.e.
opposed to this interest, but from the intellectual side, positive
3o and bound up with an interest. Hence it follows that the
intellectual and intrinsically final (moral) good, estimated
aesthetically, instead of being represented as beautiful, must
rather be represented as sublime, with the result that it arouses
more a feeling of respect (which disdains charm) than of love

272

124 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

or of the heart being drawn towards it—for human nature does
not of its own proper motion accord with the good, but only
by virtue of the dominion which reason exercises over sensi-
bility. Conversely, that, too, which we call sublime in external
nature, or even internal nature (e.g. certain affections) is only 5
represented as a might of the mind enabling it to overcome
this or that hindrance of sensibility by means of moral prin-
ciples, and it is from this that it derives its interest.

I must dwell a while on the latter point. The idea of the
good to which affection is superadded is enthusiasm. Thist
state of mind appears to be sublime: so much so that there
is a common saying that nothing great can be achieved
without it. But now every affection’ is blind either as to
the choice of its end, or, supposing this has been furnished
by reason, in the way it is effected—for it is that mental
movement whereby the exercise of free deliberation upon
fundamental principles, with a view to determining oneself
accordingly, is rendered impossible. On this account it can-
not merit any delight on the part of reason. Yet, from an

5

aesthetic point of view, enthusiasm is sublime, because it is an 20

effort of one’s powers called forth by ideas which give to the
mind an impetus of far stronger and more enduring efficacy
than the stimulus afforded by sensible representations. But (as
seems strange) even freedom from affection (apatheia, phlegma
in significatu bono) in a mind that strenuously follows its un- 2
swerving principles is sublime, and that, too, in a manner

1 There is a specific distinction between affections and passions.
Affections are related merely to feeling; passions belong to the faculty
of desire, and are inclinations that hinder or render impossible all deter-
minability of the elective will by principles. Affections are impetuous 3

- and irresponsible: passions are abiding and deliberate. Thus resent-

ment, in the form of anger, is an affection: but in the form of hatred
(vindictiveness) it is a passion. Under no circumstances can the latter be
called sublime ; for, while the freedom of the mind is, no doubt, impeded

5

in the case of affection, in passion it is abrogated. : 35

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 125
General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

vastly superior, because it has at the same time the delight of
pure reason on its side. Such a stamp of mind is alone
called noble. This expression, however, comes in time to be
applied to things—such as buildings, a garment, literary style,
5 the carriage of one’s person, and the like—provided they do
not so much excite astonishment (the affection attending the
representation of novelty exceeding expectation) as admiration
(an astonishment which does not cease when the novelty wears
off)—and this obtains where ideas undesignedly and artlessly
10 accord in their presentation with aesthetic delight.
Every affection of the STRENUOUS TYPE (such, that is, as
_excites the consciousness of Our power of Overcoming every
resistance (animus strenuus))is aesthetically sublime, e.g. anger,
even desperation (the sage of forlorn hope but not faint-hearted
15 despair). On the other hand, affection of the LANGUID TYPE
(which converts the very effort of resistance into an object of
displeasure (animus languidus)) has nothing »odle about it,
though it may take its rank as possessing beauty of the
sensuous order. -Hence the emotions capable of attaining the
20 strength of an affection are very diverse. We have spirited,
and we have Zender emotions. When the strength of the latter
reaches that of an affection they can be turned to no account.
The propensity to indulge in them is sentimentality. A sym-
pathetic grief that refuses to be consoled, or one that has to
25 do with imaginary misfortune to which we deliberately give
way so far-as to allow our fancy to delude us into thinking it
actual fact, indicates and goes to make a tender, but at the
same time weak, soul, which shows a beautiful side, and may
no doubt be called fanciful, but never enthusiastic. Romances,
30 maudlin dramas, shallow homilies, which trifle with so-called
(though falsely so) noble sentiments, but in fact make the
heart enervated, insensitive to the stern precepts of duty, and
incapable of respect for the worth of humanity in our own
person and the rights of men (which is something quite other

273

126 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

than their happiness), and in general incapable of all firm
principles ; even a religious discourse which recommends
a cringing and abject grace-begging and favour-seeking,
abandoning all reliance on our own ability to resist the evil
within us, in place of the vigorous resolution to try to get the 5
better of our inclinations by means of those powers which,
miserable sinners though we be, are still left to us; that false
humility by which self-abasement, whining hypocritical repen-
tance and a merely passive frame of mind are set down as the
method by which alone we can become acceptable to the ro
Supreme Being—these have neither lot nor fellowship with
what. may be reckoned to belong to beauty, not to speak of
sublimity, of mental temperament.

But even impetuous movements of the mind—be they allied
under the name of edification with ideas of religion, or, as 15
pertaining merely to culture, with ideas involving a social
interest—no matter what tension of the imagination they may
produce, can in no way lay claim to the honour of a sublime
presentation, if they do not leave behind them a temper of
mind which, though it be only indirectly, has an influence upon 20
the consciousness of the mind’s strength and resoluteness in
respect of that which carries with it pure intellectual finality (the
supersensible). For, in the absence of this, all these emotions

“ belong only to motion, which we welcome in the interests
of good health. The agreeable lassitude that follows upon 25
being stirred up in that way by the play of the affections, is

274 a fruition of the state of well-being arising from the restoration
of the equilibrium of the various vital forces within us. This;
in the last resort, comes to no more than what the Eastern
voluptuaries find so soothing when they get their bodies 3°
massaged, and all their muscles and joints softly pressed and
bent; only that in the first case the principle that occasions
the movement is chiefly internal, whereas here it is entirely ex-
ternal. Thus, many a man believes himself edified by a sermon

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 127
General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgemenis

in which there is no establishment of anything (no system of
good maxims); or thinks himself improved by a tragedy,
when he is merely glad at having got well rid of the feeling of
being bored. Thus the sublime must in every case have”
5 reference to our way of thinking, i.e. to maxims directed to
giving the intellectual side of our nature and the ideas of
reason supremacy over sensibility. : _
We have no reason to fear that the feeling of the sublime
will suffer from an abstract mode of presentation like this,
10 which is altogether negative as to what is sensuous. For though
the imagination, no doubt, finds nothing beyond the sensible
world to which it can lay hold, still this thrusting aside of the
sensible barriers gives it a feeling of being unbounded; and
that removal is thus a presentation of the infinite. As such it
15 can never be anything more than a negative presentation—but_
still it expands the soul. Perhaps there is no more sublime
passage in the Jewish Law than the commandment: Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
any thing that is in heaven or on earth, or under the earth, &c.
20 This commandment can alone explain the enthusiasm which
the Jewish people, in their moral period, felt for their religion
when comparing themselves with others, or the pride inspired
by Mohammedanism. The very same holds good of our
representation of the moral law and of our native capacity for
25 morality. The fear that, if we divest this representation of
everything that can commend it to the senses, it will thereupon
be attended only with a cold and lifeless approbation and not
with any moving force or emotion, is wholly unwarranted. The
very reverse is the truth. For when nothing any longer meets
30 the eye of sense, and the unmistakable and ineffaceable idea
of morality is left in possession of the field, there would be need
rather of tempering the ardour of an unbounded imagination
to prevent it rising to enthusiasm, than of seeking to lend these
ideas the aid of images and childish devices for fear of their

128 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

215 being wanting in potency. For this reason governments have
gladly let religion be fully equipped with these accessories,
seeking in this way to relieve their subjects of the exertion,
but to deprive them, at the same time, of the ability, required
for expanding their spiritual powers beyond the limits arbitrarily 5
laid down for them, and which facilitate their being treated as
though they were merely passive.

This pure, elevating, merely negative presentation of morality
involves, on the other hand, no fear of fanaticism, which is a
delusion that would wil/ some vision beyond all the bounds of 10
sensibility ; i.e. would dream according to principles (rational
raving). The safeguard is the purely negative character of the
presentation. For the inscrutability of the idea of freedom pre-
cludes all positive presentation. The moral law, however, is a
sufficient and original source of determination within us: so it 15
does not for a moment permit us to cast about for a ground of
determination external to itself. If enthusiasm is comparable to
delirium, fanaticism may be compared to mania. Of these
the latter is least of all compatible with the sublime, for it
is profoundly ridiculous. In enthusiasm, as an affection, the 20
imagination is unbridled; in fanaticism, as a deep-seated,
brooding passion, it is anomalous. The first is a transitory
accident to which the healthiest understanding is liable to be-
come at times the victim ; the second is an undermining disease.

Simplicity (artless finality) is, as it were, the style adopted by 25
nature in the sublime. It is also that of morality. The latter
is a second (supersensible) nature, whose laws alone we know,
without being able to attain to an intuition of the super-
sensible faculty within us—that which contains the ground of
this legislation. 30

One further remark. The delight in the sublime, no. less
than in the beautiful, by reason of its universal communicability
not alone is plainly distinguished from other aesthetic judge-
ments, but also from this same property acquires an interest in

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 129

General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

society (in which it admits of such communication). Yet,
despite this, we have to note the fact that isodation from all
society is looked upon as something sublime, provided it rests
upon ideas which disregard all sensible interest. To be self-
5 sufficing, and so not to stand in need of society, yet without
being unsociable, i.e. without shunning it, is something ap-
proaching the sublime—a remark applicable to all superiority
to wants. On the other hand, to shun our fellow men from
misanthropy, because of enmity towards them, or from anzAro-
10 pophobia, because we imagine the hand of every man is against
us, is partly odious, partly contemptible. There is, however,
a misanthropy, (most improperly so called,) the tendency
towards which is to be found with advancing years in many
right-minded men, that, as far as good will goes, is, no doubt,
15 philanthropic enough, but as the result of long and sad ex-
perience, is widely removed from de/ight in mankind. We
see evidences of this in the propensity to recluseness, in the
fanciful desire for a retired country seat, or else (with the
young) in the dream of the happiness of being able to spend
20 one’s life with a little family on an island unknown to the rest
of the world—material of which novelists or writers of Robin-
sonades’ know how to make such good use. Falsehood, in-
gratitude, injustice, the puerility of the ends which we ourselves
look upon as great and momentous, and to compass which man
25 inflicts upon his brother man all imaginable evils—these all so
contradict the idea of what men might be if they only would,
and are so at variance with our active wish to see them better,
that, to avoid hating where we cannot love, it seems but a slight
sacrifice to forego all the joys of fellowship with our kind.
30This sadness, which is not directed to the evils which fate
brings down upon others, (a sadness which springs from
sympathy,) but to those which they inflict upon themselves,
(one which is based on antipathy in questions of principle,) is
. sublime because it is founded on ideas, whereas that springing

1193 K

276

130 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

from sympathy can only be accounted beautiful. —Sasszre, who
was no less ingenious than profound, in the description of
his Alpine travels remarks of Bonhomme, one of the Savoy
mountains, ‘There reigns there a certain insipid sadness.’ He
recognized, therefore, that, besides this, there is an zderesting 5
sadness, such as is inspired by the sight of some desolate place
into which men might fain withdraw themselves so as to hear
no more of the world without, and be no longer versed in its
affairs, a place, however, which must yet not be so altogether
inhospitable as only to afford a most miserable retreat for a to
human being.—I only make this observation as a reminder that
even melancholy, (but not dispirited sadness,) may take its
place among the vigorous affections, provided it has its root in
moral ideas. If, however, it is grounded upon sympathy, and,
as such, is lovable, it belongs only to the Zanguid affections. 15
And this serves to call attention to the mental temperament
which in the first case alone is sudlime,

277 The transcendental exposition of aesthetic judgements now
brought to a close may be compared with the physiological, as
worked out by Burke and many acute men among us, so that 20
we may see where a merely empirical exposition of the sublime
and beautiful would bring us. Burke,’ who deserves to be .
called the foremost author in this method of treatment,
deduces, on these Tines, ‘that the feeling of the sublime is
grounded on the impulse towards self preservation and on 25
Jear, i.e. on a pain, which, since it does not go the length of

~“disordering the bodily parts, calls forth movements which, as
they clear the vessels, whether fine or gross, of a dangerous and
troublesome encumbrance, are capable of producing delight ;

1 See p. 223 of the German translation of his work: Philosophical In- 32
vestigations as to the Origin of our Conceptions of the Beautiful and Sublime.
Riga, published by Hartknock, 1773.

Book I]. Analytic of the Sublime 131

General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective J udgements

not pleasure but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity
tinged with terror.’ The beautiful, which he grounds on love
(from which, still, he would have desire kept separate), he
reduces to ‘the’ relaxing, slackening, and enervating of the
5 fibres of the body, and consequently a softening, a dissolving,
a languor, anda fainting, dying, and melting away for pleasure’.
And this explanation he supports, not alone by instances in
which the feeling of the beautiful as well as of the sublime is
capable of being excited in us by the imagination in conjunction
10 With the understanding, but even by instances when it is in
conjunction with sensations.—As psychological observations
these analyses of our mental phenomena are extremely fine,
and supply a wealth of material for the favourite investigations
of empirical anthropology. But, besides that, there is no
15 denying the fact that all representations within us, no matter
whether they are objectively merely sensible or wholly in-
tellectual, are still subjectively associable with gratification or
pain, however imperceptible either of these ‘may be. (For
“these representations one and all have an influence on the
20 feeling of life, and none of them, so far as it is a modification
of the Subject, can be indifferent). We must even admit that,
as Epicurus maintained, gratification and pain though pro-
ceeding from the imagination or even from representations of
the understanding, are always in the last resort corporeal,
since apart from any feeling of the bodily organ life would be 278
merely a consciousness of one’s existence, and could not
include any feeling of well-being or “the reverse, i.e. of the
furtherance or hindrance of the vital forces. For, of itself alone,
the mind is all life (the life-principle itself), and hindrance or
3° furtherance has to be sought outside it, and yet in the man
himself, consequently in the connexion with his body.

But if we attribute the delight in the object wholly and
entirely to the gratification which it affords through charm or
emotion, then we must not exact from any one else agreement

K2

is)
mn

132 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

with the aesthetic judgement passed by ws. For in such
matters each person rightly consults his own personal feeling ”
alone. But in that case there is an end of all censorship of
taste—unless the example afforded by others as the result of
a contingent coincidence of their judgements is to be held over 5
us as commanding our assent. But this principle we would
presumably resent, and appeal to our natural right of sub-
mitting a judgement to our own sense, where it rests upon the
immediate feeling of personal well-being, instead of submitting
it to that of others. 10
Hence if the import of the judgement of taste, where we
appraise it as a judgement entitled to require the concurrence
of every one, cannot be egorszic, but must necessarily, from its
inner nature, be allowed a pluralistic validity, i.e. on account
of what taste itself is, and not on account of the examples 15
which others give of their taste, then it must found upon some
a priori principle, (be it subjective or objective,) and no
amount of prying into the empirical laws of the changes that
go on within the mind can succeed in establishing such
a principle. For these laws only yield a knowledge of how we 20
do judge, but they do not give us a command as to how we
ought to judge, and, what is more, such a command as is
unconditioned—and commands of this kind are presupposed
by judgements of taste, inasmuch as they require delight to
be taken as immediately connected with a representation. 25
Accordingly, though the empirical exposition of aesthetic
judgements may be a first step towards accumulating the
material for a higher investigation, yet a transcendental
examination of this faculty is possible, and forms an essential
part of the Critique of Taste. For, were not taste in posses- 3°
sion of a priori principles, it could not possibly sit in judgement
upon the judgements of others, and pass sentence of com-
mendation or condemnation upon them, with even the least
semblance of authority.

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 133

General Remark on the Exposition of Aesthetic Reflective Judgements

The remaining part of the Analytic of the aesthetic judge-
ment contains first of all the :-—

DEDUCTION OF PURE AESTHETIC JUDGEMENTS

§ 30
5 The Deduction of aesthetic judgements upon objects of nature
must not be directed to what we call sublime in nature, but
only to the beautiful.

THE claim of an aesthetic judgement to universal validity for
every Subject, being a judgement which must rely on some
10 @ prioré principle, stands in need of a Deduction (i.e. a deriva-
tion of its title). Further, where the delight or aversion turns
on the form of the object this has to be something over and
above the Exposition of the judgement. Such is the case with
judgements of taste upon the beautiful in nature. For there
15 the finality has its foundation in the Object and its outward
form—although it does not signify the reference of this to
other objects according to concepts (for the purpose of cogni-
tive judgements), but is merely concerned in general with the
apprehension of this form so far as it proves accordant in the
20 mind with the facu/¢ty of concepts as well as with that of their
presentation (which is identical with that of apprehension).
With regard to the beautiful in nature, therefore, we may start
a number of questions touching the cause of this finality of
their forms: e.g. How we are to explain why nature has
25 scattered beauty abroad with so lavish a hand, even in the
depth of the ocean where it can but seldom be reached by the
eye of man—for which alone it is final.
But the sublime in nature—if we pass upon it a pure
aesthetic judgement unmixed with concepts of perfection, as
30 objective finality, which would make the judgement teleo-

279

134 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

logical—may be regarded as completely wanting in form or
figure, and none the less be looked upon as an object of
pure delight, and indicate a subjective finality of the given
representation. So, now, the question suggests itself, whether
in addition to the exposition of what is thought in an aesthetic 5

‘ judgement of this kind, we may be called upon to give a Deduc-

280

tion of its claim to some (subjective) @ pvzor7 principle.

This we may meet with the reply that the sublime in
nature is improperly so called, and that sublimity should, in
strictness, be attributed merely to the attitude of thought, or, 10
rather, to that which serves as basis for this in human nature.
The apprehension of an object otherwise formless and in
conflict with ends supplies the mere occasion for our coming to
a consciousness of this basis ; and the object is in this way put
to a subjectively-final zse, but it is not estimated as subjec- 15
tively-final 07 its own account and because of its form. (It is, as
it were, a species finalis accepta, non data.) Consequently the
Exposition we gave of judgements upon the sublime in nature
was at the same time their Deduction. For in our analysis of.
the reflection on the part of judgement in this case we found 20
that in such judgements there is a final relation of the cognitive
faculties, which has to be laid a priori at the basis of the
faculty of ends (the will), and which is therefore itself a priori
final. This, then, at once involves the Deduction, i.e. the
justification of the claim of such a judgement to universally- 25
necessary validity.

Hence we may confine our search to one for the Deduction
of judgements of taste, i.e. of judgements upon the beauty of
things of nature, and this will satisfactorily dispose of the
problem for the entire aesthetic faculty of judgement. 30

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 135
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

§ 31
Of the method of the deduction of iudgements of taste.

Tre obligation to furnish a Deduction, i.e. a guarantee of the
legitimacy of judgements of a particular kind, only arises where
5 the judgement lays claim to necessity. This is the case even
where it requires subjective universality, i.e. the concurrence of
every one, albeit the judgement is not a cognitive judgement, but
only one of pleasure or displeasure in a given object, i.e. an
assumption of a subjective finality that has a thorough-going
10 validity for every one, and which, since the judgement is one of
Taste, is not to be grounded upon any concept of the thing.
Now, in the latter case, we are not dealing with a judgement
of cognition—neither with a theoretical one based on the
concept of a zature in general, supplied by understanding, nor
15 with a (pure) practical one based on the Idea of freedom, as
iven a priori by reason—and so we are not called upon to
justly m Dror tHe vay of a judgement which represents
either what a thing is, or that there is something which I ought
_To-totnorder to produce it, Consequently, if for judge-
20 ment generally we demonstrate the wxiversal validity of a
singular judgement expressing the subjective finality of an
empirical representation of the form of an object, we shall do all
that is needed to explain how it is possible that something can
please in the mere formation of an estimate of it (without
25 sensation or concept), and how, just as the estimate of an
object for the sake of a cognition generally has universal rules,
the delight of any one person may be pronounced as a rule for
every other.
Now if this universal validity is not to be based on a
30 collection of votes and interrogation of others as to what sort
of sensations they experience, but is to rest, as it were, upon

an autonomy of the Subject passing judgement on the feeling

281

136 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

of pleasure (in the given representation), i.e. upon his own
taste, and yet is also not to be derived from concepts ; then it
follows that such a judgement—and such the judgement of
taste in fact is—has a double and also logical peculiarity.
For, first, it has universal validity a priori, yet without having 5
a logical universality according to concepts, but_only the
Universality of a_singular judgement. Secondly, it has a
necessity, (which must invariably rest upon @ Jriori_grounds,)
but one which depends upon no a rior’ proofs by the
representation of which it would be competent to enforce the ro
assent which the judgement of taste demands of every one.

The solution of these logical peculiarities, which distinguish. .
a judgement of taste from all cognitive judgements, will of
itself suffice for a Deduction of this strange faculty, provided
we abstract at the outset from all content of the judgement, viz. 15
from the feeling of pleasure, and merely compare the aesthetic
form with the form of objective judgements as prescribed by
logic. We shall first try, with the help of examples, to illustrate
and bring out these characteristic properties of taste.

§ 32 20
First peculiarity of the judgement of taste.

THE judgement of taste determines its object in respect of
delight (as a thing of beauty) with a claim to the agreement of
every one, just as if it were objective.

To say: This flower is beautiful, is tantamount to repeating 25

282 its own proper claim to the delight of every one. The agree-
ableness of its smell. gives it no claim at all. One man revels
in it, but it gives another a headache. Now what else are we
to suppose from this than that its beauty is to be taken for a
property of the flower itself which does not adapt itself to the 30
diversity of heads and the individual senses of the multitude,
but to which they must adapt themselves, if they are going to

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 137

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

pass judgement upon it. And yet this is not the way the matter
stands. For the judgement of taste consists precisely in a
thing being called beautiful solely in respect of that quality in
which it adapts itself to our mode of taking it in.

5 Besides, every judgement which is to show the taste of the

individual, is required to be an independent judgement of the

individual himself. There must be no need of groping about

Ong other people’s judgements and getting previous in-

struction from their delight in or aversion to the same object.

10 Consequently his judgement should be given out @ priori, and
not as an imitation relying on the general pleasure a thing
gives as a matter of fact. One would think, however, that a
judgement a friori must involve a concept of the object for the
cognition of which it contains the principle. But the judge-

1s ment of taste is not founded on concepts, and is in no way a
cognition, but only an aesthetic judgement.

Hence it is that a youthful poet refuses to allow himself to
be dissuaded from the conviction that his poem is beautiful,
either by the judgement of the public or of his friends. And

20 even if he lends them an ear, he does so, not because he has
now come to a different judgement, but because, though the
whole public, at least so far as his work is concerned, should
have false taste, he still, in his desire for recognition, finds good
reason to accommodate himself to the popular error (even against

25 his own judgement). It is only in aftertime, when his judge-
ment has been sharpened by exercise, that of his own free will
and accord he deserts his former judgements—behaving in just
the same way as with those of his judgements which depend
wholly upon reason. Taste lays claim simply to autonomy. To

30 make the judgements of others the determining ground of one’s
own would be heteronomy.

The fact that wetecommend the works of the ancients
as models, and rightly too, and call their authors classical,
as constituting a sort of nobility among writers that leads

138 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

the way and thereby gives laws to the people, seems to indicate
a posteriori sources of taste, and to contradict the autonomy
of taste in each individual. But we might just as well say that

283 the ancient mathematicians, who, to this day, are looked upon

as the almost indispensable models of perfect thoroughness and 5
elegance in synthetic methods, prove that reason also is on our
part only imitative, and that it is incompetent with the deepest
intuition to produce of itself rigorous proofs by means of the
construction of concepts. There is no employment of our
powers, no matter how free, not even of reason itself, (which 10
must create all its judgements from the common a friori
source,) which, if each individual had always to start afresh
with the crude equipment of his natural state, would not get
itself involved in blundering attempts, did not those of others
lie before it as a warning. Not that predecessors make those 15
who follow in their steps mere imitators, but by their methods
they set others upon the track of seeking in themselves for
the principles, and so of adopting their own, often better,
course. Even in religion—where undoubtedly every one has
to derive his rule of conduct from himself, seeing that he him- 20
self remains responsible for it, and, when he goes wrong, cannot
shift the blame upon others as teachers or leaders—general
precepts learned at the feet either of priests or philosophers, or
even drawn from one’s own resources, are never so efficacious
as an example of virtue or holiness, which, historically por- 25
trayed, does not dispense with the autonomy of virtue drawn
from the spontaneous and original idea of morality (a Priori),
or convert this into a mechanical process of imitation. Zolow-
ing which has reference to a precedent, and not imitation, is
the proper expression for all influence which the products of 30
an exemplary author may exert upon others—and this means
no more than going to the same sources for a creative work
as those to which he went for his creations, and learning from
one’s predecessor no more than the mode of availing oneself

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 139
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

ofsuch sources. Taste, just because its judgement cannot be
determined by concepts or precepts, 1s among all faculties and
—tetemts the very one that stands most in need of examples of
“what has in thé Course of culture maintained itself longest in
5 esteem. us it avoids an early lapse into crudity, and a
return to the rudeness of its earliest efforts.

§ 33 284
Second peculiarity of the judgement of taste.

Proors are of no avail whatever for determining the judge-
ıo ment of taste, and in this connexion matters stand just as
they would were that judgement simply sudjective.

If any one does not think a building, view, or poem beau-
tiful, then, 72 the first place he refuses, so far as his inmost
conviction goes, to allow approval to be wrung from him by a

15 hundred voices all lauding it to the skies. Of course he may
affect to be pleased with it, so as not to be considered as
wanting in taste. He may even begin to harbour doubts as to
whether he has formed his taste upon an acquaintance with
a sufficient number of objects of a particular kind (just as one

20 who in the distance recognizes, as he believes, something as
a wood, which every one else regards as a town, becomes
doubtful of the judgement of his own eyesight). But, for all
that, he clearly perceives that the approval of others affords no
valid proof, available for the estimate of beauty. He recog-

25 nizes that others, perchance, may see and observe for him, and
that, what many have seen in one and the same way may, for the
purpose of a theoretical, and therefore logical judgement, serve
as an adequate ground of proof for him, albeit he believes he saw
otherwise, but that what has pleased others can never serve him

30 as the ground of an aesthetic judgement. The judgement of
others, where unfavourable to ours, may, no doubt, rightly make

140 Critique of Judgement
. (Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement _ ph
oS ttt

us suspicious in resjéct of our own, but convince us that it is
wrong it never can. Hence there is no empirical ground of
proof that can coerce any one’s judgement of taste.
CATE seond place, a proof a prior’ according to definite rules
is still less capable of determining the judgement as to beauty. 5
If any one reads me his poem, or brings me toa play, which, all
said and done, fails to commend itself to my taste, then let him
adduce Batteux or Lessing, or still older and more famous —
critics of taste, with all the host of rules laid down by them, as
a proof of the beauty of his poem ; let certain passages particu- 10
larly displeasing to me accord completely with the rules of
beauty, (as set out by these critics and universally recognized) :
I stop my ears: I do not want to hear any reasons or any argu-
ing about the matter. I would prefer to suppose that those
rules of the critics were at fault, or at least have no application, 15
than to allow my judgement to be determined by a priori
285 proofs. I take my stand on the ground that my judgement is
to be one of taste, and not one of understanding or reason?
This would appear to be one of the chief reasons why this
faculty of aesthetic judgement has been given the name of 20
taste. For a man may recount to me all the ingredients of a
dish, and observe of each and every one of them that it is just
what I like, and, in addition, rightly commend the wholesome-
ness of the food; yet I am deaf to all these arguments. I try
the dish with my ow tongue and palate, and I pass judgement 25
according to their verdict (not according to universal principles).
As a matter of fact the judgement of taste is invariably laid
down as a singular judgement upon the Object. The under-
standing can, from the comparison of the Object, in point of
delight, with the judgements of others, form a universal judge- 30
ment, e.g. ‘All tulips are beautiful’. But that judgement is
then not one of taste, but is a logical judgement which converts
the reference of an Object to our taste into a predicate belong-
ing to things of a certain kind. But it is only the judgement

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 141
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

whereby I regard an individual given tulip as beautiful, ie.
regard my delight in it as of universal validity, that is a judge-
ment of taste. Its peculiarity, however, consists in the fact that,
although it has merely subjective validity, still it extends its
. . . Te

5 claims to a// Subjects, as-unreservedly as it would if it were an

objective “judgement, resting on grounds of cognilior-and
capable of being proved to demonstration.

$ 34
An objective principle of taste is not possible.

10 A PRINCIPLE of taste would mean a fundamental premiss
under the condition of which one might subsume the concept
of an object, and then, by a syllogism, draw the inference
that it is beautiful. That, however, is absolutely impossible.
For I must feel the pleasure immediately in the representation

15 of the object, and I cannot be talked into it by any grounds
of proof. Thus although critics, as Hume says, are able to
reason more plausibly than cooks, they must still share the
same fate. For the determining ground of their judgement
they are not able to look to the force.of demonstrations, but

zo only to the reflection of the Subject upon his own state (of
pleasure or displeasure), to the exclusion of precepts and rules.

There is, however, a matter upon which it is competent for
critics to exercise their subtlety, and upon which they ought
to do so, so long as it tends to the rectification and extension

25 of our judgements of taste. But that matter is not one of
exhibiting the determining ground of aesthetic judgements of this
kind in a universally applicable formula—which is impossible.
Rather is it the investigation of the faculties of cognition and
their function in these judgements, and the illustration, by the

30 analysis of examples, of their mutual subjective finality, the
form of which in a given representation has been shown above
to constitute the beauty of their object. Hence with regard to

286

287

142 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

the representation whereby an Object is given, the Critique of
Taste itself is only subjective ; viz. it is the art or science of
reducing the mutual relation of the understanding and the
imagination in the given representation (without reference to
antecedent sensation or concept), consequently their accordance 5
or discordance, to rules, and of determining them with regard
to their conditions. It is av¢ if it only illustrates this by
examples ; it is science if it deduces the possibility of such an
estimate from the nature of these faculties as faculties of know-
ledge in general. It is only with the latter, as Transcendental 10
Critique, that we have here any concern. Its proper scope
is the development and justification of the subjective principle
of taste, as an a priori principle of judgement. As an art,
Critique merely looks to the physiological (here psychological),
and, consequently, empirical rules, according to which in actual 15
fact taste proceeds, (passing by the question of their possibility,)
and seeks to apply them in estimating its objects. The latter
Critique criticizes the products of fine art, just as the former
does the faculty of estimating them.

$ 35 20

The principle of taste is the subjective principle of the
general power of judgement.

THE judgement of taste is differentiated from logical judge-
ment by the fact that, whereas the latter subsumes a repre-
sentation under a concept of the Object, the judgement of 25
taste does not subsume under a concept at all—for, if it did,
necessary and universal approval would be capable of being
enforced by proofs. And yet it does bear this resemblance
to the logical judgement, that it asserts a universality and
necessity, not, however, according to concepts of the Object,
but a universality and necessity that are, consequently, merely
subjective. Now the concepts in a judgement constitute its

je)

©

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 143

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

content (what belongs to the cognition of the Object). But
the judgement of taste is not determinable by means of
concepts. Hence it can only have its ground in the subjective
formal condition of a judgement in general. The subjective
5 condition of all judgements is the judging faculty itself, or
judgement. Employed in respect of a representation whereby
an object is given, this requires the harmonious accordance
of two powers of representation. These are, the imagination
(for the intuition and the arrangement of the manifold of
10 intuition), and the understanding (for the concept as a repre-
sentation of the unity of this arrangement). Now, since no
concept of the Object underlies the judgement here, it can
consist only in the subsumption of the imagination itself (in
the case of a representation whereby an object is given) under
13 the conditions enabling the understanding in general to
advance from the intuition to concepts. That is to say,
since the freedom_of the imagination consists precisely in the
fact that it schematizes without a concept, the judgement of
Taste must found upon a mere sensation of the mutually
20 quickening activity of the imagination in its freedom, and of
the understanding with its conformity to law. It must there-
fore rest upon a feeling that allows the object to be estimated
by thé finality of the representation (by which an object is
given) for the furtherance of the cognitive faculties in their
25 free play. Taste, then, as a subjective power of judgement,
—‘tontains a principle of subsumption, not of intuitions under
concepts, but of the faculty of intuitions or presentations, i.e. of
the imagination, under the facu/ty of concepts, i.e. the under-
standing, so far as the former iz its freedom accords with the
30 latter 7x zts conformity to law.

For the discovery of this title by means of a Deduction of
judgements of taste, we can only avail ourselves of the
guidance of the formal peculiarities of judgements of this kind,
and consequently the mere consideration of their logical form.

144 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

§ 36
The problem of a Deduction of. judgements of taste.

To form a cognitive judgement we may immediately connect
with the perception of an object the concept of an object in
288 general, the empirical predicates of which are contained in 5
that perception. In this way a judgement of experience is
produced. Now this judgement rests on the foundation of
a priori concepts of the synthetical unity of the manifold of
intuition enabling it to be thought as the determination of an
Object. These concepts (the categories) call for a Deduction, 10
and such was supplied in the Critique of Pure Reason. That
Deduction enabled us to solve the problem, How are syntheti-
cal a priori cognitive judgements possible? This problem had,
accordingly, to do with the a prior? principles of pure under-
standing and its theoretical judgements. 15
But we may. also immediately connect with a perception a
feeling of pleasure (or displeasure) and a delight attending the
representation of the Object and serving it instead of a predi-
cate. In this way there arises a judgement which is aesthetic
and not cognitive. Now, if such a judgement is not merely one 20
of sensation, but a formal judgement of reflection that exacts
this delight from every one as necessary, something must lie at
its basis as its a prior? principle. This principle may, indeed,
be a mere subjective one, (supposing an objective one should be
impossible for judgements of this kind,) but, even as such, it
requires a Deduction to make it intelligible how an aesthetic
judgement can lay claim to necessity. That, now, is what lies
at the bottom of the problem upon which we are at present
engaged, i.e. How are judgements of taste possible? This
problem, therefore, is concerned with the a priori principles 30
of pure judgement in aesthetic judgements, i.e. not those in
which (as in theoretical judgements) it has merely to subsume
under objective concepts of understanding, and in which it

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Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 145

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

comes under a law, but rather those in which it is itself,
subjectively, object as well as law.

We may also put the problem in this way: How is a judge-
ment possible which, going merely upon the individual’s ow

5 feeling of pleasure in an object independent of the concept of
it, estimates this as a pleasure attached to the representation of
the same Object zx every other individual, and does so a priori,
i.e. without being allowed to wait and see if other people will
be of the same mind ?

10 It is easy to see that judgements of taste are synthetic, for
they go beyond the concept and even the intuition of the
Object, and join as predicate to that intuition something
which is not even a cognition at all, namely, the feeling of
pleasure (or displeasure). But, although the predicate (the

13 personal pleasure that is connected with the representation) is
empirical, still we need not go further than what is involved in
the expressions of their claim to see that, so far as concerns
the agreement required of every one, they are a priori judge-
ments, or mean to pass for such. This problem of the

20 Critique of Judgement, therefore, is part of the general
problem of transcendental philosophy: How are synthetic
a priori jadgements possible ?

$ 37

What exactly it is, that is asserted a priori of an object in
25 a judgement of taste.

THE immediate synthesis of the representation of an
object with pleasure can only be a matter of internal per-
ception, and, were nothing more than this sought to be
indicated, would only yield a mere empirical judgement. For

jo With no representation can I a priort connect a determinate
feeling (of pleasure or displeasure) except where I rely
upon the basis of an @ friori principle in reason deter-

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146 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

mining the will. The truth is that the pleasure (in the moral
feeling) is the consequence of the determination of the will
by the principle. It cannot, therefore, be compared with the
pleasure in taste. For it requires a determinate concept of
a law: whereas the pleasure in taste has to be connected 5
immediately with the simple estimate prior to any concept.
For the same reason, also, all judgements of taste are singular
judgements, for they unite their predicate of delight, not to a
concept, but to a given singular empirical representation.

Hence, in a judgement of taste, what is represented a Zriori 10
as a universal rule for the judgement and as valid for every
one, is not the pleasure but the »ziversal validity of this
pleasure perceived, as it is, to be combined in the mind with the
mere estimate of an object. A judgement to the effect that it is
with pleasure that I perceive and estimate some object is an 15
empirical judgement. But if it asserts that I think the object
beautiful, i.e. that I may attribute that delight to every one as
necessary, it is then an a Zrzori judgement.

§ 38
Deduction of judgements of taste. 20

ADMITTING that in a pure judgement of taste the delight in the
object is connected with the mere estimate of its form, then
what we feel to be associated in the mind with the representation

290 Of the object ‘is nothing else than its subjective finality for
judgement. Since, now, in respect of the formal rules of 25
estimating, apart from all matter (whether sensation or concept),
judgement can only be directed to the subjective conditions of
its employment in general, (which is not restricted to the
particular mode of sense nor to a particular concept of the
understanding,) and so can only be directed to that subjective 30
factor which we may presuppose in all men (as requisite for a
possible experience generally), it follows that the accordance
of a representation with these conditions of the judgement must

Book Il, Analytic of the Sublime 147
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

admit of being assumed valid a priori for every one. In other

words, we are warranted in exacting from every one the pleasure

or subjective finality of the representation in respect of the

relation of the cognitive faculties engaged in the estimate of a
5 sensible object in general.

Remark.

What makes this Deduction so easy is that it is spared the
necessity of having to justify the objective reality of a concept.
For beauty is not a concept of the Object, and the judgement

10 of taste is not a cognitive judgement. All that it holds out for
is that we are justified in presupposing that the same subjec-
tive conditions of judgement which we find in ourselves are
universally present in every man, and further that we have
rightly subsumed the given Object under these conditions.

13 The latter, no doubt, has to face unavoidable difficulties which
do not affect the logical judgement. (For there the subsumption
is under concepts; whereas in the aesthetic judgement it is
under a mere sensible relation of the imagination and under-
standing mutually harmonizing with one another in the re-

20 presented form of the Object, in which case the subsumption
may easily prove fallacious.) But this in no way detracts from

‘In order to be justified in claiming universal agreement for an
aesthetic judgement merely resting on subjective grounds it is sufficient
to assume: (1) that the subjective conditions of this faculty of aesthetic

25 judgement are identical with all men in what concerns the relation of the
cognitive faculties, there brought into action, with a view to a cognition
in general. This must be true, as otherwise men would be incapable of
communicating their representations or even their knowledge; (2) that
the judgement has paid regard merely to this relation (consequently

30 merely to the formal condition of the faculty of judgement), and is pure,
i.e. is free from confusion either with concepts of the Object or sensa-

. tions as determining grounds. If any mistake is made in this latter
point this only touches the incorrect application to a particular case of
the right which a law gives us, and does not do away with the right

35 generally.

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148 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

the legitimacy of the claim of the judgement to count upon
universal agreement—a claim which amounts to no more than
this: the correctness of the principle of judging validly for
every one upon subjective grounds. For as to the difficulty and
uncertainty concerning the correctness of the subsumption 5
under that principle, it no more casts a doubt upon the
legitimacy of the claim to this validity on the part of an
aesthetic judgement generally, or, therefore, upon the principle
itself, than the mistakes (though not so often or easily incurred),
to which the subsumption of the logical judgement under its 10
principle is similarly liable, can render the latter principle,
which is objective, open to doubt. But if the question were:
How is it possible to assume a riori that nature is a complex
of objects of taste? the problem would then have reference to
teleology, because it would have to be regarded as an end of 15
nature belonging essentially to its concept that it should
exhibit forms that are final for our judgement. But the
correctness of this assumption may still be seriously questioned,
while the actual existence of beauties of nature is patent to
experience. 20

§ 39
The communicability of a sensation.

SENSATION, as the real in perception, where referred to
knowledge, is called organic sensation and its specific Quality
may be represented as completely communicable to others in 25
a like mode, provided we assume that every one has a like
sense to ourown. This, however, is an absolutely inadmissible
presupposition in the case of an organic sensation. Thus a
person who is without a sense of smell cannot have a sensation
of this kind communicated to him, and, even if he does not 3°
suffer from this deficiency, we still cannot be certain that he
gets precisely the same sensation from a flower that we get

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 149

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

from it. But still more divergent must we consider men to be
in respect of the agreeadleness or disagreeableness derived from
the sensation of one and the same object of sense, and it is
absolutely out of the question to require that pleasure in such
5 objects should be acknowledged by every one. Pleasure of
this kind, since it enters into the mind through sense—our röle, 292
therefore, being a passive one—may be called the pleasure of
enjoyment.
On the other hand delight in an action on the score of its
to moral character is not a pleasure of enjoyment, but one of self-
asserting activity and in this coming up to the idea of what it is
meant to be. But this feeling, which is called the moral feeling,
requires concepts, and is the presentation of a finality, not free,
but according to law. It, therefore, admits of communication
15 only through the instrumentality of reason and, if the pleasure
is to be of the same kind for every one, by means of very
determinate practical concepts of reason.
The pleasure in the sublime in nature, as one of rationalizing
contemplation, lays claim also to universal participation, but
20 still it presupposes another feeling, that, namely, of our super-
sensible sphere, which feeling, however obscure it may be, has a
moral foundation. But there is absolutely no authority for my
presupposing that others will pay attention to this, and take a
delight in beholding the uncouth dimensions of nature, (one that
25in truth cannot be ascribed to its aspect, which is terrifying
rather than otherwise). Nevertheless, having regard to the fact
that attention ought to be paid upon every appropriate occasion
to this moral birthright, we may still demand that delight from
every one; but we can do so only through the moral law, which,
30 in its turn, rests upon concepts of reason.
The pleasure in the beautiful is, on the other hand, neither
a pleasure of enjoyment nor of an activity according to law, nor
yet one of a rationalizing contemplation according to ideas, but
rather of mere reflection. Without any guiding-line of end or

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150 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

principle this pleasure attends the ordinary apprehension of an
object by means of the imagination, as the faculty of intuition,
but with a reference to the understanding as faculty of concepts,
and through the operation of a process of judgement which has
also to be invoked in order to obtain the commonest experience. 5
In the latter case, however, its functions are directed to per-
ceiving an empirical objective concept, whereas in the former
(in the aesthetic mode of estimating) merely to perceiving the
adequacy of the representation for engaging both faculties of
knowledge in their freedom in an harmonious (subjectively-
final) employment, i.e. to feeling with pleasure the subjective
bearings of the representation. This pleasure must of necessity
depend for every one upon the same conditions, seeing that
they are the subjective conditions of the possibility of a cogni-
tion in general, and the proportion of these cognitive faculties
which is requisite for taste is requisite also for ordinary sound
understanding, the presence of which we are entitled to pre-
suppose inevery one. And, for this reason also, one who judges
with taste, (provided he does not make a mistake as to this
consciousness, and does not take the matter for the form, or 2
charm for beauty,) can impute the subjective finality, i.e. his
delight in the Object, to every one else, and suppose his feeling
universally communicable, and that, too, without the mediation
of concepts.

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$ 40 2
Taste as a kind of sensus communis.

THE name of sense is often given to judgement where what
attracts attention is not so much its reflective act as merely its
result. So we speak of a sense of truth, of a sense of propriety,

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5

5

or of justice, &c. And yet, of course, we know, or at least 30

ought well enough to know, that a sense cannot be the true abode
of these concepts, not to speak of its being competent, even in

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 151
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

the slightest degree, to pronounce universal rules. On the
contrary, we recognize that a representation of this kind,
be it of truth, propriety, beauty, or justice, could never enter
our thoughts were we not able to raise ourselves above the
5 level of the senses to that of higher faculties of cognition.
Common human understanding which, as mere sound (not yet
cultivated) understanding, is looked upon as the least we can
expect from any one claiming the name of man, has there-
fore the doubtful honour of having the name of common sense
10 (sensus communis) bestowed upon it; and bestowed, too, in an
acceptation of the word common (not merely in our own language,
where it actually has a double meaning, but also in many
others) which makes it amount to what is vulgar—what is every-
where to be met with—a quality which by no means confers
1g credit or distinction upon its possessor.

However, by the name sensus communis is to be understood
the idea of a public sense, i.e. a critical faculty which in its
reflective act takes account (a Zriori) of the mode of representa-
tion of every one else, in order, as if were, to weigh its judge-

20 ment with the collective reason of mankind, and thereby avoid
the illusion arising from subjective and personal conditions
which could readily be taken for objective, an illusion that
would exert a prejudicial influence upon its judgement. This 294
is accomplished by weighing the judgement, not so much with

2g actual, as rather with the merely possible, judgements of others,
and by putting ourselves in the position of every one else, as
the result of a mere abstraction from the limitations which
contingently affect our own estimate. This, in turn, is effected
by so far as possible letting go the element of matter, i.e.

30 Sensation, in our general state of representative activity, and
confining attention to the formal peculiarities of our repre-
sentation or general state of representative activity. Now it
may seem that this operation of reflection is too artificial to be
attributed to the faculty which we call common sense. But this

295

152 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

is an appearance due only to its expression in abstract formulae.
In itself nothing is more natural than to abstract from charm
and emotion where one is looking for a judgement intended
to serve as a universal rule.

While the following maxims of common human understand-
ing do not properly come in here as constituent parts of the
Critique of Taste, they may still serve to elucidate its funda-
mental propositions. They are these: (1) to think for oneself;
(2) to think from the standpoint of every one else ; (3) always
to think consistently. The first is the maxim of unprejudiced
thought, the second that of ex/arged thought, the third that of
consistent thought. The first is the maxim of a never-passive
reason. To be given to such passivity, consequently to heter-
onomy of reason, is called prejudice ; and the greatest of all
prejudices is that of fancying nature not to be subject to rules
which the understanding by virtue of its own essential law lays
at its basis, i. e. superszifion. Emancipation from superstition is
called enlightenment ;1 for although this term applies also to
emancipation from prejudices generally, still superstition deserves
pre-eminently (in sensu eminenti) to be called a prejudice. For
the condition of blindness into which superstition puts one, which
itas much as demands from one as an obligation, makes the need
of being led by others, and consequently the passive state of the
reason, pre-eminently conspicuous. As to the second maxim be-
longing to our habits of thought, we have quite got into the way

1 We readily see that enlightenment, while easy, no doubt, zu thesi, in
hypothest is difficult and slow of realization. For not to be passive with one’s
reason, but always to be self-legislative is doubtless quite an easy matter
fora man who only desires to be adapted to his essential end, and does
not seek to know what is beyond his understanding. But as the tendency
in the latter direction is hardly avoidable, and others are always coming
and promising with full assurance that they are able to satisfy one’s
curiosity, it must be very difficult to preserve or restore in the mind (and
particularly in the public mind) that merely negative attitude (which
constitutes enlightenment proper).

en

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Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 153
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

of calling a man narrow (zarrow, as opposed to being of enlarged
mind) whose talents fall short of what is required for employment
upon work of any magnitude (especially that involving intensity).
But the question here is not one of the faculty of cognition, but
5 of the mental habit of making a final use of it. This, however
small the range and degree to which a man’s natural endowments
extend, still indicates a man of en/arged mind: if he detaches
himself from the subjective personal conditions of his judge-
ment, which cramp the minds of so many others, and reflects
ro upon his own judgement from a universal standpoint (which
he can only determine by shifting his ground to the standpoint
of others). The third maxim—that, namely, of consistent
thought—is the hardest of attainment, and is only attainable by
the union of both the former, and after constant attention to
15 them has made one at home in their observance. We may
say: the first of these is the maxim of understanding, the second
that of judgement, the third that of reason.
I resume the thread of the discussion interrupted by the
above digression, and I say that taste can with more justice
20 be called a sensws communis than can sound understanding ;
and that the aesthetic, rather than the intellectual, judgement
can bear the name of a public sense,’ i. e. taking it that we are
prepared to use the word ‘sense’ of an effect that mere re-
flection has upon the mind; for then by sense we mean the
25 feeling of pleasure. We might even define taste as the faculty
of estimating what makes our feeling in a given representation
universally communicable without the mediation of a concept.
The aptitude of men for communicating their thoughts
requires, also, a relation between the imagination and the
30 understanding, in order to connect intuitions with concepts,
and concepts, in turn, with intuitions, which both unite in
cognition. But there the agreement of both mental powers is

1 Taste may be designated a sensus communis aestheticus, common
human understanding a sensus communts loguus.

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154 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

according to law, and under the constraint of definite concepts.
Only when theimagination in its freedom stirs the understanding,
and the understanding apart from concepts puts the imagination
into regular play, does the representation communicate itself not
as thought, but as an internal feeling of a final state of the mind. 5
Taste is, therefore, the faculty of forming an a friori estimate
of the communicability of the feelings that, without the media-
tion of a concept, are connected with a given representation.
Supposing, now, that we could assume that the mere univer-
sal communicability of our feeling must of itself carry with it 10
an interest for us (an assumption, however, which we are not
entitled to draw as a conclusion from the character of a merely
reflective judgement), we should then be ina position to explain
how the feeling in the judgement of taste comes to be exacted
from every one as a sort of duty. 15

§ 41
The empirical interest in the beautiful.

ABUNDANT proof has been given above to show that the
judgement of taste by which something is declared beautiful
must have no interest as its determining ground. But it does 20
not follow from this that after it has once been posited as a
pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter into
combination with it. This combination, however, can never be
anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say, first of all be
represented in conjunction with something else, if the delight 25
attending the mere reflection upon an object is to admit of
having further conjoined with it a pleasure in the real existence
of the object (as that wherein all interest consists). For the
saying, a Posse ad esse non valet consequentia, which is applied to
cognitive judgements, holds good here in the case of aesthetic 30
judgements. Now this ‘something else’ may be something

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 155

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

empirical, such as an inclination proper to the nature of human
beings, or it may be something intellectual, as a property of the
will whereby it admits of rational determination a Zriori. Both
of these involve a delight in the existence of the Object, and so

5 can lay the foundation for an interest in what has already pleased
of itself and without regard to any interest whatsoever.

The empirical interest in the beautiful exists only in society.
And if we admit that the impulse to society is natural to mankind,
and that the suitability for and the propensity towards it, i.e.

to sociability, is a property essential to the requirements of man as
a creature intended for society, and one, therefore, that belongs
to Aumanity, it is inevitable that we should also look upon taste
in the light of a faculty for estimating whatever enables us to
communicate even our feeling to every one else, and hence as

15 a means of promoting that upon which the natural inclination of
every one is set.

With no one to take into account but himself a man aban-
doned on a desert island would not adorn either himself or his
hut, nor would he look for flowers, and still less plant them, with

20 the object of providing himself with personal adornments. Only
in society does it occur to him to be not merely a man, but a
man refined after the manner of his kind (the beginning of
civilization) —for that is the estimate formed of one who has the
bent and turn for communicating his pleasure to others, and who

25 is not quite satisfied with an Object unless his feeling of delight
in it can be shared in communion with others. Further, a
regard to universal communicability is a thing which every one
expects and requires from every one else, just as if it were part of
an original compact dictated by humanity itself. And thus, no

30 doubt, at first only charms, e.g. colours for painting oneself
(roucou among the Caribs and cinnabar among the Iroquois), or
flowers, sea-shells, beautifully coloured feathers, then, in the
course of time, also beautiful forms (as in canoes, wearing-apparel,
&c.) which convey no gratification, ie. delight of enjoyment,

297

156 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

become of moment in society and attract a considerable interest.
Eventually, when civilization has reached its height it makes
this work of communication almost the main business of refined
inclination, and the entire value of sensations is placed in the
degree to which they permit of universal communication. At 5
this stage, then, even where the pleasure which each one has in
an object is but insignificant and possesses of itself no conspicu-
ous interest, still the idea of its universal communicability almost
indefinitely augments its value.

This interest, indirectly attached to the beautiful by the
inclination towards society, and, consequently, empirical, is,
however, of no importance for us here. For that to which we
have alone to look is what can have a bearing @ friori, even
though indirect, upon the judgement of taste. For, if even in
this form an associated interest should betray itself, taste would
then reveal a transition on the part of our critical faculty from
the enjoyment of sense to the moral feeling. This would not
merely mean that we should be supplied with a more effectual

298 guide for the final employment of taste, but taste would further
be presented as a link in the chain of the human faculties 20
a priori upon which all legislation must depend. This much may
certainly be said of the empirical interest in objects of taste,
and in taste itself, that as taste thus pays homage to inclination,
however refined, such interest will nevertheless readily fuse also
with all inclinations and passions, which in society attain to 25
their greatest variety and highest degree, and the interest in the
beautiful, if this is made its ground, can but afford a very am-
biguous transition from the agreeable to the good. We have
reason, however, to inquire whether this transition may not
still in some way be furthered by means of taste when taken 30
in its purity,

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Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 157
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

§ 42
The intellectual interest in the beautiful.

Ir has been with the best intentions that those who love to
see in the ultimate end of humanity, namely the morally good,
5 the goal of all activities to which men are impelled by the
inner bent of their nature, have regarded it as a mark of a good
moral character to take an interest in the beautiful generally.
But they have, not without reason, been contradicted by others
who appeal to the fact of experience, that virzwosz in matters of
10 taste, being not alone often, but one might say as a general
rule, vain, capricious, and addicted to injurious passions, could
perhaps more rarely than others lay claim to any pre-eminent
attachment to moral principles. And so it would seem, not
only that the feeling for the beautiful is specifically different
15 from the moral feeling (which as a matter of fact is the case),
but also that the interest which we may combine with it, will
hardly consort with the moral, and certainly not on grounds of
inner affinity.
Now I willingly admit that the interest in the Jeautiful of art
20 (including under this heading the artificial use of natural beauties
for personal adornment, and so from vanity) gives no evidence
at all of a habit of mind attached to the morally good, or even
inclined that way. But, on the other hand, I do maintain that
to take an immediate interest in the beauty of nature (not
25 merely to have taste in estimating it) is always a mark of a good
soul; and that, where this interest is habitual, it is at least
indicative of a temper of mind favourable to the moral feeling
that it should readily associate itself with the contemplation
of nature. It must, however, be borne in mind that I mean
30 to refer strictly to the beautiful forms of nature, and to put to
one side the charms which she is wont so lavishly to combine
with them ; because, though the interest in these is no doubt
immediate, it is nevertheless empirical,

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158 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

One who alone (and without any intention of communicating
his observations to others) regards the beautiful form of a wild
flower, a bird, an insect, or the like, out of admiration and love
of them, and being loath to let them escape him in nature,
even at the risk of some misadventure to himself—so far from 5
there being any prospect of advantage to him—such a one
takes an immediate, and in fact intellectual, interest in the
beauty of nature. This means that he is not alone pleased
with nature’s product in respect of its form, but is also
pleased at its existence, and is so without any charm of sense 10
having a share in the matter, or without his associating with it
any end whatsoever.

In this connexion, however, it is of note that were we to play
a trick on our lover of the beautiful, and plant in the ground
artificial flowers (which can be made so as to look just like 15
natural ones), and perch artfully carved birds on the branches
of trees, and he were to find out how he had been taken in, the
immediate interest which these things previously had for him
would at once vanish—though, perhaps, a different interest
might intervene in its stead, that, namely, of vanity in decorat- 20
ing his room with them for the eyes of others. The fact is
that our intuition and reflection must have as their concomitant
the thought that the beauty in question is nature’s handiwork ;
and this is the sole basis of the immediate interest that is taken
in it. Failing this we are either left with a bare judgement of 25
taste void of all interest whatever, or else only with one that is
combined with an interest that is mediate, involving, namely,

a reference to society ; which latter affords no reliable indica-
tion of morally good habits of thought.

The superiority which natural beauty has over that of art, 3°
even where it is excelled by the latter in point of form, in yet
being alone able to awaken an immediate interest, accords with
the refined and well-grounded habits of thought of all men who
have cultivated their moral feeling. Ifa man with taste enough:

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 159
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

to judge of works of fine art with the greatest correctness and
refinement readily quits the room in which he meets with those 300
beauties that minister to vanity or, at least, social joys, and be-
takes himself to the beautiful in nature, so that he may there

5 find as it were a feast for his soul in a train of thought which
he can never completely evolve, we will then regard this his
choice even with veneration, and give him credit for a beautiful
soul, to which no connoisseur or art collector can lay claim on
the score of the interest which his objects have for him.—Here,

10 now, are two kinds of Objects which in the judgement of mere
taste could scarcely contend with one another for a superiority.
What then, is the distinction that makes us hold them in such
different esteem ?

We have a faculty of judgement which is merely aesthetic—

15 a faculty of judging of forms without the aid of concepts, and
of finding, in the mere estimate of them, a delight that we at
the same time make into a rule for every one, without this judge-
ment being founded on an interest, or yet producing one.—
On the other hand we have also a faculty of intellectual

20 judgement for the mere forms of practical maxims, (so far as
they are of themselves qualified for universal legislation,)—a
faculty of determining an a /riort delight, which we make into
a law for every one, without our judgement being founded on
any interest, though here it produces one. The pleasure or dis-

25 pleasure in the former judgement is called that of taste; the
latter is called that of the moral feeling.

But, now, reason is further interested in ideas (for which in
our moral feeling it brings about an immediate interest,) having
also objective reality. That is to say, it is of interest to reason

30 that nature should at least show a trace or give a hint that it
contains in itself some ground or other for assuming a uniform
accordance of its products with our wholly disinterested delight
(a delight which we cognize a priori as a law for every one
without being able to ground it upon proofs). That being so,

30

ri

160 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

reason must take an interest in every manifestation on the part
of nature of some such accordance. Hence the mind cannot
reflect on the beauty of za/wre without at the same time finding
its interest engaged. But this interest is akin to the moral. One,
then, who takes such an interest in the beautiful in nature can
only do so in so far as he has previously set his interest deep
in the foundations of the morally good. On these grounds we
have reason for presuming the presence of at least the germ of
a good moral disposition in the case of a man to whom the
beauty of nature is a matter of immediate interest.

It will be said that this interpretation of aesthetic judgements
on the basis of kinship with our moral feeling has far too studied
an appearance to be accepted as the true construction of the
cypher in which nature speaks to us figuratively in its beautiful
forms, But, first of all, this immediate interest in the beauty
of nature is not in fact common. It is peculiar to those whose
habits of thought are already trained to the good or else are
eminently susceptible of such training ; and under these circum-
stances the analogy in which the pure judgement of taste that,
without relying upon any interest, gives us a feeling of delight,
and at the same time represents it a fvio77 as proper to man-
kind in general, stands to the moral judgement that does just
the same from concepts, is one which, without any clear, subtle,
and deliberate reflection, conduces to a like immediate interest

being taken in the objects of the former judgement as in those 2;

of the latter—with this one difference, that the interest in the
first case is free, while in the latter it is one founded on objec-
tivelaws. In addition to this there is our admiration of nature
which in her beautiful products displays herself as art, not as
mere matter of chance, but, as it were, designedly, according to
a law-directed arrangement, and as finality apart from any
end. As we never meet with such an end outside ourselves,
we naturally look for it in ourselves, and, in fact, in that which
constitutes the ultimate end of our existence —the moral side

on

10

-

5

»

ie]

30

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 161
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

of our being. (The inquiry into the ground of the possibility of
such a natural finality will, however, first come under discussion
in the Teleology.)

The fact that the delight in beautiful art does not, in the pure

5 judgement of taste, involve an immediate interest, as does that
in beautiful nature, may be readily explained. For the former
is either such an imitation of the latter as goes the length of
deceiving us, in which case it acts upon us in the character of
a natural beauty, which we take it to be; or else it is an in-

10 tentional art obviously directed to our delight. In the latter
case, however, the delight in the product would, it is true,
be brought about immediately by taste, but there would be
nothing but a mediate interest in the cause that lay beneath
—an interest, namely, in an art only capable of interesting by

1g its end, and never in itself. It will, perhaps, be said that this
is also the case where an Object of nature only interests by its
beauty so far as a moral idea is brought into partnership there-
with. But it is not the object that is of immediate interest, but
rather the inherent character of the beauty qualifying it for

20 such a partnership—a character, therefore, that belongs to the
very essence of beauty.

The charms in natural beauty, which are to be found
blended, as it were, so frequently with beauty of form,
belong either to the modifications of light (in colouring) or of

ag sound (in tones). For these are the only sensations which
permit not merely of a feeling of the senses, but also of reflec-
tion upon the form of these modifications of sense, and so
embody as it were a language in which nature speaks to us
and which has the semblance of a higher meaning. Thus the
30 white colour of the lily seems to dispose the mind to ideas of
innocence, and the other seven colours, following the series
from the red to the violet, similarly to ideas of (1) sublimity,
(2) courage, (3) candour, (4) amiability, (5) modesty, (6) con-
stancy, (7) tenderness. The bird’s song tells of joyousness
1193 M

302

393

162 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

and contentment with its existence. At least so we interpret
nature—whether such be its purpose or not. But it is the
indispensable requisite of the interest which we here take in
beauty, that the beauty should be that of nature, and it vanishes
completely as soon as we are conscious of having been deceived,
and that it is only the work of art—so completely that even
taste can then no longer find in it anything beautiful nor sight
anything attractive. What do poets set more store on than the
nightingale’s bewitching and beautiful note, in a lonely thicket
on astill summer evening by the soft light of the moon? And ro
yet we have instances of how, where no such songster was to
be found, a jovial host has played a trick on the guests with him
on a visit to enjoy the country air, and has done so to their
huge satisfaction, by hiding in a thicket a rogue of a youth
who (with a reed or rush in his mouth) knew how to reproduce 15
this note so as to hit off nature to perfection. But the instant
one realizes that it is all a fraud no one will long endure
listening to this song that before was regarded as so attractive.
And it is just the same with the song of any other bird. It
must be nature, or be mistaken by us for nature, to enable us 20
to take an immediate zuzeresz in the beautiful as such ; and
this is all the more so if we may even call upon others to take
a similar interest. And such a demand we do in fact make,
since we regard as coarse and low the habits of thought of
those who have no feeling for beautiful nature (for this is the
word we use for susceptibility to an interest in the contempla-
tion of beautiful nature), and who devote themselves to the
mere enjoyments of sense found in eating and drinking.

on

is)

5

§ 43

Art in general. 30

(1.) Art is distinguished from »ature as making (facere) is
from acting or operating in general (agere), and the product or the

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 163
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

result of the former is distinguished from that of the latter as
work (opus) from operation (effectus).

By right it is only production through freedom, i.e. through
an act of will that places reason at the basis of its action, that

5 should be termed art. For, although we are pleased to call
what bees produce (their regularly constructed cells) a work of
art, we only do so on the strength of an analogy with art ; that
is to say, as soon as we call to mind that no rational deliberation
forms the basis of their labour, we say at once that it is a product

10 of their nature (of instinct), and it is only to their Creator that
we ascribe it as art.

If, as sometimes happens, in a search through a bog, we light
on a piece of hewn wood, we do not say it is a product of
nature but ofart. Its producing cause had an end in view to

ı5 which the object owes its form. Apart from such cases, we
recognize an art in everything formed in such a way that its
actuality must have been preceded by a representation of the
thing in its cause (as even in the case of the bees), although
the effect could not have been ¢hought by the cause. But where

20 anything is called absolutely a work of art, to distinguish it from
a natural product, then some work of man is always understood.

(2.) Art, as human skill, is distinguished also from science (as
ability from knowledge), as a practical from a theoretical faculty,
as technic from theory (as the art of surveying from geometry).

a5 For this reason, also, what one car do the moment one only
knows what is to be done, hence without anything more than
sufficient knowledge of the desired result, is not called art. To
art that alone belongs for which the possession of the most
complete knowledge does not involve one’s having then and 304
3o there the skill to do it. Camper describes very exactly how
the best shoe must be made, but he, doubtless, was not able to
turn one out himself.*

1 In my part of the country, if you set a common man a problem like
that of Columbus and his egg, he says, ‘ There is no art in that, it is only

M 2

164 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

(3.) Art is further distinguished from handicraft. The first
is called free, the other may be called industrial art. We look
on the former as something which could only prove final
(be a success) as play, i.e. an occupation which is agreeable on
its own account ; but on the second as labour, i.e. a business,
which on its own account is disagreeable (drudgery), and is
only attractive by means of what it results in (e.g. the pay),
and which is consequently capable of being a compulsory im-
position.. Whether in the list of arts and crafts we are to rank
watchmakers as artists, and smiths on the contrary as craftsmen,
requires a standpoint different from that here adopted—one,
that is to say, taking account of the proportion of the talents
which the business undertaken in either case must necessarily
involve. Whether, also, among the so-called seven free arts
some may not have been included which should be reckoned
as sciences, and many, too, that resemble handicraft, is a matter
I will not discuss here. It is not amiss, however, to remind the
reader of this: that in all free arts something of a compulsory
character is still required, or, as it is called, a mechanism, with-
out which the soz/, which in art must be /ree, and which alone
gives life to the work, would be bodyless and evanescent
(e.g. in the poetic art there must be correctness and wealth
of language, likewise prosody and metre). For not a few
leaders of a newer school believe that the best way to promote
a free art is to sweep away all restraint, and convert it from
labour into mere play.

science’: i.c. you can do it if you know how ; and he says just the same
of all the would-be arts of jugglers. To that of the tight-rope dancer, on
the other hand, he has not the least compunction in giving the name
of art,

-

5

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 165
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

§ 44
Fine art.

THERE is no science of the beautiful, but only a Critique.
Nor, again, is there an elegant (schöne) science, but only a fine
5 (schöne) art. For a science of the beautiful would have to de-
termine scientifically, i.e. by means of proofs, whether a thing 305
was to be considered beautiful or not ; and the judgement upon
beauty, consequently, would, if belonging to science, fail to be
a judgement of taste. As for a beautiful science—a science
to which, as such, is to be beautiful, is a nonentity. For if,
treating it as a science, we were to ask for reasons and proofs,
we would be put off with elegant phrases (40s mots). What has
given rise to the current expression elegant sciences is, doubt-
less, no more than this, that common observation has, quite
TS accurately, noted the fact that for fine art, in the fulness of its
perfection, a large store of science is required, as, for example,
knowledge of ancient languages, acquaintance with classical
authors, history, antiquarian learning, &c. Hence these his-
torical sciences, owing to the fact that they form the necessary
20 preparation and groundwork for fine art, and partly also owing
to the fact that they are taken to comprise even the knowledge
of the products of fine art (rhetoric and poetry), have by a con-
fusion of words, actually got the name of elegant sciences.
Where art, merely seeking to actualize a possible object to
25 the cognition of which it is adequate, does whatever acts are
required for that purpose, thenrit is mechanical. But should the
feeling of pleasure be what it has immediately in view it is then |
termed aesthetic art. As such it may be either agreeable or fine
art. The description ‘agreeable art’ applies where the end of |
30 the art is that the pleasure should accompany the representa-
tions considered as mere sensations, the description ‘fine art’
where it is to accompany them considered as modes of cognition.
Agreeable arts are those which have mere enjoyment for

306

166 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

their object. Such are all the charms that can gratify a dinner
party; entertaining narrative, the art of starting the whole
table in unrestrained and sprightly conversation, or with jest
and laughter inducing a certain air of gaiety. Here, as the
saying goes, there may be much loose talk over the glasses, 5
without a person wishing to be brought to book for all he
utters, because it is only given out for the entertainment of the
moment, and not.as a lasting matter to be made the subject of
reflection or repetition. (Of the same sort is also the art of
arranging the table for enjoyment, or, at large banquets, the to
music of the orchestra—a quaint idea intended to act on the:
mind merely as an agreeable noise fostering a genial spirit,
which, without any one paying the smallest attention to the
composition, promotes the free flow of conversation between
guest and guest.) In addition must be included play of every 15
kind which is attended with no further interest than that of
making the time pass by unheeded.

> Fine art, on the other hand, is a mode of representation
which is intrinsically final, and which, although devoid of an
end, has the effect of advancing the culture of the mental 20
powers in the interests of social communication.

The universal communicability of a pleasure involves in its
very concept that the pleasure is not one of enjoyment arising
out of mere sensation, but must be one of reflection. Hence
aesthetic art, as art which is beautiful, is one having for its 25
standard the reflective judgement and not organic sensation.

§ 45

Fine art ts an art, so far as tt has at the same time
the appearance of being nature.
A PRODUCT of fine art must be recognized to be art and not 30
nature. Nevertheless the finality in its form must appear just
as free from the constraint of arbitrary rules as if it were

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 167
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

a product of mere nature. Upon this feeling of freedom in the
play of our cognitive faculties— which play has at the same time
to be final—rests that pleasure which alone is universally com-
municable without being based on concepts. Nature proved

5 beautiful when it wore the appearance of art ; and art can only
be termed beautiful, where we are conscious of its being art,
while yet it has the appearance of nature.

For, whether we are dealing with beauty of nature or beauty
of art, we may make the universal statement: ¢hat is beautiful

10 which pleases in the mere estimate of it (not in sensation or by
means of a concept). Now art has always got a definite inten-
tion of producing something. Were this ‘something’, however,
to be mere sensation (something merely subjective), intended to
be accompanied with pleasure, then such product would, in our

15 estimation of it, only please through the agency of the feeling of
the senses. On the other hand, were the intention one directed
to the production of a definite object, then, supposing this
were attained by art, the object would only please by means
of a concept. But in both cases the art would please, not

zoin the mere estimate of it, i.e. not as fine art, but rather as
mechanical art.

Hence the finality in the product of fine art, intentional 307
though It be, must not have the appearance of being inten-
tional; 1.e. fine art must be clothed w7th the aspect of nature,

25 although we recognize it to be art. But the way in which
ee .

a product of art seems like nature, is by the presence of per-
fect exactness in the agreement with rules prescribing how alone
the product can be what it is intended to be, but with an ab-
sence of Zaboured effect, (without academic form betraying itself,)

30 i.e. without a trace appearing of the artist having always had
the rule present to him and of its having fettered his mental
powers.

168 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

§ 46
Fine art is the art of genius.

Genius is the talent (natural endowment) which gives the rule
to art. Sınce talent, as an innate productive faculty of the
artist, belongs itself to nature, we may put it this way: Genius 5
is the innate mental aptitude (ingenium) through which nature
gives the rule to art.

Whatever may be the merits of this definition, and whether
it is merely arbitrary, or whether it is adequate or not to the
concept usually associated with the word genius (a point which 10
the following sections have to clear up), it may still be shown
at the outset that, according to this acceptation of the word,
fine arts must necessarily be regarded as arts of genius.

For every art presupposes rules which are laid down as the
foundation which first enables a product, if it is to be called one 15
of art, to be represented as possible. The concept of fine art,
however, does not permit of the judgement upon the beauty of
its product being derived from any rule that has a concept for its
determining ground, and that depends, consequently, on a con-
cept of the way in which the product is possible. Consequently 20
fine art cannot of its own self excogitate the rule according
to which it is to effectuate its product. But since, for all that,

a product can never be called art unless thére is a preceding
rule, it follows that nature in the individual (and by virtue of
the harmony of his faculties) must give the rule to art, i.e. fine 25
art is only possible as a product of genius.

From this it may be seen that genius (r) is a Zalen? for pro-
ducing that for which no definite rule can be given: and not an

“aptitude in the way of cleverness for what can be learned
308 according to some rule; and that consequently originality must 3°
be its primary property. (2) Since there may also be original
nonsense, its products must at the same time be models, i.e. be
exemplary ; and, consequently, though not themselves derived

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 169

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

from imitation, they must serve that purpose for others, i. e. as
astandard or rule of estimating. (3) It cannot indicate scientifi-
cally how it brings about its product, but rather gives the rule as
nature. Hence, where an author owes a product to his genius, he

5 does not himself know how the ideas for it have entered into his
head, nor has he it in his power to invent the like at pleasure,
or methodically, and communicate the same to others in such
precepts as would put them in a position to produce similar
products. (Hence, presumably, our word Genie is derived from

10 genius, as the peculiar guardian and guiding spirit given to
a man at his birth, by the inspiration of which those original
ideas were obtained.) (4) Nature prescribes the rule through
genius not to science but to art, and this also only in so far as
it is to be fine art.

18 § 47

Elucidation and confirmation of the above explanation
of genius.

EVERY one is agreed on the point of the complete opposition
between genius and the spirit of imitation. Now since learning
20 is nothing but imitation, the greatest ability, or aptness as a
pupil (capacity), is still, as such, not equivalent to genius. Even
though a man weaves his own thoughts or fancies, instead of
merely taking in what others have thought, and even though he
go so far as to bring fresh gains to art and science, this does not
25 afford a valid reason for calling such a man of drains, and often
great brains, a geziws, in contradistinction to one who goes by the
name of shallow-pate, because he can never do more than merely
learn and follow a lead. For what is accomplished in this way

is something that could have been learned. Hence it all lies in
30 the natural path of investigation and reflection according to rules,
and so is not specifically distinguishable from what may be
acquired as the result of industry backed up by imitation. Soall

170 Critique of Judgement

Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

that Vewton has set forth in his immortal work on the Principles
of Natural Philosophy may well be learned, however great a
mind it took to find it all out, but we cannot learn to write in
309 a true poetic vein, no matter how complete all the precepts of
the poetic art may be, or however excellent its models. The 5
reason is that all the steps that Newton had to take from the
first elements of geometry to his greatest and most profound
discoveries were such as he could make intuitively evident and
plain to follow, not only for himself but for every one else. On
the other hand no Homer or Wieland can show how his ideas, so 10
rich at once in fancy and in thought, enter and assemble them-
selves in his brain, for the good reason that he does not himself
know, and so cannot teach others. In matters of science, there-
fore, the greatest inventor differs only in degree from the most
laborious imitator and apprentice, whereas he differs specifically 15
from one endowed by nature for fine art. No disparagement,
however, of those great men, to whom the human race is so deeply
indebted, is involved in this comparison of them with those who
on the score of their talent for fine art are the elect of nature.

The talent for science is formed for the continued advances of 20

greater perfection in knowledge, with all its dependent practical
advantages, as also for imparting the same to others. Hence
scientists can boast a ground of considerable superiority over
those who merit the honour of being called geniuses, since genius
reaches a point at which art must make a halt, as there is 25
a limit imposed upon it which it cannot transcend. This limit
has in all probability been long since attained. In addition,
such skill cannot be communicated, but requires to be bestowed -
directly from the hand of nature upon each individual, and so
with him it dies, awaiting the day when nature once again en- 30
dows another in the same way—one who needs no more than
an example to set the talent of which he is conscious at work on
similar lines.

Seeing, then, that the natural endowment of art (as fine art)

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 171
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

must furnish the rule, what kind of rule must this be? It cannot
be one set down in a formula and serving as a precept—for
then the judgement upon the beautiful would be determinable
according to concepts. Rather must the rule be gathered from
5 the performance, i.e. from the product, which others may use to
put their own talent to the test, so as to let it serve as a model,
not for zmitation, but for following. The possibility of this is
difficult to explain. The artist’s ideas arouse like ideas on the
part of his pupil, presuming nature to have visited him with
1o a like proportion of the mental powers. For this reason the
models of fine art are the only means of handing down this art 310
to posterity. This is something which cannot be done by mere
descriptions (especially not in the line of the arts of speech),
and in these arts, furthermore, only those models can become
15 classical of which the ancient, dead languages, preserved as
learned, are the medium.
Despite the marked difference that distinguishes mechanical
art, as an art merely depending upon industry and learning, from
fine art, as that of genius, there is still no fine art in which
20 something mechanical, capable of being at once comprehended
and followed in obedience to rules, and consequently something
academic does not constitute the essential condition of the art.
For the thought of something as end must be present, or else its
product would not be ascribed to an art at all, but would be
25 a mere product of chance. But the effectuation of an end
necessitates determinate rules which we cannot venture to dis-
pense with. Now, seeing that originality of talent is one (though
not the sole) essential factor that goes to make up the character
of genius, shallow minds fancy that the best evidence they can
30 give of their being full-blown geniuses is by emancipating them-
selves from all academic constraint of rules, in the belief that
one cuts a finer figure on the back of an ill-tempered than of a
trained horse. Genius can do no more than furnish rich material
for products of fine art; its elaboration and its form require a

172 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

talent academically trained, so that it may be employed in such
But, for a person to

a way as to stand the test of judgement.

hold forth and pass sentence like a genius in matters that fall to
the province of the most patient rational investigation, is ridi-
culous in the extreme. One is at a loss to know whether to 5
laugh more at the impostor who envelops himself in such a
cloud—in which we are given fuller scope to our imagination at
the expense of all use of our critical faculty,—or at the simple-
minded public which imagines that its inability clearly to cognize
and comprehend this masterpiece of penetration is due to 10
its being invaded by new truths en masse, in comparison with
which, detail, due to carefully weighed exposition and an
academic examination of root-principles, seems to it only the
work of a tyro.

311 § 48 15
The relation of genius to taste.

For estimating beautiful objects, as such, what is required
is Zaste; but for fine art, i.e. the production of such objects,
one needs genius.

If we consider genius as the talent for fine art (which the 20
proper signification of the word imports), and if we would analyse
it from this point of view into the faculties which must concur
to constitute such a talent, it is imperative at the outset
accurately to determine the difference between beauty of nature,
which it only requires taste to estimate, and beauty of art, which 25
“requires genius for its possibility (a possibility to which regard
must also be paid in estimating such an object).

A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing: beauty of art is
a beautiful representation of a thing.

To enable me to estimate a beauty of nature, as such, I do 30
not need to be previously possessed of a concept of what sort of
a thing the object is intended to be, i.e. I am not obliged to

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 173
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

know its material finality (the end), but, rather, in forming an
estimate of it apart from any knowledge of the end, the mere
form pleases on its own account. If, however, the object is
presented as a product of art, and is as such to be declared
5 beautiful, then, seeing that art always presupposes an end in the
cause (and its causality), a concept of what the thing is intended
to be must first of all be laid at its basis. And, since the
agreement of the manifold in a thing with an inner character
belonging to it as its end constitutes the perfection of the thing,
10 it follows that in estimating beauty of art the perfection of the
thing must be also taken into account—a matter which in
estimating a beauty of nature, as beautiful, is quite irrelevant.
—It is true that in forming an estimate, especially of animate
objects of nature, e, g. of a man or a horse, objective finality is
15 also commonly taken into account with a view to judgement
upon their beauty ; but then the judgement also ceases to be
purely aesthetic, i.e. a mere judgement of taste. Nature is no
longer estimated as it appears like art, but rather in so far as it
actually zs art, though superhuman art; and the teleological
20 judgement serves as basis and condition of the aesthetic, and 312
one which the latter must regard. In such a case, where one
says, for example, ‘that is a beautiful woman,’ what one in
fact thinks is only this, that in her form nature excellently
portrays the ends present in the female figure. For one has to
25 extend one’s view beyond the mere form to a concept, to enable
the object to be thought in such manner by means of an aesthetic
judgement logically conditioned.
Where fine art evidences its superiority is in the beautiful
descriptions it gives of things that in nature would be ugly or
30 displeasing. The Furies, diseases, devastations of war, and the
like, can (as evils) be very beautifully described, nay even
represented in pictures. One kind of ugliness alone is incapable
of being represented conformably to nature without destroying
all aesthetic delight, and consequently artistic beauty, namely,

174 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

that which excites disgust. For, asin this strange sensation,
which depends purely on the imagination, the object is repre-
sented as insisting, as it were, upon our enjoying it, while we
still set our face against it, the artificial representation of the
object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object 5
itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as
beautiful. The art of sculpture, again, since in its products
art is almost confused with nature, has excluded from its
creations the direct representation of ugly objects, and, instead,
only sanctions, for example, the representation of death (in 10
a beautiful genius), or of the warlike spirit (in Mars), by
means of an allegory, or attributes which wear a pleasant guise,
and so only indirectly, through an interpretation on the part of
reason, and not for the pure aesthetic judgement.

So much for the beautiful representation of an object, which 15
is properly only the form of the presentation of a concept, and
the means by which the latter is universally communicated.
To give this form, however, to the product of fine art, taste
merely is required. By this the artist, having practised and
corrected his taste by a variety of examples from nature or art, 20
controls his work and, after many, and often laborious,
attempts to satisfy taste, finds the form which commends itself
to him. Hence this form is not, as it were, a matter of inspira-
tion, or of a free swing of the mental powers, but rather of
a slow and even painful process of improvement, directed to 25

313 making the form adequate to his thought without prejudice to
the freedom in the play of those powers.

Taste is, however, merely a critical, not a productive faculty ;
and what conforms to it is not, merely on that account, a work
of fine art. It may belong to useful and mechanical art, or 30
even to science, as a product following definite rules which
are capable of being learned and which must be closely
followed. But the pleasing form imparted to the work is only
the vehicle of communication and a mode, as it were, of

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 175
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

execution, in respect of which one remains to a certain extent
free, notwithstanding being otherwise tied down to a definite end.
So we demand that table appointments, or even a moral disserta-
tion, and, indeed, a sermon, must bear this form of fine art, yet
5 without its appearing s/udied. But one would not call them on
this account works of fine art. A poem, a musical composition,
a picture-gallery, and so forth, would, however, be placed under
this head; and so in a would-be work of fine art we may

frequently recognize genius without taste, and in another taste
10 without genius.

§ 49
The faculties of the mind which constitute genius.

OF certain products which are expected, partly at least, to,
stand on the footing of fine art, we say they are sou/less ; and this, |
15 although we find nothing to censure in them as far as taste goes. |
A poem may be very pretty and elegant, but is soulless. A nar- }
rative has precision and method, but is soulless. A speech on '
some festive occasion may be good in substance and ornate
withal, but may be soulless. Conversation frequently is not
20 devoid of entertainment, but yet soulless. Even of a woman
we may well say, she is pretty, affable, and refined, but soulless.
Now what do we here mean by ‘soul’? /
‘ Soul’ (Geist) in an aesthetical sense, signifies the animating’
principle in the mind. But that whereby this principle animates
25 the psychic substance (‚See/e)—the material which it employs
for that purpose—is that which sets the mental powers into a
swing that is final, i.e. into a play which is self-maintaining and
which strengthens those powers for such activity.
Now my proposition is that this principle is nothing else than
30 the faculty of presenting aesthetic ideas. But, by an aesthetic 314
idea I mean that representation of the imagination which in-
duces much thought, yet without the possibility of any definite

176 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

thought whatever, i.e. concept, being adequate to it, and which
language, consequently, can never get quite on level terms with
or render completely intelligible—It is easily seen, that an
aesthetic idea is the counterpart (pendant) of a rational idea,
which, conversely, is a concept, to which no intuition (repre- 5
sentation of the imagination) can be adequate.

The imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is a
powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of
the material supplied to it by actual nature. It affords us
entertainment where experience proves too commonplace ; and 10
we even use it to remodel experience, always following, no doubt,
laws that are based on analogy, but still also following principles
which have a higher seat in reason (and which are every whit
as natural to us as those followed by the understanding in laying
hold of empirical nature). By this means we get a sense of 15
our freedom from the law of association (which attaches to the
empirical employment of the imagination), with the result that
the material can be borrowed by us from nature in accordance
with that law, but be worked up by us into something else—
namely, what surpasses nature. 20

Such representations of the imagination may be termed zdeas.
This is partly because they at least strain after something lying
out beyond the confines of experience, and so seek to approx-
imate to a presentation of rational concepts (i.e. intellectual
ideas), thus giving to these concepts the semblance of an 25
objective reality. But, on the other hand, there is this most
important reason, that no concept can be wholly adequate to
them as internal intuitions. The poet essays the task of
interpreting to sense the rational ideas of invisible beings, the
kingdom of the blessed, hell, eternity, creation, &c. Or, again, 30
as to things of which examples occur in experience, e.g. death,
envy, and all vices, as also love, fame, and the like, transgressing
the limits of experience he attempts with the aid of an imagina-
tion which emulates the display of reason in its attainment of

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 177

Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

a maximum, to body them forth to sense with a completeness of
which nature affords no parallel ; and it is in fact precisely in
the poetic art that the faculty of aesthetic ideas can show itself
to full advantage. This faculty, however, regarded solely on

5 its Own account, is properly no more than a talent (of the
imagination).

If, now, we attach to a concept a representation of the imagin-
ation belonging to its presentation, but inducing solely on its
own account such a wealth of thought as would never admit of

to comprehension in a definite concept, and, as a consequence,
giving aesthetically an unbounded expansion to the concept
itself, then the imagination here displays a creative activity, and
it puts the faculty of intellectual ideas (reason) into motion—a
motion, at the instance of a representation, towards an extension

15 of thought, that, while germane, no doubt, to the concept of the
object, exceeds what can be laid hold of in that representation
or clearly expressed.

Those forms which do not constitute the presentation of a
given concept itself, but which, as secondary representations of

20 the imagination, express the derivatives connected with it, and
its kinship with other concepts, are called (aesthetic) azfrzöures
of an object, the concept of which, as an idea of reason, cannot
be adequately presented. In this way Jupiter's eagle, with the
lightning in its claws, is an attribute of the mighty king of

25 heaven, and the peacock of its stately queen. They do not, like
logical attributes, represent what lies in our concepts of the
sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else—
something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its
flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke

30 more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined
by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the
above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but
with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by
opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representa-

1193 N

315

316

178 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

tions stretching beyond its ken. But it is not alone in the arts

of painting or sculpture, where the name of attribute is custom-
arily employed, that fine art acts in this way; poetry and
rhetoric also derive the soul that animates their works wholly
from the aesthetic attributes of the objects—attributes which go 5
hand in hand with the logical, and give the imagination an
impetus to bring more thought into play in the matter, though
in an undeveloped manner, than allows of being brought within
the embrace of a concept, or, therefore, of being definitely
formulated in language.—For the sake of brevity I must confine to
myself to a few examples only. When the great king expresses
himself in one of his poems by saying :

Oui, finissons sans trouble, et mourons sans regrets,

En laissant l’Univers comblé de nos bienfaits.

Ainsi l’Astre du jour, au bout de sa carritre, 15

Répand sur l’horizon une douce lumitre,

Et les derniers rayons qu’il darde dans les airs

Sont les derniers soupirs qu’il donne & l’Univers;

he kindles in this way his rational idea of a cosmopolitan senti-
ment even at the close of life, with the help of an attribute 20
which the imagination (in remembering all the pleasures of a fair
summer’s day that is over and gone—a memory of which
pleasures is suggested by a serene evening) annexes to that
representation, and which stirs up a crowd of sensations and
secondary representations for which no expression can be found. 25
On the other hand, even an intellectual concept may serve,
conversely, as attribute for a representation of sense, and so
animate the latter with the idea of the supersensible; but
only by the aesthetic factor subjectively attaching to the con-
sciousness of the supersensible being employed for the purpose. 30
So, for example, a certain poet says in his description of
a beautiful morning: ‘The sun arose, as out of virtue rises
peace.’ The consciousness of virtue, even where we put
ourselves only in thought in the position of a virtuous man,

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 179
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

diffuses in the mind a multitude of sublime and tranquillizing
feelings, and gives a boundless outlook into a happy future, such
as no expression within the compass of a definite concept
completely attains.'

s In a word, the aesthetic idea is a representation of the
imagination, annexed to a given concept, with which, in the
free employment of imagination, such a multiplicity of partial
representations are bound up, that no expression indicating a
definite concept can be found for it—one which on that account

10 allows a concept to be supplemented in thought by much that
is indefinable in words, and the feeling of which quickens the
cognitive faculties, and with language, as a mere thing of the
letter, binds up the spirit (soul) also.

The mental powers whose union in a certain relation
1g constitutes genius are imagination and understanding. Now,
since the imagination, in its employment on behalf of cognition,

“is subjected to the constraint of the understanding and the
restriction of having to be conformable to the concept belonging
thereto, whereas aesthetically it is free to furnish of its own

20 accord, over and above that agreement with the concept, a

_ wealth of undeveloped material for the understanding, to which

the latter paid no regard in its concept, but which it can make
use of, not so much objectively for cognition, as subjectively
for quickening the cognitive faculties, and hence also indirectly

25 for cognitions, it may be seen that genius properly consists in
the happy relation, which science cannot teach nor industry
learn, enabling one to find out ideas for a given concept, and,

1 Perhaps there has never been a more sublime utterance, or a thought
more sublimely expressed, than the well-known inscription upon the

30 Temple of Isis (Mother Nature) : ‘I am all that is, and that was, and that
shall be, and no mortal hath raised the veil from before my face.’ Segner
made use of this idea in a suggestive vignette on the frontispiece of his
Natural Philosophy, in order to inspire his pupil at the threshold of that
temple into which he was about to lead him, with such a holy awe as

35 would dispose his mind to serious attention.

N 2

317

180 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

besides, to hit upon the expression for them—the expression by
means of which the subjective mental condition induced by the
ideas as the concomitant of a concept may be communicated
to others. This latter talent is properly that which is termed
soul. For to get an expression for what is indefinable in the 5
mental state accompanying a particular representation and
to make it universally communicable—be the expression in
language or painting or statuary—is a thing requiring a faculty
for laying hold of the rapid and transient play of the imagina-
tion, and for unifying it in a concept (which for that very reason 10
is original, and reveals a new rule which could not have been
inferred from any preceding principles or examples) that admits
of communication without any constraint of rules.

If, after this analysis, we cast a glance back upon the above
definition of what is called gexivs, we find: First, that it is a 15
talent for art—not one for science, in which clearly known rules
must take the lead and determine the procedure. Secondly,
being a talent in the line of art, it presupposes a definite concept
of the product—as its end. Hence it presupposes under-
standing, but, in addition, a representation, indefinite though 20
it be, of the material, i.e. of the intuition, required for the
presentation of that concept, and so a relation of the imagination
to the understanding. Z7%iraly, it displays itself, not so much
in the working out of the projected end in the presentation of
a definite concept, as rather in the portrayal, or expression of 25
aesthetic ideas containing a wealth of material for effecting that
intention. Consequently the imagination is represented by it
in its freedom from all guidance of rules, but still as final for the
presentation of the given concept. Fourthly, and lastly, the un-

318 sought and undesigned subjective finality in the free harmonizing 30
of the imagination with the understanding’s conformity to law
presupposes a proportion and accord between these faculties

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 181
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

such as cannot be brought about by any observance of rules,
whether of science or mechanical imitation, but can only be
produced by the nature of the individual.
Genius, according to these presuppositions, is the exemplary
5 originality of the natural endowments of an individual in the
free employment of his cognitive faculties. On this showing,
the product of a genius (in respect of so much in this product
as is attributable to genius, and not to possible learning or
academic instruction,) is an example, not for imitation (for that
to would mean the loss of the element of genius, and just the
very soul of the work), but to be followed by another genius—
one whom it arouses to a sense of his own originality in putting
freedom from the constraint of rules so into force in his art,
that for art itself a new rule is won—which is what shows a
15 talent to be exemplary. Yet, since the genius is one of nature’s
elect—a type that must be regarded as but a rare pheno-
menon—for other clever minds his example gives rise to a
school, that is to say a methodical instruction according to
rules, collected, so far as the circumstances admit, from such
20 products of genius and their peculiarities. And, to that extent,
fine art is for such persons a matter of imitation, for which
nature, through the medium of a genius, gave the rule.
But this imitation becomes afing when the pupil copzes every-
thing down to the deformities which the genius only of necessity
25 suffered to remain, because they could hardly be removed
without loss of force to the idea. This courage has merit
only in the case of a genius. A certain do/dness of expression,
and, in general, many a deviation from the common rule
becomes him well, but in no sense is it a thing worthy of
30 imitation. On the contrary it remains all through intrinsically
a blemish, which one is bound to try to remove, but for
which the genius is, as it were, allowed to plead a privilege, on
the ground that a scrupulous carefulness would spoil what is
inimitable in the impetuous ardour of his soul. Mannerism

319

182 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

is another kind of aping—an aping of pecw/iarity (originality) in
general, for the sake of removing oneself as far as possible from
imitators, while the talent requisite to enable one to be at the
same time exemplary is absent.—There are, in fact, two modes
(modi) in general of arranging one’s thoughts for utterance. The 5
one is called a manner (modus aestheticus), the other a method
(modus logicus). The distinction between them is this: the
former possesses no standard other than the fee/ing of unity in
the presentation, whereas the latter here follows definite Zrin-
ciples. Asa consequence the former is alone admissible for fine 10
art. It is only, however, where the manner of carrying the idea
into execution in a product of art is aémed at singularity instead of
being made appropriate to the idea, that #aznerism is properly
ascribed to such a product. The ostentatious (préctewx), forced,
and affected styles, intended to mark one out from the common !5
herd (though soul is wanting), resemble the behaviour of a man
who, as we say, hears himself talk, or who stands and moves
about as if he were on a stage to be gaped at—action which
invariably betrays a tyro,

§ 50 a
The combination of taste and genius in products of fine art.

To ask whether more stress should be laid in matters of fine
art upon the presence of genius or upon that of taste, is equiv-
alent to asking whether more turns upon imagination or upon
judgement. Now, imagination rather entitles an art to be called 25
an inspired (geistreiche) than a fine art. It is only in respect of
judgement that the name of fine art is deserved. Hence it
follows that judgement, being the indispensable condition
(conditio sine qua non), is at least what one must look to as of
capital importance in forming an estimate of art as fine art. 30
So far as beauty is concerned, to be fertile and original in ideas
is not such an imperative requirement as it is that the imagina-

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 183
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

tion in its freedom should be in accordance with the under-

standing’s conformity to law. For in lawless freedom imagina-

tion, with all its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense ; the

power of judgement, on the other hand, is the faculty that
; makes it consonant with understanding.

Taste, like judgement in general, is the discipline (or cor-
rective) of genius. It severely clips its wings, and makes it
orderly or polished ; but at the same time it gives it guidance,
directing and controlling its flight, so that it may preserve its

ıo character of finality. It introduces a clearness and order
into the plenitude of thought, and in so doing gives stability
to the,ideas, and qualifies them at once for permanent and
universal approval, for being followed by others, and for a
continually progressive culture. And so, where the interests of

15 both these qualities clash in a product, and there has to be a
sacrifice of something, then it should rather be on the side of 320
genius ; and judgement, which in matters of fine art bases its
decision on its own proper principles, will more readily endure
an abatement of the freedom and wealth of the imagination,

20 than that the understanding should be compromised.

The requisites for fine art are, therefore, imaginalion, under-
standing, soul, and taste.’

§ 51
The division of the fine arts.

25 Beauty (whether it be of nature or of art) may in general be
termed the expression of aesthetic ideas. But the proviso must
be added that with beauty of art this idea must be excited

1 The first three faculties are first brought into union by means of the
fourth, Hume, in his history, informs the English that although they
30 are second in their works to no other people in the world in respect
of the evidences they afford of the three first qualities separately con-
sidered, still in what unites them they must yield to their neighbours,
the French,

321

184 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

through the medium of a concept of the Object, whereas with
beauty of nature the bare reflection upon a given intuition,
apart from any concept of what the object is intended to be, is
sufficient for awakening and communicating the idea of which
that Object is regarded as the expression. 5

Accordingly, if we wish to make a division of the fine arts,
we can choose for that purpose, tentatively at least, no more
convenient principle than the analogy which art bears to the
mode of expression of which men avail themselves in speech,
with a view to communicating themselves to one another as 10
completely as possible, i.e. not merely in respect of their
concepts but in respect of their sensations also.'—Such
expression consists in word, gesture, and Zone (articulation,
gesticulation, and modulation). It is the combination of these
three modes of expression which alone constitutes a complete 15
communication of the speaker. For thought, intuition, and
sensation are in this way conveyed to others simultaneously
and in conjunction.

Hence there are only three kinds of fine art: the art of
speech, formative art, and the art of the play of sensations 20
(as external sense impressions). This division might also be
arranged as a dichotomy, so that fine art would be divided
into that of the expression of thoughts or intuitions, the latter
being subdivided according to the distinction between the form
and the matter (sensation). It would, however, in that case 25
appear toc abstract, and less in line with popular conceptions.

(1) The arts of spEECH are rhetoric and poetry. Rhetoric is
the art of transacting a serious business of the understanding
as if it were a free play of the imagination ; poetry that of
conducting a free play of the imagination as if it were a serious 30
business of the understanding.

' The reader is not to consider this scheme for a possible division of
the fine arts as a deliberate theory. It is only one of the various
attempts that can and ought to be made,

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 185
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

Thus the ora7or announces a serious business, and for the
purpose of entertaining his audience conducts it as if it were a
mere 5/ay with ideas. The Zoe? promises merely an entertain-
ing Play with ideas, and yet for the understanding there enures

5 as much as if the promotion of its business had been his one
intention. The combination and harmony of the two faculties
of cognition, sensibility and understanding, which, though,
doubtless, indispensable to one another, do not readily permit
of being united without compulsion and reciprocal abatement,

Io must have the appearance of being undesigned and a spon-
taneous occurrence—otherwise it is not five art. For this reason
what is studied and laboured must be here avoided. For fine art
must be free art in a double sense: i.e. not alone in a sense
opposed to contract work, as not being a work the magnitude

15 of which may be estimated, exacted, or paid for according to a
definite standard, but free also in the sense that, while the
mind, no doubt, occupies itself, still it does so without ulterior
regard to any other end, and yet with a feeling of satisfaction
and stimulation (independent of reward).

20 The orator, therefore, gives something which he does not
promise, viz, an entertaining play of the imagination. On the
other hand, there is something in which he fails to come up
to his promise, and a thing, too, which is his avowed business,
namely, the engagement of the understanding to some end.

25 The poet’s promise, on the contrary, is a modest one, and a
mere play with ideas is all he holds out to us, but he accom-
plishes something worthy of being made a serious business,
namely, the using of play to provide food for the understand-
ing, and the giving of life to its concepts by means of the

30 imagination. Hence the orator in reality performs less than
he promises, the poet more.

(2) The FORMATIVE arts, or those for the expression of ideas
in sensuous intuition (not by means of representations of mere
imagination that are excited by words) are arts either of 322

186 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

sensuous truth or of sensuous semblance. The first is called
plastic art, the second fainting. Both use figures in space for
the expression of ideas: the former makes figures discernible
to two senses, sight and touch (though, so far as the latter
sense is concerned, without regard to beauty), the latter makes 5
them so to the former sense alone. The aesthetic idea (arche-
type, original) is the fundamental basis of both in the imagina-
tion; but the figure which constitutes its expression (the
ectype, the copy) is given either in its bodily extension (the
way the object itself exists) or else in accordance with the 10
picture which it forms of itself in the eye (according to its
appearance when projected on a flat surface). Or, whatever
the archetype is, either the reference to an actual end or only
the semblance of one may be imposed upon reflection as its
condition. 15
To plastic art, as the first kind of formative fine art, belong
sculpture and architecture. The first is that which presents
concepts of things corporeally, as they might exist in nature
(though as fine art it directs its attention to aesthetic finality).
The second is the art of presenting concepts of things which are zo
possible only éhrough art, and the determining ground of whose
form is not nature but an arbitrary end—and of presenting
them both with a view to this purpose and yet, at the same
time, with aesthetic finality. In architecture the chief point is
a certain wse of the artistic object to which, as the condition, 25
the aesthetic ideas are limited. In sculpture the mere expres-
sion of aesthetic ideas is the main intention. Thus statues of
men, gods, animals, &c., belong to sculpture; but temples,
splendid buildings for public concourse, or even dwelling-
houses, triumphal arches, columns, mausoleums, &c., erected 30
as monuments, belong to architecture, and in fact all house-
hold furniture (the work of cabinet-makers, and so forth—
things meant to be used) may be added to the list, on the
ground that adaptation of the product to a particular use

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 187
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

is the essential element in a work of architecture. On the
other hand, a mere Jzece of sculpture, made simply to be looked
at, and intended to please on its own account, is, as a
corporeal presentation, a mere imitation of nature, though one
5 in which regard is paid to aesthetic ideas, and in which, there-
fore, sensuous truth should not go the length of losing the
appearance of being an art and a product of the elective will.
Painting, as the second kind of formative art, which presents
the sensuous semblance in artful combination with ideas, I 323
10 would divide into that of the beautiful portrayal of nature, and
that of the beautiful arrangement of its products. The first is
painting proper, the second /andscape gardening. For the
first gives only the semblance of bodily extension ; whereas
the second, giving this, no doubt, according to its truth, gives
15 only the semblance of utility and employment for ends other
than the play of the imagination in the contemplation of its
forms.’ The latter consists in no more than decking out the
ground with the same manifold variety (grasses, flowers, shrubs,
and trees, and even water, hills, and dales) as that with which
20 nature presents it to our view, only arranged differently and in
obedience to certain ideas. The beautiful arrangement of

1 It seems strange that landscape gardening may be regarded as a kind
of painting, notwithstanding that it presents its forms corporeally.
But, as it takes its forms bodily from nature (the trees, shrubs, grasses,

25 and flowers taken, originally at least, from wood and field) it is to that
extent not an art such as, let us say, plastic art. Further, the arrange-
ment which it makes is not conditioned by any concept of the object
or of its end (as is the case in sculpture), but by the mere free play of the
imagination in the act of contemplation. Hence it bears a degree of

30 resemblance to simple aesthetic painting that has no definite theme (but
by means of light and shade makes a pleasing composition of atmo-
sphere, land, and water).—Throughout, the reader is to weigh the
above only as an effort to connect the fine arts under a principle, which,
in the present instance, is intended to be that of the expression of

35 aesthetic ideas (following the analogy of a language), and not as a positive
and deliberate derivation of the connexion.

188 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

corporeal things, however, is also a thing for the eye only, just
like painting—the sense of touch can form no intuitable
representation of such a form. In addition I would place
under the head of painting, in the wide sense, the decoration of
rooms by means of hangings, ornamental accessories, and all 5
beautiful furniture the sole function of which is zo de looked at;
and in the same way the art of tasteful dressing (with rings,
snuff-boxes, &c.). For a parterre of various flowers, a room
with a variety of ornaments (including even the ladies’ attire),
go to make at a festal gathering a sort of picture which, like
pictures in the true sense of the word, (those which are not
intended 40 ¢each history or natural science,) has no business
beyond appealing to the eye, in order to entertain the imagina-
tion in free play with ideas, and to engage actively the aesthetic
judgement independently of any definite end. No matter 15
how heterogeneous, on the mechanical side, may be the craft
324 involved in all this decoration, and no matter what a variety
of artists may be required, still the judgement of taste, so far
as it is one upon what is beautiful in this art, is determined in
one and the same way: namely, as a judgement only upon the zo
forms (without regard to any end) as they present themselves
to the eye, singly or in combination, according to their effect
upon the imagination.—The justification, however, of bringing
formative art (by analogy) under a common head with gesture
in a speech, lies in the fact that through these figures the soul 25
of the artist furnishes a bodily expression for the substance
and character of his thought, and makes the thing itself speak,
as it were, in mimic language—a very common play of our
fancy, that attributes to lifeless things a soul suitable to their
form, and that uses them as its mouthpiece. 30
(3) The art of the BEAUTIFUL PLAY OF SENSATIONS, (sensa-
tions that arise from external stimulation,) which is a play of
sensations that has nevertheless to permit of universal com-
munication, can only be concerned with the proportion of the

-

fe]

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 189
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgenients

different degrees of tension in the sense to which the sensation
belongs, i.e. with its tone. In this comprehensive sense of
the word it may be divided into the artificial play of sensations
of hearing and of sight, consequently into music and the art
5 of colour. —It is of note that these two senses, over and above
such susceptibility for impressions as is required to. obtain
concepts of external objects by means of these impressions,
also admit of a peculiar associated sensation of which we can-
not well determine whether it is based on sense or reflection ;
10 and that this sensibility may at times be wanting, although the
sense, in other respects, and in what concerns its employment
for the cognition of objects, is by no means deficient but
particularly keen. In other words, we cannot confidently
assert whether a colour or a tone (sound) is merely an agree-
15 able sensation, or whether they are in themselves a beautiful
play of sensations, and in being estimated aesthetically, convey,
as such, a delight in their form. If we consider the velocity
of the vibrations of light, or, in the second case, of the air,
which in all probability far outstrips any capacity on our part
20 for forming an immediate estimate in perception of the time
interval between them, we should be led to believe that it is
only the efect of those vibrating movements upon the elastic
parts of our body, that can be evident to sense, but that the
time-interval between them is not noticed nor involved in our
25 estimate, and that, consequently, all that enters into combin- 325
ation with colours and tones is agreeableness, and not beauty,
of their composition. But, let us consider, on the other hand,
first, the mathematical character both of the proportion of
those vibrations in music, and of our judgement upon it, and,
30 as is reasonable, form an estimate of colour contrasts on the
analogy of the latter. Secondly, let us consult the instances,
albeit rare, of men who, with the best of sight, have failed to
distinguish colours, and, with the sharpest hearing, to distin-
guish tones, while for men who have this ability the perception

190 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

of an altered quality (not merely of the degree of the sensation)
in the case of the different intensities in the scale of colours or
tones is definite, as is also the number of those which may be
intelligibly distinguished. Bearing all this in mind we may feel
compelled to look upon the sensations afforded by both, not 5
as mere sense-impressions, but as the effect of an estimate of
form in the play of a number of sensations. The difference
which the one opinion or the other occasions in the estimate
of the basis of music would, however, only give rise to this
much change in its definition, that either it is to be interpreted, 10
as we have done, as the deautiful play of sensations (through
hearing), or else as one of agreeable sensations. According to
the former interpretation, alone, would music be represented
out and out as a fine art, whereas according to the latter it
would be represented as (in part at least) an agreead/e art. 15

§ 52
The combination of the fine arts in one and the same product.

RHETORIC may in a drama be combined with a pictorial
presentation as well of its Subjects as of objects; as may
poetry with music in a song; and this again with a pictorial 29
(theatrical) presentation in an ofera; and so may the play of
sensations in a piece of music with the play of figures in a
dance, and so on. Even the presentation of the sublime, so
far as it belongs to fine art, may be brought into union with
beauty in a tragedy in verse, a didactic poem or an oratorio, 25
and in this combination fine art is even more artistic, Whether
it is also more beautiful (having regard to the multiplicity of
different kinds of delight which cross one another) may in:

326 some of these instances be doubted. Still in all fine art the
essential element consists in the form which is final for 30
observation and for estimating. Here the pleasure is at the

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime ıgI
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

same time culture, and disposes the soul to ideas, making it
thus susceptible of such pleasure and entertainment in greater
abundance. The matter of sensation (charm or emotion) is not
essential. Here the aim is merely enjoyment, which leaves

s nothing behind it in the idea, and renders the soul dull,
the object in the course of time distasteful, and the mind
dissatisfied. with itself and ill-humoured, owing to a con-
sciousness that in the judgement of reason its disposition is
perverse.

1o Where fine arts are not, either proximately or. remotely,
brought into combination with moral ideas, which alone are
attended with a self-sufficing delight, the above is the fate that
ultimately awaits them. They then only serve for a diversion,
of which one continually feels an increasing need in proportion

15 as one has availed oneself of it as a means of dispelling the
discontent of one’s mind, with the result that one makes
oneself ever more and more unprofitable and dissatisfied
with oneself. With a view to the purpose first named the
beauties of nature are in general the most beneficial, if one is

20 early habituated to observe, estimate, and admire them.

§ 53

Comparative estimate of the aesthetic worth of the
fine arts.

‚Poetry (which owes its origin almost entirely to genius and is

ag least willing to be led by precepts or example) holds the first
rank among all the arts. It expands the mind by giving free-
dom to the imagination and by offering, from among the
boundless multiplicity of possible forms accordant with a given
concept, to whose bounds it is restricted, that one which couples
30 with the presentation of the concept a wealth of thought to
which no verbal expression is completely adequate, and by thus
rising aesthetically to ideas. It invigorates the mind by letting

327

192 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

it feel its faculty—free, spontaneous, and independent of
determination by nature—of regarding and estimating nature
as phenomenon in the light of aspects which nature of itself
does not afford us in experience, either for sense or understand-
ing, and of employing it accordingly in behalf of, and as a sort 5
of schema for, the supersensible. It plays with semblance, which

it produces at will, but not as an instrument of deception ;
for its avowed pursuit is merely one of play, which, however,
understanding may turn to good account and employ for its own
purpose.—Rhetoric, so far as this is taken to mean the art of 10
persuasion, i.e. the art of deluding by means of a fair semblance
(as ars oratoria), and not merely excellence of speech (eloquence
and style), is a dialectic, which borrows from poetry only so
much as is necessary to win over men’s minds to the side of the
speaker before they have weighed the matter, and to rob their 15
verdict of its freedom. Hence it can be recommended neither
for the bar nor the pulpit. For where civil laws, the right of
individual persons, or the permanent instruction and determina-
tion of men’s minds to a correct knowledge and a conscientious .
observance of their duty is at stake, then it is below the dignity 20
of an undertaking of such moment to exhibit even a trace of
the exuberance of wit and imagination, and, still more, of the
art of talking men round and prejudicing them in favour of
any one. For although such art is capable of being at times
directed to ends intrinsically legitimate and praiseworthy, still 25
it becomes reprehensible on account of the subjective injury
done in this way to maxims and sentiments, even where
objectively the action may be lawful. For it is not enough to
do what is right, but we should practise it solely on the ground
of its being right. Further, the simple lucid concept of human 30
concerns of this kind, backed up with lively illustrations of it,
exerts of itself, in the absence of any offence against the rules
of euphony of speech or of propriety in the expression of ideas
of reason (all which together make up excellence of speech), a

5

I

fo}

20

2

or

30

35

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 193
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

sufficient influence upon human minds to obviate the necessity
of having recourse here to the machinery of persuasion, which,
being equally available for the purpose of putting a fine gloss or
a cloak upon vice and error, fails to rid one completely of the
lurking suspicion that one is being artfully hoodwinked. In
poetry everything is straight and above board. It shows its
hand: it desires to carry on a mere entertaining play with the
imagination, and one consonant, in respect of form, with the
laws of understanding ; and it does not seek to steal upon and
ensnare the understanding with a sensuous presentation.!

After poetry, if we take charm and mental stimulation into
account, I would give the next place to that art which comes
nearer to it than to any other art of speech, and admits of very
natural union with it, namely the art of ¢ove. For though it
speaks by means of mere sensations without concepts, and so
does not, like poetry, leave behind it any food for reflection, still
it moves the mind more diversely, and, although with transient,

1 I must confess to the pure delight which I have ever been afforded
by a beautiful poem ; whereas the reading of the best speech of a Roman
forensic orator, a modern parliamentary debater, or a preacher, has
invariably been mingled with an unpleasant sense of disapproval of an
insidious art that knows how, in matters of moment, to move men like
machines to a judgement that must lose all its weight with them upon
calm reflection. Force and elegance of speech (which together constitute
rhetoric) belong to fine art; but oratory (ars oratoria), being the art of
playing for one’s own purpose upon the weaknesses of men (let this
purpose be ever so good in intention or even in fact) merits no respect
whatever. Besides, both at Athens and at Rome, it only attained its
greatest height at a time when the state was hastening to its decay, and
genuine patriotic sentiment was a thing of the past. One who sees the
issue clearly, and who has a command of language in its wealth and its
purity, and who is possessed of an imagination that is fertile and effec-
tive in presenting his ideas, and whose heart, withal, turns with lively
sympathy to what is truly good—he is the vir bonus dicendi peritus, the
orator without art, but of great impressiveness, as Cicero would have him,
though he may not himself always have remained faithful to this ideal.

1193 [)

329

194 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

still with intenser effect. It is certainly, however, more a matter
of enjoyment than of culture—the play of thought incident-
ally excited by it being merely the effect of a more or less
mechanical association—and it possesses less worth in the
eyes of reason than any other of the fine arts. Hence, like all
enjoyment, it calls for constant change, and does not stand
frequent repetition without inducing weariness. Its charm,
which admits of such universal communication, appears to
rest on the following facts. Every expression in language has
an associated tone suited to its sense. This tone indicates,
more or less, a mode in which the speaker is affected, and in
turn evokes it in the hearer also, in whom conversely it then
also excites the idea which in language is expressed with such a
tone. Further, just as modulation is, as it were, a universal
language of sensations intelligible to every man, so the art of
tone wields the full force of this language wholly on its own
account, namely, as a language of the affections, and in this
way, according to the law of association, universally communi-
cates the aesthetic ideas that are naturally combined therewith.
But, further, inasmuch as those aesthetic ideas are not concepts
or determinate thoughts, the form of the arrangement of these
sensations (harmony and melody), taking the place of the form
of a language, only serves the purpose of giving an expression
to the aesthetic idea of an integral whole of an unutterable
wealth of thought that fills the measure of a certaitf theme
forming the dominant affection in the piece. This purpose is
effectuated by means of a proportion in the accord of the
sensations (an accord which may be brought mathematically
under certain rules, since it rests, in the case of tones, upon the
numerical relation of the vibrations of the air in the same time,
so far as there is a combination of the tones simultaneously or
in succession). Although this mathematical form is not repre-
sented by means of determinate concepts, to it alone belongs
the delight which the mere reflection upon such a number of

5

15

30

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 195
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

concomitant or consecutive sensations couples with this their
play, as the universally valid condition of its beauty, and it is
with reference to it alone that taste can lay claim to a right to
anticipate the judgement of every man.

5 But mathematics, certainly, does not play the smallest part in
the charm and movement of the mind produced by music.
Rather is it only the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua
non) of that proportion of the combining as well as changing
impressions which makes it possible to grasp them all in one

roand prevent them from destroying one another, and to let
them, rather, conspire towards the production of a continuous
movement and quickening of the mind by affections that are in

unison with it, and thus towards a serene self-enjoyment.
If, on the other hand, we estimate the worth of the fine arts

15 by the culture they supply to the mind, and adopt for our
standard the expansion of the faculties whose confluence, in
judgement, is necessary for cognition, music, then, since it plays
merely with sensations, has the lowest place among the fine arts
—just as it has perhaps the highest among those valued at the

20 same time for their agreeableness. Looked at in this light it
is far excelled by the formative arts. For, in putting the
imagination into a play which is at once free and adapted to
the understanding, they all the while carry on a serious busi-
ness, since they execute a product which serves the concepts of

25 understanding as a vehicle, permanent and appealing to us on
its own account, for effectuating their union with sensibility, and
thus for promoting, as it were, the urbanity of the higher powers
of cognition. The two kinds of art pursue completely different 330
courses. Music advances from sensations to indefinite ideas :

30 formative art from definite ideas to sensations. The latter gives
a /asting impression, the former one that is only /eeting. The
former sensations imagination can recall and agreeably enter-
tain itself with, while the latter either vanish entirely, or else,
if involuntarily repeated by the imagination, are more annoying

02

196 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

to us than agreeable. Over and above all this, music has a
certain lack of urbanity about it. For owing chiefly to the
character of its instruments, it scatters its influence abroad to
an uncalled-for extent (through the neighbourhood), and thus,
as it were, becomes obtrusive and deprives others, outside 5
the musical circle, of their freedom. This is a thing that
the arts that address themselves to the eye do not do, for if
one is not disposed to give admittance to their impressions,
one has only to look the other way.. The case is almost on
a par with the practice of regaling oneself with a perfume that 10
exhales its odours far and wide. The man who pulls his per-
fumed handkerchief from his pocket gives a treat to all around
whether they like it or not, and compels them, if they want to
breathe at all, to be parties to the enjoyment, and so the habit
has gone out of fashion." 15
Among the formative arts I would give the palm to Zainting:
partly because it is the art of design and, as such, the ground-
work of all the other formative arts; partly because it can
penetrate much further into the region of ideas, and in con-
formity with them give a greater extension to the field of 20
intuition than it is open to the others to do.

$ 54
Remark.

As we have often shown, an essential distinction lies between
what Jleases simply in the estimate formed of it and what gratifies 25
(pleases in sensation). The latter is something which, unlike

1 Those who have recommended the singing of hymns at family
prayers have forgotten the amount of annoyance which they give to the
general public by such »orsy (and, as a rule, for that very reason, phari-
saical) worship, for they compel their neighbours either to join in the 30
singing or else abandon their meditations.

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 197
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

the former, we cannot demand from every one. Gratification
(no matter whether its cause has its seat even in ideas) appears 331
always to consist in a feeling of the furtherance of the entire
life of the man, and, hence, also of his bodily well-being, i.e.
5 his health. And so, perhaps, Epicurus was not wide of the
mark when he said that at bottom all gratification is bodily
sensation, and only misunderstood himself in ranking intel-
lectual and even practical delight under the head of gratifi-
cation. Bearing in mind the latter distinction, it is readily
10 explicable how even the gratification a person feels is capable
of displeasing him (as the joy of a necessitous but good-natured
individual on being made the heir of an affectionate but penuri-
ous father), or how deep pain may still give pleasure to the
sufferer (as the sorrow of a widow over the death of her de-
15 serving husband), or how there may be pleasure over and above
gratification (as in scientific pursuits), or how a pain (as, for
example, hatred, envy, and desire for revenge) may in addi-
tion be a source of displeasure. Here the delight or aversion
depends upon reason, and is one with approbation or disappro-
20 dation. Gratification and pain, on the other hand, can only
depend upon feeling, or upon the prospect of a possible zwed/-
being or the reverse (irrespective of source).

The changing free play of sensations (which do not follow
any preconceived plan) is always a source of gratification,
25 because it promotes the feeling of health ; and it is immaterial
whether or not we experience delight in the object of this
play or even in the gratification itself when estimated in the
light of reason. Also this gratification may amount to an affec-
tion, although we take no interest in the object itself, or none,
30 at least, proportionate to the degree of the affection. We may
divide the above play into that of games of chance (Glückspiel),
harmony (Tonspiel), and wit (Gedankenspiel). The first stands
in need of an interest, be it of vanity or self-seeking, but one
which falls far short of that centered in the adopted mode of

332

198 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

procurement. All that the second requires is the change of
sensations, each of which has its bearing on affection, though
without attaining to the degree of an affection, and excites
aesthetic ideas. The ¢#ird springs merely from the change
of the representations in the judgement, which, while unpro- 5
ductive of any thought conveying an interest, yet enlivens
the mind.

What a fund of gratification must be afforded by play, without
our having to fall back upon any consideration of interest, is
a matter to which all our evening parties bear witness—for with- 10
out play they hardly ever escape falling flat. But the affections
of hope, fear, joy, anger, and derision here engage in play, as
every moment they change their parts, and are so lively that, as
by an internal motion, the whole vital function of the body
seems to be furthered by the process—as is proved by a vivacity 15
of the mind produced—although no one comes by anything in
the way of profit or instruction. But as the play of chance
is not one that is beautiful, we will here lay it aside. Music,
on the contrary, and what provokes laughter are two kinds
of play with aesthetic ideas, or even with representations of 20
the understanding, by which, all said and done, nothing is
thought. By mere force of change they yet are able to afford
lively gratification. This furnishes pretty clear evidence that
the quickening effect of both is physical, despite its being
excited by ideas of the mind, and that the feeling of health,
arising from a movement of the intestines answering to that
play, makes up that entire gratification of an animated gather-
ing upon the spirit and refinement of which we set such store.
Not any estimate of harmony in tones or flashes of wit, which,
with its beauty, serves only as a necessary vehicle, but rather 30
the stimulated vital functions of the body, the affection stirring
the intestines and the diaphragm, and, in a word, the feeling
of health (of which we are only sensible upon some such provoca-
tion) are what constitute the gratification we experience at

iS
re

Book Ll. Analytic of the Sublime 199
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

| being able to reach the body through the soul and use the
latter as the physician of the former.
In music the course of this play is from bodily sensation to
aesthetic ideas (which are the Objects for the affections), and
5 then from these back again, but with gathered strength, to the
body. In jest (which just as much as the former deserves to be
ranked rather as an agreeable than a fine art) the play sets out
from thoughts which collectively, so far as seeking sensuous
expression, engage the activity of the body. In this presenta-
10 tion the understanding, missing what it expected, suddenly lets
go its hold, with the result that the effect of this slackening is
felt in the body by the oscillation of the organs. This favours
the restoration of the equilibrium of the latter, and exerts a
beneficial influence upon the health.
ı5 Something absurd (something in which, therefore, the under-
standing can of itself find no delight) must be present in
whatever is to raise a hearty convulsive laugh. Zaugkter is an
affection arising from a strained expectation being suddenly re-
duced to nothing. This very reduction, at which certainly under-
20 standing cannot rejoice, is still indirectly a source of very lively
enjoyment for a moment. Its cause must consequently lie 333
in the influence of the representation upon the body, and the
reciprocal effect of this upon the mind. This, moreover, cannot
depend upon the representation being objectively an object of
25 gratification, (for how can we derive gratification from a dis-
appointment?) but must rest solely upon the fact that the
reduction is a mere play of representations, and, as such, pro-
duces an equilibrium of the vital forces of the body.
Suppose that some one tells the following story: An Indian
3o at an Englishman’s table in Surat saw a bottle of ale opened,
and all the beer turned into froth and flowing out. The repeated
exclamations of the Indian showed his great astonishment.
‘Well, what is so wonderful in that?’ asked the Englishman.
‘Oh, I’m not surprised myself,’ said the Indian, ‘at its getting

200 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

out, but at how you ever managed to get it all in.’ At this we
laugh, and it gives us hearty pleasure. This is not because we
think ourselves, maybe, more quick-witted than this ignorant
Indian, or because our understanding here brings to our notice
any other ground of delight. It is rather that the bubble of
our expectation was extended to the full and suddenly went
off into nothing. Or, again, take the case of the heir of a
wealthy relative being minded to make preparations for having
the funeral obsequies on a most imposing scale, but complaining
that things would not go right for him, because (as he said) 10
‘the more money I give my mourners to look sad, the more
pleased they look’. At this we laugh outright, and the reason
lies in the fact that we had an expectation which is suddenly
reduced to nothing. We must be careful to observe that the
reduction is not one into the positive contrary of an expected 15
object—for that is always something, and may frequently pain
us—but must be a reduction to nothing. For where a person
arouses great expectation by recounting some tale, and at the
close its untruth becomes at once apparent to us, we are
displeased at it. So it is, for instance, with the tale of people 20
whose hair from excess of grief is said to have turned white in
a single night. On the other hand, if a wag, wishing to cap the
story, tells with the utmost circumstantiality of a merchant’s
grief, who, on his return journey from India to Europe with all
his wealth in merchandise, was obliged by stress of storm to 25
throw everything overboard, and grieved to such an extent that
in the selfsame night his zzg turned grey, we laugh and enjoy
the tale. This is because we keep for a time playing on our
own mistake about an object otherwise indifferent to us, or
rather on the idea we ourselves were following out, and, beating 30
it to and fro, just as if it were a ball eluding our grasp, when
all we intend to do is just to get it into our hands and hold it
334 tight. Here our gratification is not excited by a knave or a
fool getting a rebuff: for, even on its own account, the latter

or

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 201
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

tale told with an air of seriousness would of itself be enough to
set a whole table into roars of laughter ; and the other matter
would ordinarily not be worth a moment’s thought.

It is observable that in all such cases the joke must have

5 something in it capable of momentarily deceiving us. Hence,
when the semblance vanishes into nothing, the mind looks back
in order to try it over again, and thus by a rapidly succeeding
tension and relaxation it is jerked to and fro and put in oscilla-
tion. As the snapping of what was, as it were, tightening up

to the string takes place suddenly (not by a gradual loosening),
the oscillation must bring about a mental movement and a
sympathetic internal movement of the body. This con-
tinues involuntarily and produces fatigue, but in so doing
it also affords recreation (the effects of a motion conducive

15 to health).

For supposing we assume that some movement in the bodily
organs is associated sympathetically with all our thoughts, it is
readily intelligible how the sudden act above referred to, of
shifting the mind now to one standpoint and now to the other,

20 to enable it to contemplate its object, may involve a correspond-
ing and reciprocal straining and slackening of the elastic parts
of our intestines, which communicates itself to the diaphragm
(and resembles that felt by ticklish people), in the course of
which the lungs expel the air with rapidly succeeding interrup-

25 tions, resulting in a movement conducive to health. This alone,
and not what goes on in the mind, is the proper cause of the
gratification in a thought that at bottom represents nothing.—
Voltaire said that heaven has given us two things to compensate
us for the many miseries of life, Zofe and s/eep. He might have

30 added daughter to the list—if only the means of exciting it in
men of intelligence were as ready to hand, and the wit or
originality of humour which it requires were not just as rare as
the talent is common for inventing stuff ¢hat splits the head, as
mystic speculators do, or that breaks your neck, as the genius

335

202 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

does, or that arrows the heart as sentimental novelists do (aye,
and moralists of the same type).

We may, therefore, as I conceive, make Epicurus a present
of the point that all gratification, even when occasioned by
concepts that evoke aesthetic ideas, is animal, i.e. bodily 5
sensation. For from this admission the spiritual feeling of
respect for moral ideas, which is not one of gratification, but
a self-esteem, (an esteem for humanity within us,) that raises us
above the need of gratification, suffers not a whit—no nor even
the less noble feeling of zaste. 10

In zaivetö we meet with a joint product of both the above.
Naiveté is the breaking forth of the ingenuousness originally
natural to humanity, in opposition to the art of disguising one-
self that has become a second nature. We laugh at the
simplicity that is as yet a stranger to dissimulation, but we 15
rejoice the while over the simplicity of nature that thwarts that
art. Weawait the commonplace manner of artificial utterance,
thoughtfully addressed to a fair show, and lo! nature stands
before us in unsullied innocence—nature that we were quite
unprepared to meet, and that he who laid it bare had also no 20
intention of revealing. That the outward appearance, fair but
false, that usually assumes such importance ‘in our judgement,
is here, at a stroke, turned to a nullity, that, as it were, the
rogue in us is nakedly exposed, calls forth the movement
of the mind, in two successive and opposite directions, agitating 25
the body at the same time with wholesome motion. But that
something infinitely better than any accepted code of manners,
namely purity of mind, (or at least a vestige of such purity,) has
not become wholly extinct in human nature, infuses seriousness
and reverence into this play of judgement. But since it is 30
only a manifestation that obtrudes itself for a moment, and the
veil of a dissembling art is soon drawn over it again, there enters
into the above feelings a touch of pity. This is an emotion of
tenderness, playful in its way, that thus readily admits of com-

Book II. Analytic of the Sublime 203
Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements

bination with this sort of genial laughter. And, in fact, this
emotion is as a rule associated with it, and, at the same time, is
wont to make amends to the person who provides such food
for our merriment for his embarrassment at not being wise

5 after the manner of men.—For that reason an art of being
naif is a contradiction. But it is quite possible to give a
representation of waiveté in a fictitious personage, and, rare as
the art is, itis a fine art. With this za?ve/é we must not confuse
homely simplicity, which only avoids spoiling nature by artifici-

10 ality, because it has no notion of the conventions of good
society.

The Aumorous manner may also be ranked as a thing which
in its enlivening influence is clearly allied to the gratification
provoked by laughter. It belongs to originality of mind (des 336

15 Geistes), though not to the talent for fine art. Amour, in
a good sense, means the talent for being able to put oneself at
will into a certain frame of mind in which everything is estimated
on lines that go quite off the beaten track, (a topsy-turvy view
of things,) and yet on lines that follow certain principles,

20 rational in the case of such a mental temperament. A person
with whom such variations are not a matter of choice is said zo
have humours ; but if a person can assume them voluntarily, and
of set purpose (on behalf of a lively presentation drawn from
a ludicrous contrast), he and his way of speaking are termed

25 humorous. ‘This manner belongs, however, to agreeable rather
than to fine art, because the object of the latter must always
have an evident intrinsic worth about it, and thus demands
a certain seriousness in its presentation, as taste does in
estimating it.

337

204 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

CRITIQUE OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

SECOND SECTION
DIALECTIC OF AESTHETIC JUDGEMENT

$ 55

For a power of judgement to be dialectical it must first of all 5
be rationalizing ; that is to say, its judgements must lay claim
to universality,’ and do so a priori, for it is in the antithesis of
such judgements that dialectic consists. Hence there is no-

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each person appeals merely to his own private taste, even the
conflict of judgements of taste does not form a dialectic of taste
—for no one is proposing to make his own judgement into a
universal rule. Hence the only concept left to us of a dialectic
affecting taste is one of a dialectic of the Critigue of taste
(not of taste itself) in respect of its principles: for, on the
question of the ground of the possibility of judgements of taste
in general, mutually conflicting concepts naturally and unavoid-
ably make their appearance. The transcendental Critique of
taste will, therefore, only include a part capable of bearing the
name of a dialectic of the aesthetic judgement if we find an
antinomy of the principles of this faculty which throws doubt
upon its conformity to law, and hence also upon its inner
possibility.

-

iS)

1 Any judgement which sets up to be universal may be termed 2
a rationalizing judgement (¢udicium ratiocinans) ; for so far as universal
it may serve as the major premiss of a syllogism. On the other hand,
only a judgement which is thought as the conclusion of a syllogism,
and, therefore, as having an a priori foundation, can be called rational
Undicium ratiocinatum). 3

°

5

°

Oo

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 205

$ 58
KRepresentation of the antinomy of taste.

THE first commonplace of taste is contained in the proposi-
tion under cover of which every one devoid of taste thinks to

5 shelter himself from reproach: every one has his own taste.
This is only another way of saying that the determining ground
of this judgement is merely subjective (gratification or pain),
and that the judgement has no right to the necessary agree-
ment of others.

to Its second commonplace, to which even those resort who
concede the right of the judgement of taste to pronounce with
validity for every one, is: there is no disputing about taste. This
amounts to saying that even though the determining ground
of a judgement of taste be objective, it is not reducible to

15 definite concepts, so that in respect of the judgement itself no
decision can be reached by proofs, although it is quite open to
us to contend upon the matter, and to contend with right. For
though contention and dispute have this point in common,
that they aim at bringing judgements into accordance out of

20 and by means of their mutual opposition ; yet they differ in the
latter hoping to effect this from definite concepts, as grounds of
proof, and, consequently, adopting objective concepts as grounds
of the judgement. But where this is considered impracticable,
dispute is regarded as alike out of the question.

25 Between these two commonplaces an intermediate proposition
is readily seen to be missing. It is one which has certainly not
become proverbial, but yet it is at the back of every one’s mind.
It is that there may be contention about taste (although n not a
dispute). This s proposition, however, involves the contrary of

30 the first one. For in a matter in which contention is to be

allowed, there must be a hope of coming-toterms. “Hence one
N ne

must be able to reckon on grounds of judgement that possess

more than an private validity and are thus not merely a

338

206 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

And yet the above principle, every one has his own taste, is
directly opposed to this. ; ;

The principle of taste, therefore, exhibits the following anti-
nomy :

1. Thesis. The judgement of taste is not based upon 5
concepts ; for, if it were, it would be open to dispute (decision
by means of proofs).

2. Antithesis. The judgement of taste is based on concepts ;
for otherwise, despite diversity of judgement, there could be no

33g room even for contention in the matter (a claim to the necessary
agreement of others with this judgement).

-

fe)

§ 57
Solution of the antinomy of taste.

THERE is no possibility of removing the conflict of the above
principles, which underlie every judgement of taste (and which 1g
are only the two peculiarities of the judgement of taste
previously set out in the Analytic) except by showing that the
concept to which the Object is made to refer in a judgement of
this kind is not taken in the same sense in both maxims of the
aesthetic judgement ; that this double sense, or point of view, ao
in our estimate, is necessary for our power of transcendental
judgement ; and that nevertheless the false appearance arising
from the confusion of one with the other is a natural illusion,
and so unavoidable.

The judgement of taste must have reference to some concept 25
or other, as otherwise it would be absolutely impossible for it to
lay claim to necessary validity for every one. Yet it need not
on that account be provable from a concept. For a concept
may be either determinable, or else at once intrinsically
undetermined and indeterminable. A concept of the under- 30
standing, which is determinable by means of predicates borrowed

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 207

from sensible intuition and capable of corresponding to it, is of

the first kind. But of the second kind is the transcendental

rational concept of the supersensible, which lies at the basis of

all that sensible intuition and is, therefore, incapable of being
5 further determined theoretically.

Now the judgement of taste applies to objects of sense, but
not so as to determine a concept of them for the understanding ;
for it is not a cognitive judgement. Hence it is a singular
representation of intuition referable to the feeling of pleasure,

10 and, as such, only a private judgement. And to that extent it
would be limited in its validity to the individual judging: the
object is for me an object of delight, for others it may be
otherwise ;—every one to his taste.

For all that, the judgement of taste contains beyond doubt

15 an enlarged reference on the part of the representation of the
Object (and at the same time on the part of the Subject also),
which lays the foundation of an extension of judgements of
this kind to necessity for every one. This must of necessity be
founded upon some concept or other, but such a concept as 340

20 does not admit of being determined by intuition, and affords no
knowledge of anything. Hence, too, it is a concept which does
not afford any proof of the judgement of taste. But the mere
pure rational concept of the supersensible lying at the basis
of the object (and of the judging Subject for that matter)

25 as Object of sense, and thus as phenomenon, is just such a
concept. For unless such a point of view were adopted there
would be no means of saving the claim of the judgement of
taste to universal validity. And if the concept forming the
required basis were a concept of understanding, though a mere

30 confused one, as, let us say, of perfection, answering to which
the sensible intuition of the beautiful might be adduced, then
it would be at least intrinsically possible to found the judgement
of taste upon proofs, which contradicts the thesis.

All contradiction disappears, however, if I say: The judgement

35 of taste does depend upon a concept (of a general ground of the

341

208 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

subjective finality of nature for the power of judgement), but
one from which nothing can be cognized in respect ofthe Object,
and nothing proved, because it is in itself indeterminable and
useless for knowledge. Yet by means of this very concept it
acquires at the same time validity for every one (but with each 5
individual, no doubt, as a singular judgement immediately
accompanying his intuition): because its determining ground
lies, perhaps, in the concept of what may be regarded as the
supersensible substrate of humanity.

The solution of an antinomy turns solely on the possibility 10
of two apparently conflicting propositions not being in fact
contradictory, but rather being capable of consisting together,
although the explanation of the possibility of their concept
transcends our faculties of cognition. That this illusion is
also natural and for human reason unavoidable, as well as 15
why it is so, and remains so, although upon the solution of the
apparent contradiction it no longer misleads us, may be made
intelligible from the above considerations.

For the concept, which the universal validity of a judgement -
must have for its basis, is taken in the same sense in both the 20
conflicting judgements, yet two opposite predicates are asserted
of it. The thesis should therefore read: The judgement of
taste is not based on determinate concepts ; but the antithesis :
The judgement of taste does rest upon a concept, although an
indeterminate one, (that, namely, of the supersensible substrate 25
of phenomena); and then there would be no conflict between
them.

Beyond removing this conflict between the claims and
counter-claims of taste we can do nothing. To supply a deter-
minate objective principle of taste in accordance with which its 30
judgements might be derived, tested, and proved, is an absolute
impossibility, for then it would not be a judgement of taste.
The subjective principle—that is to say, the indeterminate idea
of the supersensible within us—can only be indicated as the

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 209

unique key to the riddle of this faculty, itself concealed from
us in its sources ; and there is no means of making it any more
intelligible.
The antinomy here exhibited and resolved rests upon the
5 proper concept of taste as a merely reflective aesthetic judgement,
and the two seemingly conflicting principles are reconciled on
the ground that ¢hey may both be true, and this is sufficient. If,
on the other hand, owing to the fact that the represen-
tation lying at the basis of the judgement of taste is singular,
10 the determining ground of taste is taken, as by some it is, to
be agreeableness, or, as others, looking to its universal validity,
would have it, the principle of perfection, and if the definition
of taste is framed accordingly, the result is an antinomy which
is absolutely irresolvable unless we show ‘he falsity of both
15 propositions as contraries (not as simple contradictories). This
would force the conclusion that the concept upon which each
is founded is self-contradictory. Thus it is evident that the
removal of the antinomy of the aesthetic judgement pursues a
course similar to that followed by the Critique in the solution
20 of the antinomies of pure theoretical reason; and that the
antinomies, both here and in the Critique of Practical Reason,
compel us, whether we like it or not, to look beyond the horizon
of the sensible, and to seek in the supersensible the point of
union of all our faculties a Zriori: for we are left with no other
25 expedient to bring reason into harmony with itself.

Remark 1.

We find such frequent occasion in transcendental philosophy
for distinguishing ideas from concepts of the understanding
that it may be of use to introduce technical terms answering to

30 the distinction between them. I think that no objection will
be raised to my proposing some.—Ideas, in the most compre-
hensive sense of the word, are representations referred to an

1193 P

342

210 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

object according to a certain principle (subjective or objective),
in so far as they can still never become a cognition of it. They
are either referred to an intuition, in accordance with a merely
subjective principle of the harmony of the cognitive faculties
(imagination and understanding), and are then called aesthetic ; 5
or else they are referred to a concept according to an objective
principle and yet are incapable of ever furnishing a cognition
of the object, and are called ational ideas. In the latter case
the concept is a ¢vanscendent concept, and, as such, differs from
a concept of understanding, for which an adequately answering ro
experience may always be supplied, and which, on that account,
is called zmmanent.

An aesthetic idea cannot become a cognition, because it is an
intuition (of the imagination) for which an adequate concept can
never be found. A rarional idea can never become a cognition, 15
because it involves a concept (of the supersensible), for which a
commensurate intuition can never be given.

Now the aesthetic idea might, I think, be called an cnexpon-
ible representation of the imagination, the rational idea, on the
other hand, an indemonstrable concept of reason. The pro- 20
duction of both is presupposed to be not altogether groundless,
but rather, (following the above explanation of an idea in
general,) to take place in obedience to certain principles of
the cognitive faculties to which they belong (subjective prin-
ciples in the case of the former and objective in that of the a5
latter).

Concepts of the understanding must, as such, always be
demonstrable (if, as in anatomy, demonstration is understood in
the sense merely of presentation). In other words, the object
answering to such concepts must always be capable of being 30
given in intuition (pure or empirical) ; for only in this way can
they become cognitions, The concept of magnitude may be
given a Priori in the intuition of space, e.g. of a right line,
&c.; the concept of cause in impenetrability, in the impact of

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 211

bodies, &c. Consequently both may be verified by means of an
empirical intuition, ie. the thought of them may be indicated
(demonstrated, exhibited) in an example ; and this it must be 343
possible to do: for otherwise there would be no certainty of

5 the thought not being empty, i.e. having no object.

In logic the expressions demonstrable or indemonstrable are
ordinarily employed only in respect of propositions. A better
designation would be to call the former, propositions only
mediately, and the latter, propositions zmumediately, certain. For

ıo pure philosophy, too, has propositions of both these kinds—
meaning thereby true propositions which are in the one case
capable, and in the other incapable, of proof. But, in its char-
acter of philosophy, while it can, no doubt, prove on a priori
grounds, it cannot demonstrate—unless we wish to give the
15 complete go-by to the meaning of the word which makes
demonstrate (ostendere, exhibere) equivalent to giving an accom-
panying presentation of the concept in intuition (be it in a
proof or in a definition). \Vhere the intuition is a priori
this is called its construction, but when even the intuition is
30 empirical, we have still got the illustration of the object, by
which means objective reality is assured to the concept. Thus
an anatomist is said to demonstrate the human eye when he
renders the concept, of which he has previously given a discur-
sive exposition, intuitable by means of the dissection of that
25 organ.

It follows from the above that the rational concept of the
supersensible substrate of all phenomena generally, or even of
that which must be laid at the basis of our elective will in re-
spect of moral laws, i.e. the rational concept of transcendental

30 freedom, is at once specifically an indemonstrable concept, and
a rational idea, whereas virtue is so ina measure. For nothing
can be given which in itself qualitatively answers in experience
to the rational concept of the former, while in the case of virtue
no empirical product of the above causality attains the degree

35 that the rational idea prescribes as the rule.

P 2

212 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

Just as the imagination, in the case of a rational idea, fails
with its intuitions to attain to the given concept, so under-
standing, in the case of an aesthetic idea, fails with its concepts
ever to attain to the completeness of the internal intuition which
imagination conjoins with a given representation. Now since 5
the reduction of a representation of the imagination to concepts
is equivalent to giving its exponents, the aesthetic idea may be
called an inexponible representation of the imagination (in its
free play). I shall have an opportunity hereafter of dealing
more fully with ideas of this kind. At present I confine myself 10

344 to the remark, that both kinds of ideas, aesthetic ideas as well
as rational, are bound to have their principles, and that the seat
of these principles must in both cases be reason—the latter
depending upon the objective, the former upon the subjective,
principles of its employment. 15

Consonantly with this, GENIUS may also be defined as the
faculty of aesthetic ideas. This serves at the same time to point
out the reason why it is nature (the nature of the individual)
and not a set purpose,’ that in products of genius gives the rule
to art (as the production of the beautiful). For the beautiful 2°
must not be estimated according to concepts, but by the final
mode in which the imagination is attuned so as to accord with
the faculty of concepts generally ; and so rule and precept are
incapable of serving as the requisite subjective standard for that
aesthetic and unconditioned finality in fine art which has to make 25
a warranted claim to being bound to please every one. Rather
must such a standard be sought in the element of mere nature
in the Subject, which cannot be comprehended under rules or
concepts, that is to say, the supersensible substrate of all the
Subject’s faculties (unattainable by any concept of understand- 30
ing), and consequently in that which forms the point of reference
for the harmonious accord of all our faculties of cognition—the
production of which accord is the ultimate end set by the
intelligible basis of our nature. Thus alone is it possible for a

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 213

subjective and yet universally valid principle a friori to lie at
the basis of that finality for which no objective principle can be
prescribed.

Remark 2.

5 The following important observation here naturally presents
itself: There are three kinds of antinomies of pure reason,
which, however, all agree in forcing reason to abandon the
otherwise very natural assumption which takes the objects of
sense for things-in-themselves, and to regard them, instead,

ro merely as phenomena, and to lay at their basis an intelligible
substrate (something supersensible, the concept of which is
only an idea and affords no proper knowledge). Apart from
some such antinomy reason could never bring itself to take
such a step as to adopt a principle so severely restricting the

15 field of its speculation, and to submit to sacrifices involving the
complete dissipation of so many otherwise brilliant hopes.
For even now that it is recompensed for this loss by the
prospect of a proportionately wider scope of action from a
practical point of view, it is not without a pang of regret that 345

20 it appears to part company with those hopes, and to break
away from the old ties.

The reason for there being three kinds of antinomies is to
be found in the fact that there are three faculties of cognition,
understanding, judgement, and reason, each of which, being

ag a higher faculty of cognition, must have its @ priord principles.
For, so far as reason passes judgement upon these principles
themselves and their employment, it inexorably requires the
unconditioned for the given conditioned in respect of them all.
This can never be found unless the sensible, instead of being

30 regarded as inherently appurtenant to things-in-themselves, is
treated as a mere phenomenon, and, as such, being made to rest
upon something supersensible (the intelligible substrate of ex-
ternal and internal nature) as the thing-in-itself. There is then

214 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

(1) for the cognitive faculty an antinomy of reason in respect of
the theoretical employment of understanding carried to the
point of the unconditioned ; (2) for the feeling of pleasure and
displeasure an antinomy of reason in respect of the aesthetic
employment of judgement; (3) for the faculty of desire an 5
antinomy in respect of the practical employment of self-
legislative reason. For all these faculties have their funda-
mental a friori principles, and, following an imperative demand
of reason, must be able to judge and to determine their Object
unconditionally in accordance with these principles. To
As to two of the antinomies of these higher cognitive
faculties, those, namely, of their theoretical and of their
practical employment, we have already shown elsewhere both
that they are zwevitable, if no cognisance is taken in such
judgements of a supersensible substrate of the given Objects as 15
phenomena, and, on the other hand, that they can be solved
the moment this is done. Now, as to the antinomy incident
to the employment of judgement in conformity with the
demand of reason, and the solution of it here given, we may
say that to avoid facing it there are but the following alterna- 20
tives. It is open to us to deny that any a Zrior7 principle lies
at the basis of the aesthetic judgement of taste, with the result
that all claim to the necessity of a universal consensus of
opinion is an idle and empty delusion, and that a judgement
of taste only deserves to be considered to this extent correct, 25
that z¢ so happens that a number share the same opinion, and
even this, not, in truth, because an @ Zriori principle is
presumed to lie at the back of this agreement, but rather (as
with the taste of the palate) because of the contingently
346 resembling organization of the individuals. Or else, in the 30
alternative, we should have to suppose that the judgement of
taste is in fact a glisguised judgement of reason on the perfec-
tion discovered in a thing and the reference of the manifold
in it to an end, and that it is consequently only called

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 215

aesthetic on account of the confusion that here besets our
reflection, although fundamentally it is teleological. In this
latter case the solution of the antinomy with the assistance of
transcendental ideas might be declared otiose and nugatory,

5 and the above laws of taste thus reconciled with the Objects
of sense, not as mere phenomena, but even as things-in-
themselves. How unsatisfactory both of those alternatives
alike are as a means of escape has been shown in several
places in our exposition of judgements of taste.

10 If, however, our deduction is at least credited with having
been worked out on correct lines, even though it may not have
been sufficiently clear in all its details, three ideas then stand
out in evidence. Zärszly, there is the supersensible in general,
without further determination, as substrate of nature ; secondly,

15 this same supersensible as principle of the subjective finality of
nature for our cognitive faculties; Z/Airdly, the same super-
sensible again, as principle of the ends of freedom, and
principle of the common accord of these ends with freedom in
the moral sphere.

rn $ 58

The idealism of the finality alike of nature and of art, as the
unique principle of the aesthetic judgement.

Tue principle of taste may, to begin with, be placed on either

of two footings. For taste may be said invariably to judge on
25 empirical grounds of determination and such, therefore, as are
only given a fosteriori through sense, or else it may be allowed
to judge on an a priori ground. The former would be the
empiricism of the Critique of Taste, the latter its ra/onalism.
The first would obliterate the distinction that marks off the
30 object of our delight from the agreeable; the second, suppos-
ing the judgement rested upon determinate concepts, would
obliterate its distinction from the good. In this way beauty

216 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

would have its Zocus stand in the world completely denied,
and nothing but the dignity of a separate name, betokening,
maybe, a certain blend of both the above-named kinds of
347 delight, would be left in its stead. But we have shown the
existence of grounds of delight which are a priori, and which, 5
therefore, can consist with the principle of rationalism, and
which are yet incapable of being grasped by definite concepts.

As against the above we may say that the rationalism of the
principle of taste may take the form either of the realism of
finality or of its idealism. Now, as a judgement of taste is not 10
a cognitive judgement, and as beauty is not a property of the
object considered on its own account, the rationalism of the
principle of taste can never be placed in the fact that the
finality in this judgement is regarded in thought as objective.
In other words, the judgement is not directed theoretically, nor, 1;
therefore, logically, either, (no matter if only in a confused
estimate,) to the perfection of the object, but only aesthetically
to the harmonizing of its representation in the imagination
with the essential principles of judgement generally in the
Subject. For this reason the judgement of taste, and the 20
distinction between its realism and its idealism, can only, even
on the principle of rationalism, depend upon its subjective
finality interpreted in one or other of two ways. Either such
subjective finality is, in the first case, a harmony with our
judgement pursued as an actual (intentional) evd of nature 2;
(or of art), or else, in the second case, it is only a supervening
final harmony with the needs of our faculty of judgement in its
relation to nature and the forms which nature produces in
accordance with particular laws, and one that is independent
of an end, spontaneous and contingent.

The beautiful forms displayed in the organic world all plead
eloquently on the side of the realism of the aesthetic finality of
nature in support of the plausible assumption that beneath the
production of the beautiful there must lie a preconceived idea

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 217

in the producing cause—that is to say an end acting in the
interest of our imagination. Flowers, blossoms, even the
shapes of plants as a whole, the elegance of animal formations
of all kinds, unnecessary for the discharge of any function on
s their part, but chosen as it were with an eye to our taste; and,
beyond all else, the variety and harmony in the array of colours
(in the pheasant, in crustacea, in insects, down even to the
meanest flowers), so pleasing and charming to the eyes, but
which, inasmuch as they touch the bare surface, and do not
ro even here in any way affect the structure, of these creatures—
a matter which might have a necessary bearing on their internal
ends—seem to be planned entirely with a view to outward
appearance: all these lend great weight to the mode of ex- 348
planation which assumes actual ends of nature in favour of
15 our aesthetic judgement.

On the other hand, not alone does reason, with its maxims
enjoining upon us in all cases to avoid, as far as possible, any
unnecessary multiplication of principles, set itself against this
assumption, but we have nature in its free formations display-

20 ing on all sides extensive mechanical proclivity to producing
forms seemingly made, as it were, for the aesthetic employment
of our judgement, without affording the least support to the
supposition of a’‘need for anything over and above its mechan-
ism, aS mere nature, to enable them to be final for our

as judgement apart from their being grounded upon any idea.
The above expression, ‘ free formations’ of nature, is, however,
here used to denote such as are originally set up ina fluid at
rest where the volatilization or separation of some constituent
(sometimes merely of caloric) leaves the residue on solidifica-

30 tion to assume a definite shape or structure (figure or texture)
which differs with specific differences of the matter, but for the
same matter is invariable. Here, however, it is taken for
granted that, as the true meaning of a fluid requires, the
matter in the fluid is completely dissolved and not a mere

35 admixture of solid particles simply held there in suspension.

349

218 Critique of Judgement
Part I, Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

The formation, then, takes place by a concursion, i.e. by a
sudden solidification—not by a gradual transition from the
fluid to the solid state, but, as it were, by a leap. This
transition is termed crystallization. Freezing water offers
the most familiar instance of a formation of this kind. There 5
the process begins by straight threads of ice forming. These
unite at angles of 60°, whilst others similarly attach themselves
to them at every point until the whole has turned into ice.
But while this is going on the water between the threads of ice
does not keep getting gradually more viscous, but remains as 1
thoroughly fluid as it would be at a much higher temperature,
although it is perfectly ice-cold. The matter that frees itself—
that makes its sudden escape at the moment of solidification—
is a considerable quantum of caloric. As this was merely
required to preserve fluidity, its disappearance leaves the exist- 1
ing ice not a whit colder than the water which but a moment
before was there as fluid.

There are many salts and also stones of a crystalline figure
which owe their origin in like manner to some earthy substance
being dissolved in water under the influence of agencies little
understood. The drusy configurations of many minerals, of
the cubical sulphide of lead, of the red silver ore, &c., are
presumably also similarly formed in water, and by the con-
cursion of their particles, on their being forced by some cause
or other to relinquish this vehicle and to unite among them- 2
selves in definite external shapes.

But, further, all substances rendered fluid by heat, which
have become solid as the result of cooling, give, when broken,
internal evidences of a definite texture, thus suggesting the
inference that only for the interference of their own weight or 3
the disturbance of the air, the exterior would also have exhibited
their proper specific shape. This has been observed in the
case of some metals where the exterior of a molten mass has
hardened, but the interior remained fluid, and then, owing to

oO

te)

Dialectic of Aesthetic. Judgement 219

the withdrawal of the still fluid portion in the interior, there
has been an undisturbed concursion of the remaining
parts on the inside. A number of such mineral crystalliza-
tions, such as spars, hematite, aragonite, frequently present
5 extremely beautiful shapes such as it might take art all its
time to devise; and the halo in the grotto of Antiparos
is merely the work of water percolating through strata of
gypsum.
The fluid state is, to all appearance, on the whole older than
10 the solid, and plants as well as animal bodies are built up out
of fluid nutritive substance, so far as this takes form undis-
turbed—in the case of the latter, admittedly, in obedience,
primarily, to a certain original bent of nature directed to ends
(which, as will be shown in Part II, must not be judged
15 aesthetically, but teleologically by the principle of realism) ;
but still all the while, perhaps, also following the universal law
of the affinity of substances in the way they shoot together and
form in freedom. In the same way, again, where an atmo-
sphere, which is a composite of different kinds of gas, is
20 charged with watery fluids, and these separate from it owing to
a reduction of the temperature, they produce snow-figures of
shapes differing with the actual composition of the atmosphere.
These are frequently of very artistic appearance and of
extreme beauty. So without at all derogating from the teleo-
25 logical principle by which an organization is judged, it is readily
conceivable how with beauty of flowers, of the plumage of
birds, of crustacea, both as to their shape and their colour, we
have only what may be ascribed to nature and its capacity for
originating in free activity aesthetically final forms, indepen-
30 dently of any particular guiding ends, according to chemical
laws, by means of the chemical integration of the substance
requisite for the organization. 350
But what shows plainly that the principle of the ideality of
the finality in the beauty of nature is the one upon which we
3s ourselves invariably take our stand in our aesthetic judgements,

220 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

forbidding us to have recourse to any realism of a natural end
in favour of our faculty of representation as a principle of
explanation, is that in our general estimate of beauty we seek
its standard @ priori in ourselves, and, that the aesthetic faculty

is itself legislative in respect of the judgement whether anything 5
is beautiful or not. This could not be so on the assumption
of a realism of the finality of nature; because in that case we
should have to go to nature for instruction as to what we should
deem beautiful, and the judgement of taste would be subject to
empirical principles. For in such an estimate the question 10
does not turn on what nature is, or even on what it is for us in
the way of an end, but on how we receive it. For nature to
have fashioned its forms for our delight would inevitably imply
an objective finality on the part of nature, instead of a subjec-
tive finality resting on the play of imagination in its freedom, 15
where it is we who receive nature with favour, and not nature that
does us a favour. That nature affords us an opportunity for
perceiving the inner finality in the relation of our mental powers
engaged in the estimate of certain of its products, and, indeed,
such a finality as arising from a supersensible basis is to be 20
pronounced necessary and of universal validity, is a property
of nature which cannot belong to it as its end, or rather,
cannot be estimated by us to be such an end. For otherwise
the judgement that would be determined by reference to such
an end would found upon heteronomy, instead of founding 25
upon autonomy and being free, as befits a judgement of
taste.

The principle of the idealism of finality is still more clearly
apparent in fine art. For the point that sensations do not
enable us to adopt an aesthetic realism of finality (which would 3°
make art merely agreeable instead of beautiful) is one which it
enjoys in common with beautiful nature. But the further point
that the delight arising from aesthetic ideas must not be made
dependent upon the successful attainment of determinate ends

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 221

(as an art mechanically directed to results), and that, conse-
quently, even in the case of the rationalism of the principle, an
ideality of the ends and not their reality is fundamental,
is brought home to us by the fact that fine art, as such, must
5 not be regarded as a product of understanding and science,
but of genius, and must, therefore, derive its rule from aesthetic
ideas, which are essentially different from rational ideas of
determinate ends.
Just as the zdeality of objects of sense as phenomena is the
10 only way of explaining the possibility of their forms admitting
of a prior? determination, so, also, the idealism of the finality
in estimating the beautiful in nature and in art is the only
hypothesis upon which a Critique can explain the possibility of
a judgement of taste that demands a Zriori validity for
15 every one (yet without basing the finality represented in the
Object upon concepts).

$ 59
Beauty as the symbol of morality.

INTUITIONS are always required to verify the reality of our
20 concepts. If the concepts are empirical the intuitions are
called examples : if they are pure concepts of the understanding
the intuitions go by the name of schemata. But to call fora
verification of the objective reality of rational concepts, i.e. of
ideas, and, what is more, on behalf of the theoretical cognition
25 of such a reality, is to demand an impossibility, because
absolutely no intuition adequate to them can be given.

All Aypotyposis (presentation, sudbjectio sub adspectum) as a
rendering in terms of sense, is twofold. Either it is schematic,
as where the intuition corresponding to a concept comprehended

30 by the understanding is given a friozi, or else it is symbolic, as
where the concept is one which only reason can think, and to
which no sensible intuition can be adequate. In the latter case
the concept is supplied with an intuition such that the pro-

352

222 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

cedure of judgement in dealing with it is merely analogous to
that which it observes in schematism. In other words, what
agrees with the concept is merely the rule of this procedure, and
not the intuition itself. Hence the agreement is merely in the
form of reflection, and not in the content. 5

Notwithstanding the adoption of the word symdolic by modern
logicians in a sense opposed to an intuitive mode of represen-
tation, it is a wrong use of the word and subversive of its true
meaning; for the symbolic is only a mode of the intuitive.
The intuitive mode of representation is, in fact, divisible into 10
the schematic and the symbolic. Both are hypotyposes, i.e.
presentations (exhibitiones), not mere marks. Marks are merely
designations of concepts by the aid of accompanying sensible
signs devoid of any intrinsic connexion with the intuition of the
Object. Their sole function is to afford a means of reinvoking 15
the concepts according to the imagination’s law of association—

a purely subjective röle. Such marks are either words or visible
(algebraic or even mimetic) signs, simply as expressions for
concepts.!

All intuitions by which a Zriors concepts are given a foothold 20
are, therefore, either schemata or symbols. Schemata contain
direct, symbols indirect, presentations of the concept. Schemata
effect this presentation demonstratively, symbols by the aid of
an analogy (for which recourse is had even to empirical
intuitions), in which analogy judgement performs a double 25
function : first in applying the concept to the object of a sensible
intuition, and then, secondly, in applying the mere rule of its
reflection upon that intuition to quite another object, of which
the former is but the symbol. In this way a monarchical state
is represented as a living body when it is governed by 30

} The intuitive mode of knowledge must be contrasted with the dis-
cursive mode (not with the symbolic). The former is either schematic, by
means of demonstration, or symbolic, as a representation following a mere
analogy.

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 223

constitutional laws, but as a mere machine (like a hand-mill)
when it is governed by an individual absolute will; but in both
cases the representation is merely symdolic. For there is cer-
tainly no likeness between a despotic state and a hand-mill,
3 whereas there surely is between the rules of reflection upon both
and their causality. Hitherto this function has been but little
analysed, worthy as it is of a deeper study. Still this is not the
place to dwell upon it. In language we have many such
indirect presentations modelled upon an analogy enabling the
10 expression in question to contain, not the proper schema for
the concept, but merely a symbol for reflection. Thus the
words ground (support, basis), to depend (to be held up from
above), to ow from (instead of to follow), suöstance (as Locke
puts it: the support of accidents), and numberless others, are
15 not schematic, but rather symbolic hypotyposes, and express
concepts without employing a direct intuition for the purpose,
but only drawing upon an analogy with one, i.e. transferring
the reflection upon an object of intuition to quite a new concept, 353
and one with which perhaps no intuition could ever directly
ao correspond. Supposing the name of knowledge may be given
to what only amounts to a mere mode of representation (which
is quite permissible where this is not a principle of the theoretical
determination of the object in respect of what it is in itself, but
of the practical determination of what the idea of it ought to
a5 be for us and for its final employment), then all our knowledge
of God is merely symbolic; and one who takes it, with the
properties of understanding, will, and so forth, which only
evidence their objective reality in beings of this world, to be
schematic, falls into anthropomorphism, just as, if he abandons
30 every intuitive element, he falls into Deism which furnishes no
knowledge whatsoever—not even from a practical point of
view.
Now, I say, the beautiful is the symbol of the morally good,
and only in this light (a point of view natural to every one,
35 and one which every one exacts from others as a duty) does

224 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

it give us pleasure with an attendant claim to the agreement of
every one else, whereupon the mind becomes conscious of a
certain ennoblement and elevation above mere sensibility to
pleasure from impressions of sense, and also appraises the worth
of others on the score of a like maxim of their judgement. 5
This is that zzZelligible to which taste, as noticed in the
preceding paragraph, extends its view. It is, that is to say,
what brings even our higher cognitive faculties into common
accord, and is that apart from which sheer contradiction would
arise between their nature and the claims put forward by taste. 10
In this faculty judgement does not find itself subjected to
a heteronomy of laws of experience as it does in the empirical
estimate of things—in respect of the objects of such a pure
delight it gives the law to itself, just as reason does in respect of
the faculty of desire. Here, too, both on account of this inner 15
possibility in the Subject, and on account of the external pos-
sibility of a nature harmonizing therewith, it finds a reference
in itself to something in the Subject itself and outside it, and
which is not nature, nor yet freedom, but still is connected with
the ground of the latter, i.e. the supersensible—a something in 20
which the theoretical faculty gets bound up into unity with the
practical in an intimate and obscure manner. We shall bring
out a few points of this analogy, while taking care, at the same
time, not to let the points of difference escape us.
(1) The beautiful pleases immediately (but only in reflective 25
354 intuition, not, like morality, in its concept). (2) It pleases apart
Jrom all interest (pleasure in the morally good is no doubt neces-
sarily bound up with an interest, but not with one of the kind
that are antecedent to the judgement upon the delight, but with
one that judgement itself for the first time calls into existence). 30
(3) Zhe freedom of the imagination (consequently of our faculty
in respect of its sensibility) is, in estimating the beautiful, repre-
sented as in accord with the understanding’s conformity to law
(in moral judgements the freedom of the will is thought as the

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 225

harmony of the latter with itself according to universal laws of
Reason). (4) The subjective principle of the estimate of the
beautiful is represented as wniversad, i.e. valid for every man,
but as incognizable by means of any universal concept (the

3 objective principle of morality is set forth as also universal, i.e.
for all individuals, and, at the same time, for all actions of the
same individual, and, besides, as cognizable by means of a uni-
versal concept). For this reason the moral judgement not alone
admits of definite constitutive principles, but is o7Zy possible by

10 adopting these principles and their universality as the ground of
its maxims.

Even common understanding is wont to pay regard to this
analogy ; and we frequently apply to beautiful objects of nature
or of art names that seem to rely upon the basis ofa moral esti-

1g mate. We call buildings or trees majestic and stately, or plains
laughing and gay; even colours are called innocent, modest,
soft, because they excite sensations containing something
analogous to the consciousness of the state of mind produced
by moral judgements. Taste makes, as it were, the transition

zo from the charm of sense to habitual moral interest possible
without too violent a leap, for it represents the imagination,
even in its freedom, as amenable to a final determination for
understanding, and teaches us to find, even in sensuous objects,
a free delight apart from any charm of sense.

25 $ 60
APPENDIX
The methodology of taste.

THE division of a Critique into Elementology and Method-
ology—a division which is introductory to science—is one
3oinapplicable to the Critique of Taste. For there neither is,
nor can be, a science of the beautiful, and the judgement
of taste is not determinable by principles. For, as to the

1193 Q

355

226 Critique of Judgement
Part I. Critique of Aesthetic Judgement

element of science in every art—a matter which turns upon
truth in the presentation of the Object of the art—while this is,
no doubt, the indispensable condition (conditio sine qua non) of
fine art, it is not itself fine art. Fine art, therefore, has only got
a manner (modus), and not a method of teaching (methodus).
The master must illustrate what the pupil is to achieve, and how
achievement is to be attained, and the proper function of the
universal rules to which he ultimately reduces his treatment is
rather that of supplying a convenient text for recalling its chief
moments to the pupil’s mind, than of prescribing them to him. to
Yet, in all this, due regard must be paid to a certain ideal which
art must keep in view, even though complete success ever eludes
its happiest efforts. Only by exciting the pupil’s imagination
to conformity with a given concept, by pointing out how the
expression falls short of the idea to which, as aesthetic, the con- 15
cept itself fails to attain, and by means of severe criticism, is it
possible to prevent his promptly looking upon the examples set
before him as the prototypes of excellence, and as models for
him to imitate, without submission to any higher standard or to
his own critical judgement. This would result in genius being 20
stifled, and, with it, also the freedom of the imagination in its
very conformity to lav—a freedom without which a fine art is
not possible, nor even as much as a correct taste of one’s own
for estimating it.

The propaedeutic to all fine art, so far as the highest degree
of its perfection is what is in view, appears to lie, not in
precepts, but in the culture of the mental powers produced by
a sound preparatory education in what are called the kumaniora
—so called, presumably, because Axmanity signifies, on the one
hand, the universal feeding of sympathy, and, on the other, the
faculty of being able to communicate universally one’s inmost
self—properties constituting in conjunction the befitting sectal
spirit of mankind, in contradistinction to the narrow life of
the lower animals. There was an age and there were nations

en

Ww
on

>
fo}

Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement 227
Appendix

in which the active impulse towards a social life regulated by
Jaws--what converts a people into a permanent community—
grappled with the huge difficulties presented by the trying
problem of bringing freedom (and therefore equality also) into
5 union with constraining force (more that of respect and dutiful
submission than of fear). And such must have been the age,
and such the nation, that first discovered the art of reciprocal 356
communication of ideas between the more cultured and ruder
sections of the community, and how to bridge the difference be-
to tween the amplitude and refinement of the former and the natural
simplicity and originality of the latter—in this way hitting
upon that mean between higher culture and the modest worth
of nature, that forms for taste also, as a sense common to all
mankind, that true standard which no universal rules can supply.
15 Hardly will a later age dispense with those models. For
nature will ever recede farther into the background, so that
eventually, with no permanent example retained from the past,
a future age would scarce be ina position to form a concept of
the happy union, in one and the same people, of the law-directed
ao constraint belonging to the highest culture, with the force and
truth of a free nature sensible of its proper worth.

However, taste is, in the ultimate analysis, a critical faculty
that judges of the rendering of moral ideas in terms of sense
(through the intervention of a certain analogy in our reflection

25 on both); and it is this rendering also, and the increased
sensibility, founded upon it, for the feeling which these ideas
evoke (termed moral sense), that are the origin of that pleasure
which taste declares valid for mankind in general and not
merely for the private feeling of each individual. This makes

30 it clear that the true propaedeutic for laying the foundations of
taste is the development of moral ideas and the culture of the
moral feeling. For only when sensibility is brought into
harmony with moral feeling can genuine taste assume a
definite unchangeable form.

92

NOTES

PAGE 8, |. 22. ‘clear possession,’ daaven Besitz—as in our
expression : ‘to give up clear possession ’.

1. 27. ‘ideas.’ The reader must be most careful not to confuse
Kant’s use of the word ‘idea’ with the wide sense in which it is
used by Locke. The word is defined at pp. 76, 209. See Critique
of Pure Reason, pp.220-32: ‘I understand by idea a necessary con-
ception of reason, to which no corresponding object can be discovered
in the world of sense.’ (Ibid., p.228; Werke, vol. iii, p. 254.) ‘They
contain a certain perfection, attainable by no possible empirical
cognition ; and they give to reason a systematic unity, to which
the unity of experience attempts to approximate, but can never
completely attain.’ (Ibid., p. 350; Werke, vol. iii, p. 383.)

1. 29. ‘as regulative principles.’ Cf. Crztigue of Pure Reason,
pp. 394-410; Werke, vol. iii, pp. 426-42. Notice the teleological
point of view implied in the words ‘not without their use nor
redundant’.

PAGE 4, 1. 13. zm Allgemeinen so benannte means ‘called in
a general way’ or ‘comprehensively termed’. The Critigue of
Pure Reason, for the reasons mentioned in the preceding paragraph,
covered the whole ground, and dealt with all the rational faculties
in order to try the possible pretensions of each. But, now that
Kant finds that understanding, judgement and reason all have .
constitutive principles, he sees that, if he is to call the present
Critique that of Pure Judgement, it would be more appropriate to
call the Crétigue of Pure Reason the Critique of Pure Under-
standing, as he does at p. 18,1. 1.

1. 14. gegen alle übrige Competenten in sicheren aber eigenen
Besitz gesetzt werden sollte. The original text has sicheren aber
einigen. Windelband reads sicheren alleinigen ; Erdmann sicheren
oder einzigen. While the Critique of Pure Reason gave under-
standing secure possession of its holding, this holding did not
exhaust the field of pure reason (in a general sense), but was
a separate, several, or individual holding proper to itself (eigen).
It was secure but limited. Considering the sense of the whole
passage I prefer to preserve the ader ; and the change of einigen to
eigenen is the slightest possible.

PAGE 5, ll. 24-8. See Kant’s general remarks on Judgement in
the Crztigue of Pure Reason, pp. 104-6; Werke, vol. iii, pp. 131-3.

1. 29. ‘estimates’—Beurtheilungen. I have endeavoured to
preserve the distinction between urzheilen and beurtheilen by

Notes 229

translating the former by ‘to judge’, the latter by ‘ to estimate’.
In the former the point of view is simply logical, but in the latter
there is a reference to critical reflection which implies a standpoint
and introduces distinction into things. Kant gives facu/tas di-
Judicandi as the equivalent of Beurtheilungsvermögen in the
original draft of the Introduction (cf. Hartenstein, vol. vi, p. 382).
Undoubtedly the word ‘estimate’ is, in popular usage, generally
taken to imply the point of view of quantity, and thus a calculation
of amount, but this narrow meaning of the word is useless in
philosophy.

PAGE 7,1. 12. Kant’s health began to fail about this time, and
he was only able to work a few hours in the early part of the day.
See his letter of Sept. 21, 1791, to Reinhold.

PAGE 9, 1. 10. ‘for this is what is said’—zdlich. The first
sentence of the paragraph is a restatement of the view of which
Kant complains ; the last gives his criticism.

l. 34. ‘prudence, as a skill.” Cf. Ethics, p. 33 n.; Werke, vol. vi,
p. 416; also Critigue of Pure Reason, 485; Werke, vol. iii, p. 520.

PaGE 10, 1. 21. ‘the art of social intercourse’—Kumst des Um-
ganges. All that Shaftesbury implies by ‘good breeding’. It
seems to mean here something more than mere good manners or
the knowledge of how to behave in society.

PAGE 12, |. 6. ‘Object.’ I have used a capital throughout to
distinguish Odject from Gegenstand. An object, regarded as merely
presented to the mind, is Gegenstand; whereas an object, regarded
as already something for the mind—a thought-object— is Object.

PAGE 14, ll. 12-24. Cf. p. 34, 1. 22 et seq.; also Cririgue of Pure
Reason, p. 489; Werke, vol. iii, p. 524. Having regard to the anti-
thetical relation of the world of nature and the world of freedom, and
Kant’s reconciliation of freedom and necessity by reference to the two
points of view according to which man may be considered either as
a noumenon or a phenomenon, it would seem that the only difficulty
is to see how freedom can give itself any szeanimg in the world of
nature, i.e. how it can set before itself any end to be realized in
nature. This problem is discussed in the Crzrigue of Practical
Reason under the heading ‘Of the Typic of the Pure Practical
Judgement’. (See EZhzcs, p. 159 et seq.; Werke, vol. v, p. 67.) ‘It
seems absurd to expect to find in the world of sense a case which,
while as such it depends only on the law of nature, yet admits of the
application to it of a law of freedom, and to which we can apply the
supersensible idea of the morally good which is to be exhibited zz
concreto.’ (Ibid., p. 159.) This is Kant’s clear statement of the
difficulty. His solution is that it is ‘allowable to use the system of
the world of sense as the type of a supersensible system of things’.
Hence ‘ The rule of the judgement according to laws of pure prac-
tical reason is this: ask yourself whether, if the action you propose
were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you
were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will.’

230 Notes

(Ibid., p.161.) Now it seems that even to get thus far we must
regard nature as if it were intended as a field for the realization of
a possible free will. Further, underlying all Kant’s attempts to
supply the categorical imperative with a concrete content, le. to
show how it is applied in concrete cases, we find teleological
assumptions. Thus, in the case of not telling lies, why should we
not say ‘Thou shalt not speak at all’ instead of making an excep-
tion in favour of the truth and saying ‘Thou shalt not lie’? The
answer seems to be that, by assigning to the social life of human
beings a positive value, a greater opportunity is afforded for giving
effect to the concept of freedom and of moral action, and that
speech has a value in respect of social life. Here it seems that
a teleological presupposition on the part of judgement performs
services analogous to those which it performs in guiding us in our
search for empirical laws. In the latter case we suppose a finality
of nature for our cognitive faculties in order that a concrete expe-
rience may be possible : in the former we suppose a finality of nature
for our moral faculty in order that concrete morality may be possible.
Further, just as the scientist, bent on discovery, must go to work as
an artist (künstlich, orig. Intro. Erdmann, p. 352 ; cf. Anthrop.,§ 56),
so the moral reformer who sets us an example must be, in a sense, an
artist. (See Ethics, p. 274; Werke, vol. vi, p.218: ‘If the habit of
choice, according to laws of freedom, in contrast to physical laws, is
here also to be called #77, we must understand thereby such an art as
would make a system of freedom like a system of nature possible ;
truly a divine art, were we in a condition to fulfil by means of reason
the precepts of reason, and to carry its ideal into actuality.’ But
more is involved than a mere habit of choice. The ethical idealist
requires a constructive imagination acting under the idea of free-
dom. He must A upon a more adequate expression of this
conception of the moral law. This implies a kind of genius, which,
when diffused, is called conscience.) It is in fact only through art
that we get any definite result (beyond mere feeling) from the bear-
_ ing of the practical upon the theoretical faculty. Art is Kant’s one
and only mediating factor; and he seems hardly justified in
confining its specific function to the case of fine art. Genius is
properly confined to art, but it has some scope in science and
ethics as well as in fize art. However, it is not possible to enter
here into what would have to be a lengthy criticism of Kant’s E¢hics.
Suffice it to say that Kant’s remarks in the passage annotated and
at p. 37 seem inadequate. It is obvious that the required harmony
between the worlds of nature and of freedom is differently conceived
according as we set out from the proposition ‘I must, therefore
I can’, or from the proposition ‘ Nature must be regarded as a field
in which I can give an ever increasing meaning to the idea of
freedom’. The only significant transition that judgement could
effect would be one effected by it as a faculty regulating the
introduction into nature of a system of positive concrete values.

Notes 231.

PAGE 16, 1. 11, (Critique of Practical Reason, Preface, p. 16.)
See Evhics, p. 94; Werke, vol. v, p. 9; and cf. ibid., p. 265;
Werke, vol. v, p. 9. ß

PAGE 19, 1. 6. ‘can only give as a law from and to itself ’—sich
nur selbst als Gesetz geben. This neat rendering is adopted from
Dean Bernard’s translation.

1. 12. “in respect of these conditions ’— in Ansehung dieser ganz
zufälligen. Despite difference of opinion, I think it is quite clear
that dieser refers to Bedingungen and not to Natur or to Gesetze.
Compare pp. 26, 1.3; 27, ll. 1-6; 28, ll. 10, 11; and 31,1. 21.

PAGE 19, 1. 32. “the jnality of its form’—Zweckmdssighett has
been variously rendered by different writers as: ‘purposiveness,’
‘purposefulness,’ ‘adaptation to ends.’ ‘Adaptation to ends,’ at all
events, sounds better than ‘purposiveness’, but it is equally mis-
leading. (For some remarks on Kant’s use of the word see
Bosanquet, Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art,p.148, and McTaggart,
Commentary on Hegel's Logic, p. 260.) Kant gives forma finalis
(p. 61, 1. 11) as its equivalent, and it is difficult to see why the
rendering ‘ finality’ should be so consistently avoided, unless it be
that the word as most commonly used refers to termination in time.
But why should philosophy only recognize the one meaning of the
word that is practically useless in philosophy? Throughout
the present translation the word ‘finality’ is used in its strict
technical sense, and, to avoid ambiguity, the word ‘final’ is never
used to mean ‘ultimate’, but always as in the expression ‘final
cause’.

PAGE 20, 1. 13. ‘The principle of the formal finality of nature is
a transcendental principle of judgement’ With Kant’s whole
systematic treatment of the connexion between the finality of
nature for the cognitive faculties and the estimate of beauty,
compare Shaftesbury, Ze Moralists, Part III, $$ 2, 3, where
beauty is connected with the representation of nature as a cohe-
rent whole, governed by a principle ‘of a universal wzzo7, cohe-
rence, or sympathizing of things’. See also Hutcheson’s /uguiry,
sections 2, 3,5,and 8, ‘ There is another kind of deauty also which is
still pleasing to our senses, and from which we conclude wisdom
is the cause as well as design, and that is, when we see many
useful or beautiful effects flowing from one general cause. There
is a very good reason for this conclusion among men. /nterest
must lead deings of limited powers, who are uncapable of a great
diversity of operations, and distracted by them, to choose this
Jrugal oeconomy of their forces, and to look upon such manage-
ment as an evidence of wisdom in other beings like themselves.
Nor is this speculative reason all which influences them, for
even beside this consideration of iz¢erest, they are determined
by a sense of beauty where that reason does not hold.’ (/uguiry,
sect. 5, subsect. 17.) ‘ How innumerable are the effects of that one
principle of Aeaz, deriv’d to us from the sz, which is not only

232 Notes

delightful to our sight and feeling, and the means of discerning
objects, but is the cause of rains, springs, 77vers, winds, and the
universal cause of vegetation! How incomparably more beautiful
is this structure than if we supposed so many distinct volitions in
the DEITY, producing every particular effect, and preventing some
of the accidental evils which casually flow from the general law!
And yet this latter manner of operation might have been more
useful to us, would have been no distraction to Ommäpofence : but
then the great deaufy had been lost, and there had been no more
pleasure in the contemplation of this scene which is now so
delightful. One would rather chuse to run the hazard of its caszal
evils, than part with that harmonious form which has been the
unexhausted source of delight to the successive spectators in all
ages.” (Inquiry, sect. 5, subsect. 19.) Hutcheson made beauty
dependent on uniformity and variety, and regarded the sense of
beauty as universal and necessary because of the meaning of
harmony anduniformity amid variety for the mind.

PAGE 22, 1. 10. None of Kant’s Deductions surpasses in clearness
the one which here follows. The last paragraph of the next section
forms an interesting commentary upon it, for it shows what may
be admitted without prejudice to the soundness of the Deduction.
This section and the last form a Critique in miniature.

PAGE 24, 1. 10. ‘containing a maybe (allenfalls) endless multi-
plicity of empirical laws.’ This might, perhaps, be translated
‘containing at all events an endless multiplicity’, &c., but the
former rendering seems preferable. Cf. p. 27, ‘with their wealth
of at least possible variety.’

PAGE 26, 1.9. ‘confirmed by this means,’ i.e. observation may give
it a footing in experience, and show that it has a field of application.

PAGE 27,1. 12. An eloquent statement of the central thought in
this section was given by Mr. Balfour in a Presidential Address to
the British Association: ‘ Now, whether the main outlines of the
world-picture. which I have just imperfectly presented to you be
destined to survive, or whether in their turn they are to be
obliterated by some new drawing on the scientific palimpsest, all
will, I think, admit that so bold an attempt to unify physical
nature excites feelings of the most acute intellectual gratification.
The satisfaction it gives is almost aesthetic in its intensity and
quality. We feel the same sort of pleasurable shock as when from
the crest of some melancholy pass we first see far below us the
sudden glories of plain, river, and mountain.’

PAGE 29, 1. 13. ‘its aesthetic quality’—Beschaffenhett, or ‘its
aesthetic character’; but in the case of a character like this we
generally say ‘ quality ’.

1.17. ‘both sides’—deide Beziehungen, ‘both references.’

1.18. “Quality of space ’—Qualitat des Raums.

1. 28. * with real existence — Exzstirendes. Existenz is through-
out translated ‘real existence’ (Locke’s expression), and Dasein

‚Notes 233

‘existence’. Kant, however, does not preserve the distinction very
faithfully.

1. 32. Cf. Critique of Pure Reason, p. 40: ‘ All in our cognition
that belongs to intuition contains nothing more than mere relations.
The feelings of pain and pleasure, and the will, which are not
cognitions, are excepted.’ (Werke, vol. iii, p. 69.) Also see ibid.,
p. 486 2.; Werke, vol. iii, p. 520 2.

PAGE 30, 1. 14. ‘and this representation itself is an aesthetic
representation of the finality,’ i.e. the representation (of the object)
regarded as immediately bound up with the feeling of pleasure is
in itself an aesthetic representation of the finality of the object.

PAGE 33, 1. 18. ‘There are two ways in which finality may be
represented in an object given in experience.’ The finality dealt
with in Sections V and VI was not a finality represented in an object,
but in the systematic unity of nature and the connexion of its
particular laws. The judgement of taste and the teleological judge-
ment, on the other hand, both estimate a finality represented in
an object, the reference in the former case being subjective, in the
latter objective.

1, 22. ‘prior to any concept.’ This does not mean that the
object ceases to be beautiful the moment one has formed a con-
cept of it. But, suppose the concept were to exhaust the meaning
which had been felt to be in the form of the given object, would
the beauty then vanish? Suppose I admire the shape of a vase
and subsequently discover that this shape exhibits a curve which
can be constructed a frior¢ according to a concept, does the
beauty cease to exist? The answer seems to be that, in so far
as I do in thought construct it merely according to such a concept,
I cut short that play of the faculties of representation, in reference
to the maintenance of which, as a free play, the object can alone
be judged to be according to taste. The very business of the
concept is to cut short the mental movement, to gather up results,
and form a new starting-point. But in so far as I am able, not-
withstanding the concept, to keep reconstructing the form in my
imagination—not as a geometrician, but rather as an artist mentally
drawing the object according to a sense-impression—and feel
myself impelled so to reconstruct it, so far I may represent a
finality on the part of the object in respect of the faculties of
cognition. Beauty touches the given form of the zadividual object,
and so it is only in artificial cases that one can suppose that
a concept exhausts the felt meaning of its particular form. Even
if we have a concept of the object, still if the individual form
suggests a meaning in the selection of that individual form out of
the infinite number of possible forms which would satisfy the
concept, then the imagination does not appear subject to constraint.
It is rather left with a field in which it enjoys freedom. We see
this most clearly in the case of architecture and beautiful furniture,
where the purpose of the object, while it sets certain limits, at the

234 Notes

same time furnishes art with its opportunity. And even in music,
where imagination has its greatest freedom, it is only the conception
of a law that gives it the opportunity for the exercise of that
freedom. Thus Kant repeatedly shows the absurdity of the idea
that the best way to give full scope to the imagination is to ignore
all the rules of art. .

The words “prior to any concept’ only mean that the judge-
ment of taste must not be determined by any reference to concepts.
The object must be contemplated as it is in that synthesis of the
imagination which, according to Kant, is epistemologically prior
to any concept. (See Critigue of Pure Reason, pp. 62, 63, 92, 93;
Werke, vol. iii, pp. 91, 92, 119, 120.)

A pertinent question put by Professor Caird (vol. ii, p. 459) may
now be considered : ‘ There is no aesthetic joy in the determination
of an object in relation to other objects in the context of experi-
ence; why should there be aesthetic joy in the working of the
faculties which prepares the way for such determination?’ Now,
first of all, it may be remarked that Section VI of the Introduction
makes the contrast less sharp than the question would imply.
But, further, ‘the aesthetic joy’ is not a joy immediately involved
‘in the working of the faculties which prepares the way’ for the
determination of an object in relation to other objects, or even
which prepares the way for cognition generally, but a joy in the
object estimated in respect of that ‘ working of the faculties’ in
general, and as a purely subjective reference. That reference
implies a standpoint, and there is something that leads to the
adoption of that standpoint. It hardly seems strange that there
should be aesthetic delight in an object when it is given a sub-
jective reference, although this delight is absent when the reference
is merely objective. If the ‘aesthetic joy’ were immediately in-
volved in the preparatory working of the faculties, apart from any
adoption of a particular standpoint, then Professor Caird’s question
would be unanswerable. For every object, as it is in the original
synthesis of imagination, would then be beautiful.

But, leaving verbal criticism, it must be admitted that the ques-
tion seems susceptible of a deeper meaning. If the synthesis is
simply that synthesis which prepares the way for cognition by con-
cepts, how can it bear the strain that must be put upon it? If, on
the other hand, it is something more than that synthesis, is not the
validity of the Deduction ($ 38) seriously threatened? Now, taking
the second question first, it would seem possible (supposing it were
necessary) to follow Kant in the main and yet admit that he has
overstated the Deduction ; for judgements of taste might very easily
be put in the same position in this respect as judgements about the
sublime. But, apart from this, the restriction to that synthesis of
imagination which prepares the way for cognition generally is not
so severe as seems at first sight. For any arrangement of the
manifold of intuition enabling us to grasp and reproduce the form

Notes 235

of the object is favourable to the business of understanding generally,
no matter whether understanding eventually finds itself able to
make anything special of the arrangement or not. Further, as to
the first question, the strain put upon this preparatory working of
the faculties of cognition is not so great as seems to be generally
supposed. We must distinguish between the function of taste as
a mere critical faculty which forms an estimate of an object before
it, be it of nature or of art, and genius as a source of content. The
class of objects in or about which our cognitive faculties alone have
been engaged, and which we may yet regard as beautiful—objects
which, while they are not products of art, still suggest art—is a most
restricted class. Some birds, shell-fish, and plants exhaust the list!
This is the full extent of the strain. For, properly speaking, the
strain is only felt where a mere judgement of taste upon a given
object of nature is thought to be of itself adequate for the repre-
sentation of beauty. It is not felt where, as in a landscape, what is
estimated is the creation of an art to which nature only gives an in-
centive. For taste, as a purely critical faculty, is always competent
to estimate the harmony of imagination and understanding, which
is as easily discernible in a work of art as ina free beauty of nature.
We must always keep in view the course of Kant’s argument.
He begins by considering the class of cases where nothing but taste,
as a mere critical faculty, is involved, and exemplifies taste in those
simple cases. Subsequently he considers the more complicated cases
where the problem of content arises. A work of art, he tells us, may
be in perfectly good taste, and yet be soulless and insipid. The only
question is whether the same might not be said of the shell-fish.

Unhelped by the poetic voice
That hourly speaks within us.

But, perhaps, even judgement according to the mere analogy of art
is at least the first whisper of that poetic voice.

PAGE 34,1. 22. ‘Natural beauty may, therefore, be looked on
as the presentation of the concept of formal, i.e. merely subjective,
finality’ Cf. p. 35, Il. 1-17; also annotations to p. 33, 1. 18, and
P- 92, 1. 16.

l. 26. ‘The former of these we estimate by taste (aestheti-
cally by means of the feeling of pleasure)” How can the feeling
of pleasure enable us to decide that in a particular case a harmony
of imagination and understanding is involved? Kant does not
seem to throw this duty on the feeling of pleasure. The feeling
of pleasure merely involves a consciousness of the quickening of
the faculties by their mutual accord, and it is only negatively and
inferentially, owing to our consciousness that the pleasure arises
on contemplation of the mere form of the object, that we are able
to know that imagination and understanding are the faculties en-
gaged. We contemplate the mere form of the object, and we are
influenced by no merely subjective grounds of determination—at

236 Notes

least so far as consciousness is concerned. Hence the pleasure
squares with the idea of a pleasure in the mere reflection upon the
forms of objects. Kant has only to justify the conception of a
possible pure judgement of taste. Even if obscure associations, not
present to consciousness, were to have a share in the origin of the
pleasure, in any particular case, still judgement by means of such
a pleasure would have subjectively the form of a pure aesthetic
judgement. The worst that could happen would be that our claim
to universal agreement would be disappointed in those cases where
the obscure associations unconsciously affecting our judgement did
not equally affect the judgements of others. This explains how our
judgements of taste do not always meet with that universal assent
that we claim to be due to them.

PAGE 86, 1. 21. ‘a Critique which is the propaedeutic of all
philosophy ’—i.e. the Critique in question only belongs to Critique
in the widest sense.

PAGE 39, 11. 8-14. Cf. p. 225, Il. 19-24.

Pace 41, 1.8. ‘First moment of the judgement of taste: moment
of quality.’ Lit. ‘First moment of the judgement of taste, according
to its quality’. For some criticisms of Kant’s position, with com-
ments on the four moments, by Hegel, see the Introduction to the
Vorlesungen über die Aesthelik, pp. 73-8. (Hegel’s Philosophy of
Fine Art, Bosanquet, 143-52.)

1.12. ‘If we wish to discern whether anything is beautiful or
not ’— um zu unterscheiden, ob etwas schön sei oder nicht—lit. ‘in
order to distinguish whether’, &c. It is difficult to bring out the
exact force of these words. Kant does not mean merely ‘in order
to decide’, &c. He is not here thinking of what, in a particular
case, makes us regard an object as beautiful z»sZead of the reverse,
but rather of the standpoint which we must adopt in order to intro-
duce this peculiar distinction into our judgements upon objects. To
be beautiful or not is a peculiar distinction which objects acquire by
virtue of the subjective reference which we give to them.

1, 14. ‘the imagination.” Cf. p. 86. The British writers,
headed by Addison, were chiefly responsible for calling attention
to the importance of imagination. ‘The emotions of sublimity and
beauty are uniformly ascribed, both in popular and in philosophical
language, to the imagination. The fine arts are considered as the
arts which are addressed to the imagination, and the pleasures they
afford are described, by way of distinction, as the Pleasures of the
Imagination.’ (Alison, Essays on Taste, p. 1.) Both Addison and
Akenside had dealt with the subject of aesthetics under the title of
‘The Pleasures of the Imagination’.

l. 15. ‘acting perhaps in conjunction with the understanding.’
The word ‘perhaps’ (instead of ‘no doubt’, which might have
seemed more natural) is significant as showing that the emphasis is
on the imagination and the reference of the representation to the
Subject and its feeling of pleasure or displeasure. It is a sugges-

Notes 237

tion to the reader not to trouble himself for the present with any
question beyond the immediate reference in an aesthetic judgement.

1,20, ‘The definition of taste here relied upon is that it is the
faculty of estimating the beautiful.” At the outset taste is defined
in this general way. In $ 4o Kant finds himself in a position
to give amore complete definition. Burke, similarly, at the outset
defines taste, adding the remark ‘but let the virtue of a definition
be what it will, in the order of things, it seems rather to follow
than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as
the result’. Perhaps definitions might be divided into delimztative
or material, and explicative or formal. Duff defines Zaste as
follows: ‘We may define TASTE to be that internal sense, which,
by its own exquisitely nice sensibility, without the assistance of the
reasoning faculty, distinguishes and determines the various quali-
ties of the objects submitted to its cognizance; pronouncing, by its
own arbitrary verdict, that they are grand or mean, beautiful or
ugly, decent or ridiculous.’ (Zssay on Original Genius, p. 11.)

ll. 23-6. Kant does not in any way derive the moments from the
logical functions of judging. He rather compares the quality, quan-
tity, relation, and modality of a judgement of taste with those of cogni-
tive judgements. (Cf. last paragraph of § 31.) They could have
been of little assistance to him in the search. Also, as will be seen,
he shifts about from the table of logical functions to the table of
categories. (Crifigue of Pure Reason, pp. 58, 64; Werke, vol. iii,
pp. 87, 93.) Of course, since the analysis is intended as a transcen-
dental exposition of judgements of taste, Kant was confined to some
such point of view as that actually adopted.

ll. 26-8. Also, the second moment may be deduced from this.
(See § 6.) See also $ 24, where the reason is stated to be that this
judgement concerns the Jor of the object. In the judgement on
the sublime, which is occasioned by the formlessness of the object,
Kant begins with quantity.

PAGE 42, 1. 8. ‘To apprehend a regular (vegelmdssiges) and
appropriate (sweckmässiges) building.’ Here zweckmässiges means
‘appropriate’, i.e. suited to its purpose; for Kant is speaking of
a cognitive judgement in which nothing is considered but adapta-
tion to a particular purpose. .

1. 11. ‘delight’—Wohlgefallen. The word ‘delight’ has been
used by most English writers on art and aesthetics, from Sir Philip
Sidney down to writers of the present day, in the sense of Woht-
gefallen, and, accordingly, it is here adopted in that sense. (See
Alison’s remarks on the word in the passage quoted in the anno-
tation to p. 45, 1. 28.) Missfallen I have generally rendered by
aversion. As alternatives for delight and aversion I have, how-
ever, sometimes used Zfing and dislike.

1. 13. ‘feeling of life,’ or, sense of vitality. Cf. p. 91, 1. 6.
The importance of the feeling of life was emphasized by Donaldson
and elaborated by him into a theory. He is one of the several

238 ‚Notes

British writers of this period who regarded expression OY character
as the essence of beauty, and he analysed this expression into
a suggestion of life or animation. “All pleasure, whether pro-
ceeding from simple or complex causes, may be distinguished as
follows: first, the pleasure of perceiving the qualities of objects by
means of sense, dy which we know that we exist; secondly, the
social satisfaction on expression of this pleasure in others, by which
we know that they live or exist ; thirdly, the pleasure of perceiving
the social or communicative principle, and that this is mutually
perceived in ourselves, including all the former pleasures, and to
which they are to be considered only as assisting and subservient.’
(Elements of Beauty, pp. 51, 52.) ‘Qualities of objects, so far as
they relate to beauty, are either such as most clearly excite er-
ception or life in the senses; or they are composed of these, and
somewhat expressive of life or sensibility.’ (Ibid., p.9.) _‘ Charac-
ter is that which distinguishes one object from another. Whatever
most resembles the symptoms of sensibility in ourselves, we discern
to have the greatest share of expression. That particular object is
most agreeably distinguished which either affects the senses by
exciting the liveliest perceptions; or which, by means of what is
delightful to sense, expresses the clearest sense of internal percep-
tion.’ (Ibid., p. 50.) ‘In love, the soul is feelingly alive to every
finer sense, and it is the finest expression of life which excites it ;
love personified being perfect beauty.’ (Ibid.,p. 63.) ‘The pleasures
of sensation are again reflected outwards, and again are perceived
by the senses, communicating a new and social happiness. It is
not till goodness be thus expressed that it assumes the nature of
beauty.’ (Ibid., p. 51.) ‘Thus have we briefly traced the progress
of beauty from its beginning in the sezses, to its second source of
perfection in the mzzd, both centring in the consciousness of Zife
and sensibility.’ (Ibid., p. 66.) ‘It is at this second period pleasure
loses the name of sensual or selfish.’ (Ibid., p. 67.)

_ _ 1.26. ‘The delight which determines the judgement of taste
is independent of all interest.’ Thomas Aquinas, Moses Mendels-
sohn, Hutcheson, and Nettleton have already been mentioned as
anticipating Kant in the emphasis of disinterestedness. (See supra,
p. lv. The two former are mentioned by Bosanquet, Fistory 0)
Aesthetics. Also see Cronin, Science of Ethics, pp. 501, 502.) But
the chief honour undoubtedly belongs to Shaftesbury and Hutcheson.
(Cf. Znguiry, Preface ; sect. i, subsects. 13, 14, 15, 16; sect. vi, sub-
sects. 7, 8; sect. viii, subsect. I.) Shaftesbury is not so explicit ; but
it is implied by his whole moral philosophy, since it was because
he regarded virtue and the moral sense as essentially disinterested
that he brought the moral sense and the sense of beauty into such
close connexion. (See Tre Moralists, §§ 2, 3; Miscellaneous Reflec-
tions, ili, ch. 2; iv, ch. 1.) In the Assay on the Sublime and
Beautiful Burke says: ‘1 likewise distinguish love (by which
I mean that satisfaction which arises to the mind upon contem-

Notes 239

plating anything beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be) from
desire or lust; which is an energy of the mind, that hurries us on
to the possession of certain objects, that do not affect us as they
are beautiful, but by means altogether different.’ (Part III, § 1.)
He also observes that ‘beauty demands no assistance from our
reasoning ; even the will is unconcerned’, (Part III, § 2.) (Kant
notes Burke’s distinction between love of beauty and desire. See
supra, p. 131, 1. 3.) Adam Smith and Hartley also recognized that
delight in the beautiful is independent of any desire to possess the
object, and Hume recognized that the judgement of taste should
not be influenced by any prejudice or partiality. Alison insisted
that the mind must be ‘vacant’ and ‘unemployed’ in order that
we may be disposed to follow out the train of thought suggested by
the imagination. (Essays on Taste, pp. 6, 8, 12, 65.) With him
this disengagement was merely the negative condition of the
freedom of the imagination, the vesz/¢ of which freedom, and
not any mental detachment upon which it depended, alone being
of positive value. Avison remarks that the passions raised
by music ‘are of the benevolent and social kind, and in their
intent at least are disinterested and noble’. (Essay on Musical
Expression, p. 5.) But what makes Hutcheson’s statement such
a clear anticipation of Kant is that he not alone emphasized the
disinterestedness of our sense of beauty, but emphasized it for
the purpose of bringing our sense of beauty into connexion with the
moral sense, so as to anticipate Kant’s remarks at the close of § 59.
It is strange that Burke, another Irishman, was Hutcheson’s closest
follower on the point of disinterestedness, and that the latter does
not seem to have greatly influenced any of the English writers.
But perhaps we have so few interests left to us in Ireland that the
idea of finding some worth in our disinterestedness and indifference
to the possession of things may be naturally attractive.

PAGE 43, ll. 25-8. Cf. pp. 64, 1. 26; 152,1. 10. A judgement of
taste, so far as it is not impartial, partakes rather of the nature of the
determinate than of the reflective judgement. Hume recognized
the importance of freedom from prejudice. ‘But to enable a critic
the more fully to execute this undertaking, he must preserve his
mind free from all Zrejudice, and allow nothing to enter into
his consideration, but the very object which is submitted to his
examination. ... When any work is addressed to the public, though
I should have a friendship or enmity with the author, I must depart
from this situation, and, considering myself as a man in general,
forget, if possible, my individual, and my peculiar circumstances.
A person influenced by prejudice complies not with this condition,
but obstinately maintains his natural position, without placing him-
self in that point of view which the performance requires. . . . It is
well known that, in all questions submitted to the understanding,
prejudice is destructive of sound judgement, and perverts all opera-
tions of the intellectual faculties: it is no less contrary to good

240 Notes

taste; nor has it lesg influence to corrupt our sentiment of beauty.’
(Essays, Part I, ‘Of the Standard of Taste.) But Hume, in the
main, regards freedom from prejudice merely as a condition size
gua non of a sound judgement of taste ; he does not see in dis-
interestedness a characteristic constitutive of the very essence of the
judgement of taste. Similarly Webb speaks of rising to “an un-
prejudiced and liberal contemplation of true beauty’. (Beauties of
Painting, p. 18; cf. p. 65.) Also FitzOsborne : “Not to mention
that false bias which party or personal dislike may fix upon the
mind, the most unprejudiced critic will find it difficult to disengage
himself entirely from those partial affections in favour of particular
beauties, to which either the general course of his studies, or the
peculiar cast of his temper, may have rendered him most sensible,’
(Letters, No. 39, p. 386.) Such passages are quite common ; but
they all contemplate only prejudice of the more flagrant kind, and
hence fall below Kant’s conception.

1. 34. ‘wholly disinterested, but withal very interesting. Cf.
pp. 154, 1. 18 et seq.; 161, l. 14 et seq. Also cf. Ethics, p. 30 n.;
Werke, vol. iv, p. 413.

PAGE 45, Il. 11-16. Cf. footnote in the first section of the Intro-
duction to the Metaphysic of Morals. (Ethics, p.266; Werke, vol. vi,
p. 211.) This definition should be noted so as to avoid the danger of
supposing that Kant ever means by feeling something in the nature
of an instinctive judgement bearing on the logical character of the
object. Feeling is with Kant what is absolutely incapable of form-
ing a representation of an object, and no process of analysis can
turn it into an objective representation. The following are examples
of the sense in which Kant does of use the word feeling: ‘1
should say that taste was a facility in the mind to be moved by what
is excellent in an art; it is a feeling of the truth. (Webb, Beauties
of Painting, p. 8.) ‘Quickened by exercise, and confirmed by
comparison, it outstrips reasoning ; and feels in an instant that truth,
which the other develops by degrees.’ (Ibid., p. 12.)

1, 26. ‘ But the bearing its real existence has upon my state so
far as affected by such an Object.’ A judgement upon such
a bearing is, of course, a cognitive and not an aesthetic judgement.
Where the real existence of the object is considered, there it is
considered as in relation to other things and not wholly on its own
account. Hence the distinction between the beautiful and the
agreeable might be Zroved from Kant’s major premiss. But Kant
is not here concerned so much with proving that the judgements
upon the agreeable and the beautiful ave distinct, as with distin-
guishing them and illustrating the distinction. As already stated,
he is formulating the conception of a pure judgement of taste as
something quite independent and sw generis. It is rather the
possibility of persisting in the distinction that proves the major
premiss (which is as much a conclusion as a major premiss), than
the major premiss that proves the distinction. The statement that

Notes 241

the delight in the beautiful is disinterested at once serves to distin-
guish it from the agreeable and the good. Alison, whose work
appeared about the same time as Kant’s, insisted very strongly on
the importance of distinguishing what he calls the ‘emotions of
taste’ from all other kinds of emotion or pleasure. (Cf. Essays on
Taste, pp. xi, 51, 99, 100, 113, 384.) He regarded the simpler
emotions as presupposed by the complex emotions of taste; the
latter supervene upon the former, but are radically distinct. (See
next note.) Unfortunately he does not use the word Hay of
imagination with the simple emotions—but that is his meaning.

1. 28. While Shaftesbury and Hutcheson both recognized the
distinction between delight in the beautiful and the gratification
afforded by the agreeable, the clearest statement is by Alison.
‘The distinction which thus appears to subsist between the Emo-
tions of Simple Pleasure, and that complex pleasure which accom-
panies the Emotions of Taste, seems to require a similar distinction
in philosophical language. I believe, indeed, that the distinction is
actually to be found in the common language of conversation; and
I apprehend that the term Delight is very generally used to express
the peculiar pleasure which attends the emotions of taste, in contra-
distinction to the general term Pleasure, which is appropriated to
Simple Emotion. We are pleased, we say, with the gratification of
any appetite or affection—with food when hungry, and with rest
when tired—with the gratification of Curiosity, of Benevolence, or
of Resentment. But we say, we are delighted with the prospect
of a beautiful landscape, with the sight of a fine statue, with hearing
a pathetic piece of music, with the perusal of a celebrated poem.
In these cases the term Delight is used to denote that pleasure
which arises from Sublimity and Beauty, and to distinguish it from
those simpler pleasures which arise from objects that are agreeable.
If it were permitted me therefore, I should wish to appropriate the
term Delight, to signify the peculiar pleasure which attends the
Emotions of Zas¢e, or which is felt, when the Imagination is
employed in the Prosecution of a regular Train of Ideas of Emotion?
(Essays on Taste, pp. 106, 107.)

PAGE 46, |. 2. ‘Delight IN THE GOOD” The writings of
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson drew forth a number of emphatic
statements of the distinction between the good and the beautiful.
In a Tract on the foundation of Moral Goodness Balguy showed
that the beauty of virtue has nothing to do with ‘ moral rectitude’.
Richard Price said “right and pleasure, wrong and pain, are things
totally different... . As different as a cause and its effect; what is
understood, and what is felt; absolute truth, and its agreeableness
tothe mind’. (Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in
Morals, p. 102.) ‘ Beauty seems always to refer to the reception of
pleasure ; and the deauty, therefore, of an action or character, must
signify its being such as A/eases us; or has an aptness to please us
when perceived.’ (Ibid., p. 104.) ‘Every one must see, that these

R

1193

242 Notes

epithets denote the delight, or, on the contrary, the horror and
detestation felt by ourselves; and, consequently, signify not any
real qualities of actions, but the effects im us, or the particular
pleasure and pain, attending the contemplation of them,’ (Ibid.,
pp. 90, 91.) This distinction is not affected by the fact that virtue
is naturally adapted to please every mind, and that ‘to behold
virtue is to admire her’. (Ibid., p. 94 et seq.) Similarly Donaldson :
‘Neither is beauty itself the same with goodness ; but rather what
is pleasing to sense, associated with an expression of goodness.’
(Elements of Beauty, p.7.) ‘What pleases any one sense, comes
as it were recommended to the rest. What is beautiful, we are
disposed to think good; what is good, beautiful. Though here we
must distinguish between the good, and the beautiful; between
notions of wholesomeness or utility, and that which produces an
immediate sensation of pleasure. . . . The perpendicular wall of
a house is good, because it implies stability; but it is not therefore
beautiful: on the contrary, the ornamental part strikes us not as
being any otherwise useful than that it immediately pleases.’ (Ibid.,
PP. 33, 34.) : : : j

PAGE 49, 1. 14. ‘i.e., for beings at once animal and rational.’ Cf.
Sir Philip Sidney, Afologie for Poetrie: ‘But grant love of beautie,
to be a beastlie fault, (although it be very hard, sith onely man, and
no beast, hath that gyft, to discerne beauty).’

1,24, ‘FAVOUR.’ Cf. p. 220, 1. 16.

l. 31. ‘Hunger is the best sauce.’ Cf. Burke, Essay on the
Sublime and Beautiful, Introduction: ‘Every trivial cause of
pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion : his
appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate. One of this
character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet
calls elegans formarum spectator,

PAGE 50,1. 15. ‘The object of such a delight is called beautiful.’
Presumably we may conclude that the object of the aversion apart
from any interest is to be called ugly. Except for this reference to
aversion and continual references to the feelings of pleasure and
displeasure, there is not much to indicate that the beautiful,
regarded as the Object of a pure judgement of taste, is placed in
contradistinction to the ugly. In § 48 Kant speaks of the superi-
ority which art evidences in being able to give a beautiful descrip-
tion of what in nature would be ugly or displeasing. This is the
only actual reference to the xg/y. ‘The definitions of beauty in the
second, third, and fourth moments do not suggest corresponding
definitions of ugliness. Also the definition of taste in § 40 gives no
help. _ Again, er would seem to suggest that the most that a
pure judgement of taste could recognize would be a lack of that
proportion in the accord of the cognitive faculties necessary for
considering the object to be beautiful. Also the sequel would
suggest that the sublime and the laughable are ready to capture
most of what is not beautiful. Indeed, apart from the above

Notes 243

reference, we might be tempted to conclude that the beautiful of
the pure aesthetic judgement was above the distinction between
beauty and ugliness. Certainly it seems hard to think of an object
as being ugly, unless our judgement is determined by the repre-
sentation of it as disagreeable—and the judgement that something
is agreeable or disagreeable is not a pure judgement of taste. The
instances, moreover, of things ugly in nature given in $ 48, ‘The
Furies, diseases, devastations of war and the like,’ do not suggest
a pure judgement of taste. Further, a judgement which has
reference to an ideal of beauty (§ 17) is not a pure judgement of
taste, and it is precisely in this connexion that we meet what far
excellence merits the name of ‘ugly’, e.g. beings ‘ That look not
like inhabitants of the earth, and yet are on it’. So far as art is
concerned, the ground would seem to be covered by what is either
in bad taste or is soulless and insipid, or what is a discord, or in
the nature of a discord, introduced as a constituent element of
what is, as a whole, beautiful. It would seem, therefore, to be
a beauty less pure than that described by Kant, that has as its
opposite the ugly. It is strange that Kant does not deal adequately
with the question, as it had been distinctly raised by Hutcheson,
who devotes two admirable subsections to the subject. (Cf.
Inquiry, sect. vi, subsects. 1, 2.) Hutcheson regards ugliness as
absence of expected beauty, and maintains that ‘ Our Sense of
Beauty seems designed to give us positive Pleasure, but not positive
Pain or Disgust, any farther than what arises from disappointment’.

PAGE 51, ll. 6-12. Cf. annotations to p. 136, 1.29. Reid noted
this point, but had no suspicion of the reply that philosophy would
make to his common-sense inference. ‘Nay, if we speak accurately
and strictly, we shall find that, in every operation of taste, there is
judgement implied. When a man pronounces a poem or a palace
to be beautiful, he affirms something of that poem or that palace... .
Why should I use a language the contrary of what I mean?... Even
those who hold beauty to be merely a feeling in the person that
perceives it, find themselves under a necessity of expressing them-
selves as if beauty were solely a quality of the object, and not of the
percipient.’ (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay VIII, ch. i,
sect. 6.)

PAGE 52, 1. 13. ‘if it merely pleases kim. The italics are the
translator’s, k

1. 26. ‘Every one has his own taste’—or, ‘ Every man to his
taste’—ein jeder hat seinen eigenen Geschmack (reading eigenen
instead of desonderen). In the second edition desonderen was
changed to eigenen in the same sentence above at 1. 7, and the
italics (or, rather, wide spacing) introduced. The proverb is
repeated twice in § 56, and reads: ein jeder hat seinen eignen
Geschmack. It would seem that desonderen was only left in the one
place by an oversight. Erdmann reads eignen, but Windelband
preserves besonderen.
R2

244 ‚Notes

PAGE 54, 1.15 et seq. Cf. Hume’s Zssays, ‘The Sceptic’ and
The Standard of Taste’, where the whole question is discussed.
Kant and Hume are agreed on the facts; but Kant insists that
the claim put forward by taste can only be explained by reference
to an a friori conception, indeterminate and indeterminable, form-
ing the basis of taste as a reflective judgement. Cf. Hutcheson,
Inguiry, Preface, p. xvi, and sect. vi, subsect. 4. In the Intro-
duction to the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful Burke observes :
‘ And indeed, on the whole one may observe that there is rather
less difference upon matters of taste among mankind than upon
most of those which depend upon the naked reason; and that men
are far better agreed on the excellency of a description in Virgil,
than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.’ Also, cf.
Home, Elements of Criticism, ch. 25. The British writers sought
to avoid the difficulty by emphasizing the agreement that actually
prevails. The real point is that the agreement veguzred is greater
(being universal) than any to which experience could testify, or than
the subjectivity of taste would lead one to expect. For Shaftes-
bury’s views, see note to p. 205, 1. 25. Gerard, Essay on Taste,
Part IV, ‘ The Standard of Taste’ (see third edition), contends that
the conception of a standard of taste implies a reference to prin-
ciples governing taste, but he makes the mistake of regarding these
principles as objective, not subjective. He seems to have no
suspicion of the importance of disinterestedness, although he was
familiar with Hutcheson’s work.

l. 29. ‘For this universality I use the expression general
validity’ (Gemeingültigkeit). This term is used merely to signify
subjectivity, and not to emphasize general, as opposed to zuiversal
validity. Kant frequently speaks of subjective Allgemeingültigkeit,
when referring to this very same universality.

PAGE 55, 1.16. “In their logical quantity all judgements of taste
are singular judgements.’ Cf. p.140, 1.28. Then is the judgement
‘ All these roses are beautiful’ a singular judgement? It is really
a fasciculus of singular judgements expressed in a proposition which,
from the point of view of mere formal logic (which disregards
thought whenever it gets a chance), is universal. Hence, notwith-
standing the above judgement, it is quite correct to say that all judge-
ments of taste are singular judgements. But what about the judge-
ment ‘Some roses are beautiful’? Similar observations apply. The
proposition ‘Some S is P’ really means ‘X S is P’—where X is
undetermined, and may be either a number which it might be
possible to point out, as in the proposition ‘ Some roses are beauti-
ful’, or a sub-class which it would be possible to define, as in the
proposition ‘Some soldiers wear kilts’, which proposition extra
information will convert into ‘ All soldiers of Highland regiments
wear kilts’. If Sir W. Hamilton had spoken of the hypothetical
qualification of the subject instead of the quantification of the
predicate he would have been more to the point.

Notes 245

1, 27-8. ‘ Roses in general are beautiful.’ Cf. p. 140, 1.31. Of
what kind is the judgement, ‘All simple colours are beautiful’?
Cf. p. 66, 11. 9-12, and p. 67, 1. 3.

PaGE 56, 1. 12. ‘We want to get a look at the Object with
our own eyes.’ Cf. p. 140, 1. 25.

PAGE 57, 1. 1. ‘For himself he can be certain on the point from
his mere consciousness of the separation of everything belonging
to the agreeable and the good from the delight remaining to him.’
It would have been clearer to say, ‘For himself he can be certain
on the point, simply from his consciousness of a residuum of pure
delight remaining to him after the separation of everything belong-
ing to the agreeable and the good.’ But it does not appear that
one can be conscious of anything more than the w// to lay down
a pure judgement of taste. I may, for instance, be influenced in
my judgement upon the form of an object by some obscure associa-
tion of visual with muscular sensations of which I am quite un-
conscious. These associations may enable me to draw the form
in my imagination with ease, and may invest it with an apparent
meaning, of the source of which I am quite unconscious.

ll. 24-7. Cf. § 37.

PAGE 61, Il. 16-22. Cf. p.66, 1.15 et seq. Cf. Home, Elements of
Criticism, vol.i, p. 184: ‘The tendency of every pleasant emotion
is to prolong the pleasure; and the tendency of every painful
emotion is to end the pain.’ Kant, it will be seen, defines
pleasure and displeasure by their influence upon the trend of con-
sciousness.

ll. 23-5. Cf. Kant’s Introduction to the Metaphystc of Morals,
sect, i. (Ethics, pp. 265-70). ‘The appetitive faculty, whose
inner determining principle, and, consequently, even its “ good
pleasure” (Belieben), is found in the reason of the subject, is called
the rational will (Wille). Accordingly the rational will is the
appetitive faculty, not (like the elective will) in relation to the
action, but rather in relation to what determines the elective will
(Willkühr) to the action ; and it has properly itself no determining
ground ; but in so far as it can determine the elective will it is
practical reason itself’ (p. 268; Werke, vol. vi, p. 213).

PAGE 65, 1.15. ‘associated.’ Cf. pp. 67, 1.11; 68, 1.31; 91, 1.7.
There is no reason for not using the word associate in a general
sense, i.e, without any reference to the daw of the association of
Zdeas, to translate Verbindung in cases where a connexion by
concepts is not meant. English transcendentalists, however, seem
to regard it as a point of honour to avoid the word.

PAGE 66, 1. 27. ‘ which I, still, in no way doubt’—woran ich doch
gar nicht zweifle. This is the reading of the third edition, and
is that followed by Windelband. The earlier editions had gar
sehr—‘ which, however, I greatly doubt’--and this reading was
universally followed. The difference is, of course, most material ;
so I shall fully state my reasons for following Windelband in

246 ‚Notes

preference to the other editors. First of all, it may be mentioned
that Windelband does not regard the reading of the third edition
as due to a correction made by Kant himself. He approves it on
the merits, as an emendation coming from the unknown hand
that revised the third edition. In support of his position he first
refers to passages in other works of Kant, showing that Kant
accepted Euler’s theory of light. To these, however, I do not
attach much importance, as they do not carry us the required
length. The question is not whether Kant accepted Euler’s theory
of light, but whether or not he had grave doubts on the really
important point for this question (was das Vornehmste ist), that
the mind #07 alone perceives by sense the effect of the vibrations
in stimulating the organs, but also, by reflection, the regular play
of the impressions, and consequently the forms in which different
representations are united. It would, I admit, be a strong thing
for Kant to say that he himself had no doubt that simple colours
are perceived by the mind as ‘ formal determinations of the unity
of a manifold of sensations’. Kant could easily have grave doubts
on this point while accepting the vibratory theory of light. Besides
the above, Windelband relies on the following passages in the
present work: pp. 161, 1.25 et seq.; 189, 1.5 et seq.; 194, 1. 26
et seq. The first of these, again, does not seem to carry us the
required length. It seems, in fact, to go very little farther than
Kant’s remarks in respect of Jurvzty in the paragraphs in $ 14
preceding and succeeding the one referring to Euler. The third
passage relied on does not seem to deal with single sensations,
but with combinations of successive sensations, and does not go
beyond what Kant uses as a Sremiss at p. 189, 1.27 et seq. Indeed,
if we read the whole paragraph containing this passage, and also
the paragraph that follows, they seem rather against the view that
Kant supposed that the mind perceives a single sensation as
a formal determination of the unity of a manifold of sensations.
But the second passage on which Windelband relies seems very
strong. At p. 190, ll. 4-7 Kant is unquestionably on the real point
(was das Vornehmste ist). Then, after having stated the question
fairly and plainly, he definitely ranks music as a five art, and so
goes the whole distance as far as music is concerned. This is
very strong; but Windelband does not call attention to the fact
that this last step is only expressly taken as far as music is con-
cerned. The omission of a similar statement with regard to colour
weakens the case for gar nicht, as p. 189, ll. 27-32 suggests that
musical notes are in a somewhat stronger position than colours,
i.e. that the mathematical reference is more apparent in their case.

So far I have referred to the various considerations brought
forward by Windelband, and have incidentally mentioned any
points that seem to weaken their effect. The net result will strike
different minds differently, but to me, at least, the suggestion
which Kant makes (what he says das Vornehmste ist) is one

‚Notes 247

which he would hardly have made at all, and would certainly not
have returned to with the emphasis which he does in § 51, if
it were one as to the soundness of which he himself entertained
grave doubts. The suggestion that goes beyond what follows
immediately from an acceptance of Euler’s theory of light—a
suggestion that Kant carefully, and with all its consequences,
states in his own terminology—was not a current theory which he
was bound to notice, and as to which he would naturally have
desired to express his Aesilation. Surely the suggestion touched
what was af leas? a growing conviction on Kant’s part.

There is another passage which, while not quoted by Windel-
band, seems to have some bearing on the question. In $ 54
(p. 199, ll. 6, 7) Kant expressly ranks music as an agreeable rather
than a fine art. This is in open contradiction with § 51 (p. 190,
Il. 7-15). Now it seems impossible to think that the statement
in § 54, that music is not to be ranked as a fine art, could have
been written shortly after the statement, on full consideration, in
$51. We must regard either § 54 or § 51, in whole or in part,
as a late addition. But we have abundant grounds for regarding
§ 54 as belonging to an early period in the elaboration of the
work. Then, as a whole, § 51 seems a late addition, as it contains
a number of Kant’s most advanced reflections. It will also be
observed that the remarks on oratory which it contains, and those
on the same subject in § 53, involve considerable repetition. But,
even if it is not as a whole a late section, still the note on
p. 187, which refers to ‘simple aesthetic painting’ (the last lines of
which repeat, in apparent forgetfulness, the note on p. 184), and
the whole of the important discussion in question, on pp. 189 and
190, read like late additions. Now, if on these grounds, and to
explain the contradictory statements as to music being an agreeable
or a fine art, we regard the discussion on colour and music in
§ 51 as a late addition, we must naturally ask ourselves if Kant
could possibly, when making this addition, have recalled his dis-
cussion on colour in § 14 and have returned upon it, and added
the paragraph referring to Euler’s theory? There can be no
doubt as to the answer to this question. The paragraph is obviously
parenthetical. It breaks the argument on the purity of a simple
mode of sensation. Without looking beyond § 14, it manifestly
appears to be a subsequent insertion. But if this paragraph,
together with the end of § 51, is regarded as having been added
after Kant’s other remarks on colour and music, then there can
be little doubt that the reading gar nicht ought to be preferred.
The fact that all the learned editors prior to Windelband regarded
that reading as a mere clerical error in the third edition is suffi-
cient to suggest that Kiesewetter may have substituted sehr for
nicht in the first edition on his own responsibility. For, reading
gar nicht, the paragraph does not seem consonant with the rest
of the section—as is not surprising if we suppose that it was

248 ‚Notes

added subsequently, and after an advance in Kant’s views as to
the art of colour. Almost any editor who was thinking mainly
of the argument in $ 14, and who had already found it necessary
to make many corrections in the work, would have unhesitatingly
made the correction. RESTE

1. 30. “and in that case could even be ranked as intrinsic
beauties.’ It is hard to see how a synthesis of isochronous vibra-
tions, even if it could be perceived as such by reflection, could be
regarded as beautiful, if the regular figures formed, let us say, by
sand sprinkled on a square metal plate made to vibrate to a musical
note cannot. (Cf. p. 86, 1. 30.)

Pacz 67, 1. 3. ‘all simple colours are regarded as beautiful so
far as pure.’ But what about Kant’s statement that all judgements
of taste are singular judgements? Here he seems to be stating
arule. At all events the position that simple colours are by them-
selves beautiful seems untenable. Beauty requires unity amid
variety.

l. 4. ‘Composite colours have not this advantage.’ If the
colours were perceived as formal determinations of the unity of
a manifold of sensations, then there would be no reason why com-
posite colours, which would only be more complex forms, could not
be regarded as beautiful.

ll. 23-7. ‘the design is what is essential. ... The colours
which give brilliancy to the sketch are part of the charm.’ Per-
haps the words ‘which give brilliancy to the sketch’ are used
in a qualifying sense, i.e. as equivalent to ‘so far as merely intro-
duced to give brilliancy to the sketch’. But in any case Kant
says that the design (die Zezchnung) is what is essential. For this
opinion, in which he follows some of the greatest authorities, he is
generally censured, and some writers go so far as to imply that it
indicates an insensibility to art so great as to make his views on
that subject unworthy of attention. But surely it is absurd to
dismiss Kant with a wave of the hand for holding an opinion
which was shared by Michelangelo and Winckelmann. Bacon,
it may be remembered, said that ‘In beauty, that of favour [i.e.
features] is more than that of colour’; and Sir W. Temple, in his
essay Of Poetry, observes that ‘much application has been made
to the smoothness of language or style, which has at best but the
beauty of colouring in a picture, and can never make a good one,
without spirit and strength’, Shaftesbury, also, frequently con-
demns the ‘riot of colour’ in the pictures of his contemporaries.—
Some reference may here be made to Mr. Balfour’s attack on
Shaftesbury in a Biographical Introduction to the Works of
George Berkeley (Bohn’s Philosophical Library, vol. i, p. xliii).
Mr. Balfour remarks: ‘Shaftesbury is not, to me at least, an
attractive writer. His constant efforts to figure simultaneously as
a fine gentleman and a fine writer are exceedingly irritating ; and
the very moderate success which has attended his efforts in the

Notes 249

latter character suggests the doubt, justified by his general style,
whether he can have really shone in the former. His pretensions
to taste are quite unjustified by what we know of his opinions.
Like most of his contemporaries he despised Gothic architecture,
and yet he saw nothing to admire in Wren; while he theorized
about painting till he persuaded himself that the merits of a picture
were wholly independent of its colouring.’ These criticisms are
followed by a defence of Berkeley, for whom Shaftesbury was one
whom ‘he found most difficult to treat in a spirit of perfect charity.
Berkeley, partly from a natural feeling of esprit de corps, and partly
from a higher motive, strongly objected to the tone adopted towards
the clergy in some sections of society’ (p. xlv). To deal with the
last point first: it may be remarked that the ‘natural feeling of
esprit de corps’ is more distinctly apparent in Berkeley’s language
than the ‘higher motive’. The difficulty of treating opponents
‘in a spirit of perfect charity’ is one which a particular section of
society seems to be particularly unable to overcome. However, the
question here is not so much one of treating an opponent with
charity—Shaftesbury did not require that—as of treating an oppo-
nent with fairness and without misrepresenting his views. Then,
as to Shaftesbury’s failure to appreciate Gothic architecture, the
inference from Mr. Balfour’s remarks is that most of Shaftesbury’s
contemporaries were devoid of taste—for they were in the same
position. Among those contemporaries was Berkeley himself, who
enjoyed some reputation as a judge of architecture. His estimate
of Gothic architecture is that it is ‘fantastical, and for the most
part founded neither in nature nor in reason’. (Alciphron, 3rd
Dialogue, § 9.) Were Mr. Balfour to be judged by his criticism in
this case it might be said that his own pretensions as a critic ‘are
quite unjustified by what we know of his opinions’. As to the
point that Shaftesbury theorized about painting till, as an art critic,
he came to agree with Michelangelo and Winckelmann, and, as
a philosopher, to anticipate Kant, the best answer would seem to
be to quote a typical passage from Shaftesbury himself:

‘And for his Colouring; he woul’d then soon find how much more
it became him to be reserv’d, severe, and chaste, in this particular
of his Art; where Luxury and Libertinism are, by the power of
Fashion and the modern Taste, become so universally established.

“Tis evident however from Reason it-self, as well as from History
and Experience, that nothing is more fatal, either to Painting, Archi-
tecture, or to other Arts, than this fa/se Relish, which is govern’d
rather by what immediately strikes the Sense, than by what conse-
quentially and by reflection pleases the Mind, and satisfies the
Thought and Reason. So that whilst we look on Painting with
the same eye, as we view commonly the rich Stuffs, and colour’d
Silks worn by Ladys, and admired in Dress, Equipage, or Furni-
ture ; we must of necessity be effeminate in our Taste, and utterly
set wrong as to all Judgment and Knowledge in the kind. For of

250 Notes

this zmitative Art we may justly say: “ That tho It borrows help
“indeed from Colours, and uses them, as means, to execute its
“ designs; It has nothing, however, more wide of its real Aim, or
“more remote from its Intention, than to make a Show of Colours,
“or from their mixture, to raise a separate and flattering Pleasure
“to the SENSE.”’ Then, in a note on the last sentence of the above
passage, he adds :— ;

‘The Pleasure is plainly foreign and separate, as having no
concern or share in the proper Delight or Entertainment which
naturally arises from the Subject, and Workmanship it-self. For
the Subject, in respect of Pleasure, as well as science, is absolutely
completed, when the Design is executed, and the propos’d Imita-
tion once accomplished. And thus it always is the best, when the
Colours are most subdu’d, and made subservient.’

However, it must be remembered that Mr. Balfour’s criticisms
of Shaftesbury occur in a defence of Berkeley, an opponent of
Shaftesbury, and he is not to be judged by everything he says
when obviously holding a brief.

PAGE 68, ]. 4. ‘composition’ The italics, required by the sense,
are supplied by the translator.

l. 23. ‘It is called jizery and takes away from the genuine
beauty.’ Cf. Pope’s Essay on Criticism:

Poets, like painters, thus unskilled to trace
The naked nature and the living grace,
With gold and jewels cover every part,
And hide with ornaments their want of art.

Similarly, among many others, Home, Elements of Criticism,
vol. i, p. 205: ‘Profuse ornament in painting, gardening, or archi-
tecture, as well as in dress or language, shows a mean or corrupted
taste.’

PAGE 69, |. 11. ‘wé¢Zity.” That a judgement in respect of utility
is not an aesthetic judgement was very clearly recognized by Burke.
Cf. Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, Part III, §§ 2-8. But the
majority of British writers regarded utility as a source of beauty.
Cf. Shaftesbury, Characteristics, vol. ili, p. 180; Hogarth, Analysis
of Beauty ; Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric, p. 104 et seq. Hutcheson
(Inguiry, sect. ii, subsect. 10), followed by Alison (Z'ssays, p. 363),
relegated this class of beauty to relative, or what Kant called
dependent beauty. Adam Smith also insisted on the importance
of utility; but he strengthened the position by emphasizing that
the fitness of a contrivance for an end may be valued quite out of
proportion to, or even irrespective of, the purpose. His beauty
of utility was, therefore, a valuation of purposiveness irrespective
of the value set upon the purpose. It may be said that Kant did
not sufficiently recognize the element of truth in this theory. In
the case of architecture and furniture the reference to the purpose
of the work is not alone present, but is essen¢ia/ to the perception

Notes 251

of the conformity lo law of the imagination in its freedom. The
most beautiful designs of chairs, for instance, are those in which
the purpose is subserved by a form which seems precisely such that
imagination, if it had been left to itself, would have projected it
freely. The restriction set by the understanding is converted into
an opportunity for the imagination; so that imagination seems to
give the law to itself merely in order to realize its own freedom.
The reference to purpose in this kind of art has the same positive
value as that of all other /aws recognized by art.

l. 12. ‘Perfection’? Cf. Burke, Essay on the Sublime and
Beautiful, Part III, $ 9.—Perfection not the Cause of Beauty.
‘I know it is in everybody's mouth that we ought to love perfec-
tion. This is to me a sufficient proof that it is not the proper
object of love. Who ever said we ought to love a fine woman, or
even any of these beautiful animals which please us? Here to be
affected there is no need of the concurrence of our will.’ Reid, on
the other hand, lays great stress on perfection. ‘It is, therefore,
in the scale of perfection and real excellence that we must look for
what is either grand or beautiful in objects.’ (Essays on the Intel-
lectual Powers, Essay VIII, ch. 4; Collected Works, p. 502.)

1, 22. ‘where zt is thought in a confused way. Kant refers
to Baumgarten. As to the distinction between clear and confused
representations, see Crztigue of Pure Reason, 36, 37; Werke, vol.
iii, p. 66. ‘The difference between a confused and a clear repre-
sentation is merely logical, and has nothing to do with content.’

PAGE 70, 1. 8. ‘the agreement of its manifold with a unity.’
Cf. annotation to p. 92, 1. 16. Hutcheson, /uguiry, sect. ii, sub-
sect. 3: ‘The Figures which excite in us the Ideas of Beauty, seem
to be those in which there is Uniformity amidst Variety. There
are many Conceptions of Objects which are agreeable upon other
accounts, such as Grandeur, Novelty, Sanctity, and some others,
which shall be mention’d hereafter. But what we call Beautiful in
Objects, to speak in the Mathematical Style, seems to be in a
compound Ratio of Uniformity and Variety: so that when the
Uniformity of Bodys is equal, the Beauty is as the Variety ; and
when the Variety is equal, the Beauty is as the Uniformity.’
This is what in Hutcheson corresponds most to Kant’s third
moment. Hutcheson also showed the finality for the mind of
unity amid variety (Jvguiry, sect. viii), But he did not place
the beauty in the finality: he merely pointed out the finality in
order to account for our sense of beauty being such that uniformity
amid variety, and not the reverse, is what pleases us. The other
three moments were distinctly recognized by him; but not as
moments arranged on a plan like those of Kant. The importance
of uniformity amid variety was also recognized by Hogarth, Hartley,
Beattie, and many others. Som,

PAGE 72, 1. 4. ‘free beauty . . . dependent beauty.’ This dis-
tinction was well recognized by the English school. ‘ Beauty is

252 Notes

either Original or Comparative; or, if any like the Terms better,
Absolute or Relative (Hutcheson, Jnguiry, sect. i, subsect. 17.)
Alison distinguished between zafural and relative beauty. Home
(Elements of Criticism, vol. i, p. 198, vol. ii, pp. 447, 450) distin-
guishes inzrinsic and relative beauty. The former, according to
him, is a perception of sense merely, the latter is accompanied by
an act of understanding and reflection, and necessitates an acquain-
tance with the use and destination of the object.

1.16. ‘pays no attention to this natural end when using his
taste to judge of its beauty.’ Cf. Hutcheson, /rgwiry, sect. i, sub-
sect. 12. ‘Let every one here consider, how different we must
suppose the perception to be, with which a Poet is transported upon
the Prospect of any of these Objects of natural Beauty, which ravish
us even in his Description ; from that cold lifeless conception which
we imagine to be in a dull Critick, or one of the Virtuosi, without
what we call a fine Taste. This latter Class of Men may have
greater Perfection in that knowledge, which is derived from external
Sensation ; they can tell all the specific Differences of Trees, Herbs,
Minerals, Metals; they know the form of every Leaf, Stalk, Root,
Flower, and Seed of all the Species, about which the Poet is often
very ignorant: And yet the Poet shall have a vastly more delight-
ful Perception of the Whole; and not only the Poet, but any man
of fine Taste.’

1. 26. ‘and are free beauties.’ Cf. p. 46, 1.13 et seq. Notice
that the distinction between free and dependent beauties does not
correspond to that between beauties of nature and beauties of art.
Designs like those in The Book of Kelis would, according to Kant,
be free beauties.

PAGE 73,1. 14. ‘ Much might be added to a building that would
immediately please the eye.’ Cf. Bacon, Essays, ‘Of Building’:
‘ Houses are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use
be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had’;
also on remarks on congruity (Elements of Criticism, vol. i,
ch. x).

1, 33. ‘ Taste, it is true, stands to gain by this combination of
intellectual delight with the aesthetic.’ In the lines that follow
Kant makes it clear that it is of taste, as such, that derives the
gain.

PAGE 74,1. 20. ‘or else makes abstraction from it in his judge-
ment.’ Were it not for this saving clause the pure judgement of
taste would be extremely restricted in its objects. Ifa concept is
not present, there is danger of there being no unity (as in a mere
view) ; if there is, abstraction must be made from it.

_ PAGE 75,1. 2. ‘ The Ideal of Beauty.’ The reader will be assisted
in appreciating this section if he refers to Winckelmann’s History
of Ancient Art (1764), Book IV, chapter ii (Lodge’s trans.), ‘The
Essential of Art,’ and Book V, chapter iii, ‘The Expression of
Beauty in Features and Action.’ The following extract may be

‚Notes 253

given: ‘From unity proceeds another attribute of lofty beauty, the
absence of individuality; that is, the forms of it are described
neither by points nor lines other than those which shape beauty
merely, and consequently produce a figure which is neither peculiar
to any particular individual, nor yet expresses any one state of the
mind or affection of the passions, because these blend with it
strange lines, and mar the unity. According to this idea, beauty
should be like the best kind of water, drawn from the spring itself;
the less taste it has, the more beautiful it is considered, because
~ free from all foreign admixture ...

“Since, however, there is no middle state in human nature
between pain and pleasure, even according to Epicurus, and the
passions are the winds which impel or break over the sea of life,
with which the poet sails, and on which the artist soars, pure beauty
alone cannot be the sole object of our consideration; we must
place it also in a state of action and of passion, which we compre-
hend in art under the term Expression. We shall, therefore, in
the first place, treat of the shape of beauty, and in the second
place, of expression. The shape of beauty is either individual —
that is, confined to an imitation of one individual—or it is a selection
of beautiful parts from many individuals, and their union into one,
which we call ideal, yet with the remark that a thing may be ideal
without being beautiful.’ (Lodge’s translation, vol. i, p. 311).

Kant obviously had Winckelmann’s theory in view when writing
$ 17. The section is undoubtedly extremely difficult to interpret
on the question of the precise importance which Kant himself
allowed to estimates of beauty formed according to the standard
furnished by an ideal of beauty—a standard which he says is not
purely aesthetic. Of course Kant was entitled to recognize the
fact that many judgements are formed according to such a standard,
and to admit that the conception of an ideal of beauty may, at
a certain period of art, have been the dominant influence. Further,
he would seem to have been bound to take notice of Winckelmann’s
theory; and, having regard to the great authority of that writer,
he might be excused if he did not wish to emphasize more than
was necessary the very different opinion which he held of the
significance of the ideal of beauty. At the very least the analysis
of the conception of an ideal of beauty shows that it belongs to art
rather than to nature, and seems at once to suggest to the mind
the necessity for an investigation of the functions of taste and
genius and their precise relation and mode of combination, and
Kant may have intended § 17 to lead to § 49 in the same way
as § 42 leads to § 59. On this view the last paragraph of § 17
might be supplied with the marginal note: ‘Transition from the
popular conception of a beauty to be estimated according to the
standard of an ideal of beauty to the conception of genius as the
faculty of aesthetic ideas, which gives the rule to art.’ It may also
be remarked that neither § 15 nor § 16 fit in very well with the general

254 ‚Notes

argument of the first book of the analytic, and that they would be
easier to understand if we suppose that the first, second, and fourth
moments were a subsequent addition. ;

1. 13. ‘the accord, so far as possible, of all ages and nations.’
Cf. Berkeley, Alciphron, 3rd Dialogue, $ 9: ‘Can the appearance
of a thing please at this time, and in this place, which pleased two
thousand years ago, and two thousand miles off, without some real
principle of beauty?’ Also, Hume, Essays, ‘The Standard of
Taste’: ‘ We shall be able to ascertain its influence, not so much
from the operation of each particular beauty, as from the durable
admiration which attends those particular works that have survived
all the caprices of mode and fashion, all the mistakes of ignorance
and envy. The same Homer who pleased at Athens and Rome
two thousand years ago is still admired at Paris and at London.
All the changes of climate, government, religion, and language
have not been able to obscure his glory.’ Also Reynolds, Second
Discourse (1769); Home, Elements of Criticism, vol. ii, ch. 25.
Alison draws the practical inference: ‘In all those Arts, therefore,
that respect the Beauty of Form, it ought to be the unceasing
study of the Artist, to disengage his mind from the accidental
associations of his age, as well as the common prejudices of his
Art; to labour to distinguish his productions by that pure and
permanent expression, which may be felt in every age; and to
disdain to borrow a transitory fame, by yielding to the temporary
caprices of his time, or by exhibiting only the display of his own
dexterity or skill.’ (Zssays on Taste, pp. 368, 369.) For some
further quotations see notes to pp. 54, 1. 15, and 137, 1. 32.

l. 20. ‘For this reason some products of taste are looked on
as exemplary. Is this and the end of the previous paragraph
intended as introductory to the fourth moment, or was it written
before §§ 18-22 were meditated ?

ll. 28-34. But the works were composed in a living language.
So a work does not become a model till the language in which it
is written becomes a dead language!

PAGE 76, ll. 17-19. Cf. § 16.

PAGE 77, 1.20. ‘the image that, as it were, forms an intentional
basis underlying the technic of nature’ Cf. Adam Smith, Theory
of Moral Sentiments, Part V, ch.i: ‘It is the form which Nature
seems to have aimed at in them all, which, however, she deviates
from in a great variety of ways, and very seldom hits exactly; but
to which all those deviations still bear a very strong resemblance.’

l. 22. “to which no separate individual, but only the race as
a whole, is adequate.’ Reynolds does not go quite as far as
Kant. ‘To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of beauty
in each species of beings is an invariable one, it may be objected
that in every particular species there are various central forms
which are separate and distinct from each other, and yet are
undeniably beautiful; that in the human figure, for instance, the

Notes 255

beauty of the Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the
Apollo another; which makes so many different ideas of beauty.
It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect in its kind,
though of different characters and proportions; but still none of
them is the representation of an individual, but of a class.’ (Third
Discourse, 1770.) Reynolds, further, speaks of reducing ‘the variety
of nature to the abstract idea’—which seems a fatal course. He
recognizes what Kant calls the zormal idea much more clearly than
the rational idea.

PAGE 78, 1. 13. ‘the average size’ Cf. Hartley, Observations
on Man, vol. i, p. 436: ‘That Part of Beauty which arises from
Symmetry may perhaps be said to consist in such Proportions,
i.e. such Proportions as would result from an Estimation by an
Average: One may say at least, that these Proportions would not
differ much from perfect Symmetry.’

l. 32. ‘is not derived .. . from experience.’ Cf.p. 76,1. 15.
A partial anticipation of this section is contained in the Crétigue
of Pure Reason, p. 352; Werke, vol. iii, pp. 384, 385. ‘ Such is the
constitution of the ideal of reason, which is always based upon
determinate conceptions, and serves as a rule and a model for imita-
tion or for criticism. Very different is the nature of the ideals of
the imagination. Of these it is impossible to present an intelligible
conception; they are a kind of sonogram, drawn according to no
determinate rule, and forming rather a vague picture—the produc-
tion of many diverse experiences—than a determinate image. Such
are the ideals which painters and physiognomists profess to have in
their minds, and which can serve neither as a model for production
nor as a standard for appreciation. They may be termed, though
improperly, sensuous ideals, as they are declared to be models
of certain possible empirical intuitions. They cannot, however,
furnish rules or standards for explanation or examination.’

PAGE 79, 1. 17. ‘academically correct.’ Cf. p. 171, I. 20et seq.
So it is only what is mechanical in art that is concerned with the
normal idea.

ll. 19, 20. ‘But the zdeal of the beautiful is still something
different from its zormal idea’ Certainly, if, as stated above, it is
only one factor. But Kant rather seems now to distinguish the
true ideal from the normal idea as a spurious ideal, and to make
the ideal consist solely in the expression of the oral. It is difficult
to see how a form visibly expressing moral ideas could be made to
conform to the normal idea without the abstractness, and, there-
fore, the essential character of the latter, being changed. Either
the expression of moral ideas is merely subjectively introduced or
is given in something that is merely accidental, or else there must
be a deviation from the normal idea. In other words, if the ideal
is made to consist af both factors, as first stated, it is difficult to see
how these two factors are combined. 2

l. 31. “if one may assume that nature in its external form

256 Notes

expresses the proportions of the internal ’—as Lavater supposed.
Cf. Home, Elements of Criticism, vol. i, ch. xv; also Bacon, Essay
on Deformity, ‘Certainly there is a consent between the body and
the mind.’

1. 35. ‘gendus, in which nature seems to make a departure from
its wonted relations of the mental powers in favour of some special
one.’ Presumably the departure here referred to is not one towards
the “happy relation’—which seems to imply an exquisite balance—
stated at p. 179, 1.27, to constitute genius. In the latter case Kant
is probably regarding the faculty of imagination in general, in the
former particular directions in which imagination may be applied.
Perhaps, also, in this note Kant is not confining genius to fine art
as he does later on. ‘A genius’, said Young, in Conjectures on
Original Composition, ‘implies the rays of the mind concentrated,
and determined to some particular point.’ Cf. Blair, vol. i, p. 50:
‘The rays must converge to a point, in order to glow intensely.’
Duff remarks that men become original geniuses ‘in that particular
art or science to which they have received the most remarkable
bias ae the hand of nature.’ (Essay on Original Genius,

. 88.

x PAGE 80, 1. 1. ‘The visible expression of moral ideas.’ Cf.
p. 227. Cf. Blair’s Lectures (1783), vol. i, p. 102: ‘But the chief
beauty of the countenance depends upon a mysterious expression,
which it conveys of the qualities of the mind ; of good sense, or good
humour; of sprightliness, candour, benevolence, sensibility, or other
amiable dispositions. How it comes to pass that a certain con-
formation of features is connected in our idea with certain moral
qualities ; whether we are taught by instinct, or by experience, to
form this connexion, and to read the mind in the countenance ;
belongs not to us now to inquire, nor is indeed easy to resolve.
The fact is certain, and acknowledged, that what gives the human
countenance its most distinguished Beauty is what is called its
expression ; or an image, which it is conceived to show of internal
moral dispositions,’

ll. 7-9. ‘and this embodiment involves a union of pure ideas
of reason and great imaginative power.’ Might he not have said
that it requires genius?

1.10. ‘The correctness of such an ideal of beauty.’ Is the
correctness to be a/so judged by the normal ideal ?

1.13. ‘This fact in turn shows that an estimate formed ac-
cording to such a standard can never be purely aesthetic.’ Why?
Kant’s reasoning is not very convincing. Either the interest is
a determining or a merely supervening interest. If the former it
is fatal: if the latter it does not prevent the judgement being pure.
Cf. pp. 43 2.5; 154,1. 18 et seq.; 157,1. 24; 161, 1. 15 et seq.

l. 22. ‘a form suggesting adaption toanend.’ Cf. the instance
of the piece of hewn wood. Cf. p. 163,1. 13 et seq.

PAGE 81,1, 20. ‘it can only be termed exemplary” Objective

Notes 257

validity and necessary universality being convertible conceptions
(Prolegomena, $ 19), it would follow that beauty would be objective,
and the judgement of taste indistinguishable from a judgement of
experience, were it not that the necessity thought in a judgement
of taste is only exemplary, i.e. it does not depend upon any deter-
minate concept, under which the particular object can be subsumed
according to a rule, but only upon an indeterminate norm—the
idea of a common sense. But, under presupposition of a common
sense, the exemplary or merely subjective necessity is represented
as objective (§ 22), and, accordingly, the predicate ‘Beautiful’ is
applied to the object (without the restriction ‘to me’), just as if
the judgement were a singular judgement of experience.

PAGE 82,1. 6. ‘every one ought? Cf. Home, Elements of
Criticism, ch. xxv, p. 488.

PAGE 83, 1. 11. ‘together with their attendant conviction.’ Cf.
Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 496-503; Werke, vol. iii, pp. 531-8.
Also see Anthropology, § 53, where Kant says that the loss of the
sensus communis and the substitution for it of a sensus privatus is
the one universal sign of mental derangement. Compare with whole
section p. 147 z. and last paragraph of § 39. Undoubtedly to avoid
scepticism we must make a presupposition that implies causes in
the mind of the person judging which are subjective, but which yet
admit of universal communication. But is not Kant pushing his
Deduction further than is really necessary ? Er en

l. 16. ‘scepticism.’ We are asked to make an admission in
order to avoid complete scepticism. Does not this imply (what
seems to be the truth) that the only answer to scepticism is to be
found in the bearing of the practical upon the theoretical faculty ?

l. 19. ‘the relative proportion ’—diejenige Proportion. Cf.
pp. 60, 1.21; 150, 1. 15.

PAGE 85, 1. 6. ‘such a common sense.’ Cf. § 40, also pp. 56,
ll. 28-30; 116, l. 9 et seq.; 212, 1. 26 et seq. ; 227,1. 13.

PAGE 86,1. 4 et seq. Cf. pp. 176, 1. 7 et seq.; 177, 1.12. For
references see annotation to p. 176, 1. 7. j . :

ll. 6-9. ‘And although in the apprehension of a given object of
sense it is tied down to a definite form of this Object, and, to that
extent, does not enjoy free play (as it does in poetry).’ Cf. pp. 175,
ll. 1,2; 179, 1. 19 et seq.; 186, 1. 23 et seq., where the converse
case is dealt with. oP ‘

1. 31. ‘ by critics of taste.” Among the critics of the English
school whom Kant may have had in mind were Shaftesbury (The
Moralists, Part III, $ 2), Hutcheson (/rguiry, sect. ii, subsect. 3,
cf. sect. vi, subsect. 4), and a (Elements of Criticism, vol. i,

. 203, 204 ; but cf. ibid., p. 238). :
ee 87, 1.20. § rine Shaftesbury, among others, laid
considerable stress on symmetry. ‘HARMONY is harmony by nature,
let men judge ever so ridiculously of music. So is symmetry and
proportion founded still in nature, let men’s fancy prove ever so

1193 3

258 Notes

barbarous.’ (Advice to an Author, Part III, sect. 3.) Kant agrees
that it is founded in nature, but says that it is estimated by
a cognitive judgement that looks to ends. But Shaftesbury dis-
tinguishes between ‘mere mechanic beautys’ such as ‘ the ordering
of walks, plantations, avenues’, &c., and that ‘happier and higher
symmetry and order of a mind’, of which he regards natural beauty
as the expression. (Zssay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour,
Part IV, sect. 2.) :

PAGE 88, 1. 17. ‘English taste in gardens.’ Pope and Addison
led the way in attacking the strictly formal style of gardening; but
landscape gardening was subsequently pushed to extravagances
which they, of course, never meditated. A decade or so later than
the date at which Kant wrote the above passage the ‘ English taste
in gardens’ became the dominant taste on the Continent. The
reader who desires to look further into the subject will find much
interesting information in a recently published story of Gar-
dening in England, by the Hon. Mrs. Evelyn Cecil (see, particu-
larly, ch. xii)—a work which also contains a very full bibliography.
Kant’s criticism is not to be taken as a complete approval or con-
demnation of the English taste, but as indicating sympathy with
the underlying idea, and disapproval of the extravagances to which
it was sometimes pushed. His remarks should be compared with
those on the leaders of the Sturm und Drang movement (see
annotation to p. 164, 1. 24). Also cf. Hutcheson, /rgiry, sect. iii,
subsect. 5. ‘Thus we see, that strict Regularity in laying out of
Gardens in Parterres, Vistas, parallel Walks, is often neglected,
to obtain an Imitation of Mature even in some of its Wildness.
And we are more pleased with this Imitation, especially when the
scene is large and spacious, than with the more confin’d Exactness
of regular Works.’ Also, Home, Elements of Criticism, ch. xxiv,
p- 435: ‘In large objects, which cannot otherwise be surveyed but
in parts and in succession, regularity and uniformity would be
useless properties, because they cannot be discovered by the eye.
Nature therefore, in her large works, neglects these properties;
and in copying nature, the artist ought to neglect them.’ Home
makes simplicity the governing taste in gardening. Alison (Zssays
on Taste, pp. 300-1) thought that English taste in gardening had
gone too far in its neglect of regularity. j

1. 26. ‘we get heartily tired of it’ Cf. Home, Elements of
Criticism, vol. i, p. 204: ‘ Uniformity is singular in one capital
circumstance, that it is apt to disgust by excess. A scrupulous
uniformity of parts in a large garden or field is far from agreeable.’
1.29. ‘Marsden’—The History of Sumatra, by W. Marsden

(London, 1783), p. 113.

PAGE 89, 1. 18. ‘as has been sometimes done with the notes of
the nightingale.’ Cf. p. 162, 1. 9 et seq.

_ 1.22. “beautiful views of objects.’ Cf. p. 187 ». Kant is not
disparaging landscape painting. Landscapes are the products of

Notes 259

art, Observe how naturally this paragraph leads to an investiga-
tion of the sublime. Did Kant intend this?

PAGE 91, ll. 3, 4. ‘Quality... Quantity.’ Here Kant is speak-
ing of a quality and quantity of the object, and not of the judgement
of taste itself, as was the case in the four moments.

PAGE 92, 1. 16. ‘ Self-subsisting natural beauty reveals to us a
technic of nature, which shows it in the light of a system,’ &c. This
may be compared with the first paragraph of the Critique of Teleo-
logical Judgement: “On transcendental principles nature may with
good reason be assumed to be subjectively final in its particular laws
in respect of comprehensibility for human judgement and the possi-
bility of the concatenation of particular experiences into a system of
these laws. In this system, then, it may also be expected that among
the many products of nature there is a possibility of there being
some that, as if put there with quite a special regard to our judge-
ment, contain specific forms adapted thereto, which by their
multiplicity and unity serve to strengthen and entertain the mental
powers (that enter into play in the exercise of this faculty). To
these the name of deautiful forms are accordingly given’ Cf.
pp. 70, 1. 9; 133,1. 14 et seq.; 143,1. 25 et seq.; 148, 1. 12 et seq. ;
150, 1. 6 et seq. ; 182, 1. 8.

Certainly the passage annotated seems to say that self-subsistent
natural beauty gives an evident indication that nature really is
such a system of connected particular laws as, in the interests of
science, we are bound (as shown in sections v and vii of the
Introduction) to suppose it to be. But it is quite obvious that beauty
as explained by Kant is utterly incapable of giving any such
indication (although if nature is such a system we may expect a
regularity capable of being regarded as beautiful). For, were it to
give such an indication, then it would have to be held that the form
of a beautiful object of nature could only stimulate the mental
powers by having an affizzty to other specific forms of actual objects
of nature. But such an assumption is certainly one which cannot
be proved, which Kant nowhere attempts to prove, and which would
be inconsistent with his account of the mere subjectivity of the
judgement of taste.

What the self-subsisting beauty of nature does seem to reveal is
that the nature which is the object of the aesthetic judgement is
not the nature of science, but a nature which is in part the product
of that artistic imagination (the ‘author of arbitrary forms of
possible intuitions’), specimens of the work of which are afforded
by the products of fine art. How far nature, as understood by
science, may have been secretly the mistress of that fine art, in
respect of the fundamental values assigned to particular relations
(as in the case of musical notes and colours), is, of course, quite a
different question, and one that could only be treated empirically.

PAGE 94, ll. 10-18. The mathematically and dynamically sub-
lime, cf. p. 120, 1.7. Also see Crztigue of Pure Reason, pp. 67, 121 ;

$2

260 Notes

Werke, vol. iii, pp. 95, 147. Schiller, in his essay on The Sublime,
objects to this distinction and prefers a division following the dis-
tinction between the theoretical and the practical faculty. Certainly
this distinction, which is the real basis of Kant’s division, is more
suggestive. Schiller might have added that as Kant refuses to call
the odject of nature sublime it would have been more consistent to
base the division on the distinction of the faculties whose ideas are
involved than on a distinction which concerns the application of
categories of understanding to objects. Kant apparently prefers to
lay the stress, here at all events, on the occasion of the feeling of
the sublime, as the judgement has to be aesthetic.

PAGE 96, 1. 11. “the greatness of a particular virtue.’ Cf. p. 96,
1. 33 et seq. Home, Elements of Criticism, vol. i, ch. iv, p. 223:
‘The same terms are applied to characters and actions: we talk
familiarly of an elevated genius, of a great man, and equally of
littleness of mind: some actions are great and elevated, and others
are Jittle and grovelling.’

PAGE 97, 1. 13. ‘But it must be left to the Deduction.’ But
there is no Deduction (see $ 30). To what, then, does Kant refer?
Apparently Kant regards § 25 as introductory (see its heading),
and the sections that follow (the exposition) as the Deduction.

ll. 16-24. Cf. Addison: ‘We are not a little pleased to find
every green leaf swarm with millions of animals, that at their
largest growth are not visible to the naked eye.’ (Vol. iii, p. 425.)
‘Nay we might yet carry it further, and discover in the smallest
particle of this little world, a new inexhaustible fund of matter,
capable of being spun out into another universe.’ (Vol. iii, p. 426.)
Similarly Burke : ‘ However, it may not be amiss to add to these
remarks upon magnitude, that, as the great extreme of dimension
is sublime, so the last extreme of littleness is in some measure
sublime likewise: when we attend to the infinite divisibility of
matter, when we. pursue animal life into these excessively small, and
yet organized beings, that escape the nicest inquisition of the sense,
when we push our discoveries yet downward, and consider those
creatures so many degrees yet smaller, and the still diminishing
scale of existence, in tracing which the imagination is lost as well
as the sense, we become amazed and confounded at the wonders
of minuteness ; nor can we distinguish in its effects this extreme of
littleness from the vast itself. For division must be infinite as well
as addition: because the idea of a perfect unity can no more be
arrived at, than that of a complete whole, to which nothing may be
added.’ (Part II, § vii.) Apparently the reason why Kant does
not follow Burke is that with him the sublime does not reside
in nature, which, be it little or be it great, always falls short of the
absolutely great. Whether what suggests the sublime is relatively
great or relatively little, the sublime itself is what is absolutely great.
Still this hardly gets over the difficulty, as he does not seem to allow
that the microscopic world may suggest the feeling of sublimity.

Notes 261

The following eloquent passage from Hartley’s Odservations on
Man (vol. ii, p. 246) has a bearing upon the analysis of the sublime,
and is, perhaps, sufficiently suggestive to bear quotation at length:
‘It may be remarked, that the Pleasures of Imagination point to
devotion in a particular manner by their unlimited Nature. For
all Beauty, both natural and artificial, begins to fade and languish
after a short Acquaintance with it: Novelty is a never-failing
Requisite: We look down, with indifference and Contempt, upon
what we comprehend easily ; and are ever aiming at, and pursuing,
such Objects as are just within the Compass of our present facul-
ties. What is it now, that we ought to learn from this Dissatis-
faction to look behind us, and Tendency to press forward; and
from this endless Grasping after Infinity? Is it not, that the
infinite Author of all Things has so formed our Faculties, that
nothing less than himself can be adequate Object for them? That
it is in vain to hope for full and lasting Satisfaction from anything
finite, however great and glorious, since it will itself teach us to
conceive and desire something still more so? That, as nothing
can give us more than a transitory Delight, if its Relation to God
be excluded; so every thing, when considered as the Production
of his infinite Wisdom and Goodness, will gratify our utmost
Expectations, since we may, in this View, see that every thing has
infinite Uses and Excellencies? There is not an Atom perhaps
in the whole Universe, which does not abound with millions of
Worlds ; and, conversly, this great System of the Sun, Planets,
and fixed Stars, may be no more than a single constituent Particle
of some Body of an immense relative Magnitude, &c. In like
manner, there is not a Moment of Time so small, but it may
include Millions of Ages in the Estimation of some Beings; and,
conversly, the largest Cycle which human Art is able to invent,
may be no more than the Twinkling of an Eye in that of others,
&c. The infinite Divisibility and Extent of Space and Time admit
of such Infinities upon Infinities, ascending and descending, as
make the imagination giddy, when it attempts to survey them.
But, however this may be, we may be sure, that the true System
of Things is infinitely more transcendent in Greatness and Good-
ness, than any Description or Conception of ours can make it; and
that the Voice of Nature is an universal Chorus of Joy and Trans-
port, in which the least and vilest, according to common Estima-
tion, bear a proper Part, as well as those whose present Superiority
over them appears indefinitely great, and may bear an equal one
in the true and ultimate Ratio of Things. And thus the Con-
sideration of God gives a Relish and Lustre to Speculations, which
are otherwise dry and unsatisfactory, or perhaps would confound
and terrify. Thus we may learn to rejoice in every thing we see,
in the Blessings past, present, and future ; which we receive either
in our own Persons, or in those of others; to become Partakers of
the Divine Nature, loving and lovely, holy and happy.’

262 Notes

PAGE 99, Il. 3-5. ‘where it is considered as absolute measure
beyond which no greater is possible subjectively (i.e. for the judging
Subject), it then conveys the idea of the sublime.’ What suggests
the sublime is not absolutely great. Burke approaches this difficulty
(Pt. II, § viii): ‘There are scarce any things which can become
the objects of our senses that are really and in their own nature
infinite. But the eye not being able to perceive the bounds of many
things, they seem to be infinite, and they produce the same effects
as if they were really so. We are deceived in the like manner, if
the parts of some large object are so continued to an indefinite
number, that the imagination meets no check which may hinder its
extending them at pleasure.’ Webb thinks that the feeling of the
sublime is occasioned by a comparison of the proportions of external
objects with our own. ‘It is probable, that a great part of the
pleasure which we receive in the contemplation of such Colossal
figures, arises from a comparison of their proportions with our own.
The mind in these moments grows ambitious; and feels itself
aspiring to greater powers, and superior functions: These noble
and exalted feelings diffuse a kind of rapture through the soul, and
raise in it conceptions and aims above the limits of humanity. The
finest, and, at the same time, most pleasing sensations in nature,
are those, which (if I may be allowed the expression) carry us out
of ourselves, and bring us nearest to that divine original from which
we spring.’ (Beauties of Painting, p. 45.)

l. 28. ‘Savary ’—Lettres sur PEgypie, 1787.

PAGE 100, 1. 7. ‘St. Peter’s.’ Home regards St. Peter’s and the
Pyramids as grand (i.e. Zrächtig, splendid, magnificent) rather than
sublime, and, on Kant’s own definitions, he would seem correct.
‘Thus St. Peter’s Church at Rome, the Great Pyramid of Egypt,
the Alps towering above the clouds, a great arm of the sea, and
above all a clear and serene sky, are grand, because, beside their
size, they are beautiful in an eminent degree.’ (Elements of Criti-
césm, vol. i, ch. v, p. 212.)

l. 25. ‘In rude nature merely as involving magnitude.’ Reid
adopts a different view. ‘When we contemplate the world of
Epicurus, and conceive the universe to be a fortuitous jumble of
atoms, there is nothing grand in this idea. The clashing of atoms
by blind chance has nothing in it fit to raise our conceptions, or to
elevate the mind. But the regular structure of a vast system of
beings, produced by creative power, and governed by the best laws
which perfect wisdom and goodness could contrive, is a spectacle
which elevates the understanding, and fills the soul with devout
admiration.’ (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay VIII, ch. 3;
Collected Works, p. 496.) It may be mentioned that in a note de-
voted mainly to a criticism of Kant’s position on this point Hegel
censures a Class of Astronomers who make much of the sublimity
of their science on the ground that they are concerned with such an
immeasurable number of stars and with such immeasurable extents

Notes 263

of space and periods of time. Hegel says that it is not immeasura-
bility but measure and law that makes the starry heavens a fit
object of wonder. (Hegel’s Werke, vol. iii, p. 269. See O’Sullivan,
Old Criticism and New Pragmatism, pp. 182, 183.) Hegel quotes
Kant’s remarks on Sublimity at the close of the Critigue of Prac-
tical Reason (Ethics, pp. 260-1; Werke, vol. v, pp. 161-3). But
Kant’s whole object is to depreciate rude nature as merely involving
magnitude. It is the mere occasion of the judgement. Also a pure
aesthetic judgement cannot take cognisance of the reign of law.

PAGE 102, 1. 25. ‘space and time past.’ As to why Kant says
time fast, see Critigue of Pure Reason, p.257. Gerard also speaks
of the ‘admiration which is excited by things remote in time;
especially in antiquity, or past duration’. (Zssay on Taste, p. 19.)
He accepts the psychological explanation of this fact given by
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I], p. 3, § 8.

PAGE 105, 1. 27. ‘RESPECT.’ Cf. Critégue of Practical Reason
(Ethics, p. 169; Werke, vol. 5, p.76). ‘ Respect applies to persons
only—not to things. The latter may arouse inclination, and if they
are animals (e. g. horses, dogs, &c.), even love or fear, like the sea,
a volcano, a beast of prey; but never vesfect. Something that comes
nearer to this feeling is admiration, and this, as an affection, astonish-
ment, can apply to things also, e. g. lofty mountains, the magnitude,
number, and distance of the heavenly bodies, the strength and swift-
ness of many animals, &c. But all this is not respect.’ Admiration is,
therefore, applicable to the occasion that awakens the sense of the
sublime, but the respect can only apply to our own supersensible
sphere. Hence, if Kant’s analysis of respect is correct, and if he
was also: correct in connecting the sense of the sublime with the
feeling of respect, he was correct in saying that nature is not
properly termed sublime.

PAGE 106, 1. 7. ‘subreption.’ Reid, who could not think of
allowing common language or common sense to be tricked, still
goes so far as to admit that we call objects of nature grand only by
a figure of speech. ‘When we contemplate the earth, the seas, the
planetary system, the universe, these are vast objects; it requires a
stretch of imagination to grasp them in our minds. But they appear
truly grand, and merit the highest admiration, when we consider
them as the work of God.... A great work is a work of great
power, great wisdom, and great goodness, well contrived for some
important end. But power, wisdom, and goodness are properly
the attributes of mind only. They are ascribed to the work figura-
tively, but are really inherent in the author; and by the same
figure, the grandeur is ascribed to the work, but is properly inherent
in the mind that made it.’ (Essays on the Intellectual Powers,
Essay VIII, ch. 3; Collected Works, p. 496.)

l. 12, ‘a feeling of displeasure.’ Cf. Burke, Part III, § 27.
Contrasting the sublime and the beautiful he says: ‘They are
indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain,

264 ‚Notes

the other on pleasure.’ But there is a distinction between pain
(Burke) and displeasure (Kant). p : SLs

PAGE 107, 1. 5. ‘a rapidly alternating repulsion and attraction.
Cf. p. 201, 1.7 et seq. and 1. 21. Why, then, do we not laugh at the
sublime? Apparently because there is not a reduction to nothing —
cf. p. 200, ll. 13-17. But in respect of its physical concomitants Kant
certainly brings the sublime very near the ridiculous. Also cf. p. 126,
1. 23 et seq., and compare with pp. 199, 1. 2; 201, ll. 14 and 25.

PaGE 108, ll. 6, 7. ‘The effort, therefore, to receive in a single
intuition a measure for magnitudes which [measure] it takes an
appreciable time to apprehend.’ Cf. Home, Elements of Criticism,
vol. i, p. 227: ‘The grandest emotion that can be raised by a visible
object is where the object can be taken in at one view; ifso immense
as not to be comprehended but in parts, it tends rather to distract
than satisfy the mind.’

PaGE 109, ll. 25,26. ‘If we are to estimate nature a5 dynamically
sublime, it must be represented as a source of fear.’ It is, therefore,
the instinct towards self-preservation that is primarily engaged.
Cf. Burke, Pt. II, $ 22: ‘The sublime is an idea belonging to self-
preservation.’ Blair regards what Kant calls the dynamically
sublime as more fundamental than the mathematically sublime.
‘I am inclined to think, that mighty force or power, whether
accompanied with terror or not, whether employed in protecting,
or in alarming us, has a better title than anything that has yet been
mentioned, to be the fundamental quality of the Sublime.’ (Lectures
on Rhetoric, vol. i, p. 66.)

PAGE 112, 1. 3. ‘This estimation of ourselves loses nothing by
the fact that we must see ourselves safe.’ Cf. Burke, Pt. I, § 15:
“So it is certain, that it is absolutely necessary my life should be
out of any imminent hazard, before I can take a delight in the
sufferings of others, real or imaginary, or indeed in anything else
from any cause whatsoever. But then it is a sophism to argue from
thence, that this immunity is the cause of my delight either on
these or on any occasions.’ What then is the cause of the delight?
Burke relies on a natural attraction that misfortune has for us, and
explains this attraction teleologically by its beneficent social
function. ‘The delight we have in such things hinders us from
shunning scenes of misery; and the pain we feel prompts us to
relieve ourselves in relieving those who suffer.’ Cf. Pt. I, $$ 14, 15.
Kant’s answer is that the reflection upon the might of nature ‘ dis-
covers a pre-eminence above nature that is the foundation of a self-
preservation of quite another kind from that which may be assailed
and brought into danger by external nature’.

1, 12. ‘when he stretches his reflection so far abroad’—i.e.
when he looks to the goal towards which he is bound to strive,
i.e. when he reflects upon what he ought to be. Cf. Religion
within the Bounds of mere Reason (Ethics, p. 354; Werke, vol. vi,
p. 46): ‘The original good is holiness of maxims in following one’s

Notes 265

duty, by which the man who adopts this purity into his maxims,
although he is not himself on that account holy (for there is still
along interval between maxim and act), nevertheless is on the way
to approximate to holiness by an endless progress.’

l. 26. ‘all the virtues of peace.” Cf. King Henry’s address
before Harfleur; King Henry V, Act 111, Scene i:

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.

ll. 27-9. Cf. Aristotle’s remarks on Courage, in the Wicomachean
Ethics, Book III, ch. 12.

PaGE 114, 1.18. ‘a religion consisting in a good life’ Cf. Religion
within the Bounds of mere Reason (Ethics, p. 360; Werke, vol. vi,
p. 51): ‘We may divide all religions into two classes—favour-seek-
ing religion (mere worship), and »zora/ religion, that is, the religion
of a good life.’

PAGE 115, 1. 8. ‘a far higher degree of culture’ Cf. pp. 116,
1, 26 et seq.; 149, 1. 18 et seq. ; and, as to fine art, p. 226, 1.25 et
seq. As to the degree of culture requisite for taste and for art,
see Hume, Essays, Pt. I, Essay I, ‘Of the Delicacy of Taste and
Passion.’ Also Home, Elements of Criticism, p. xi 2.: ‘A taste
for natural objects is born with us in perfection, for relishing a fine
countenance, a rich landscape, or a vivid colour, culture is unneces-
sary. The observation holds equally in natural sounds, such as
the singing of birds, or the murmuring of a brook, Nature here,
the artificer of the object as well as the percipient, hath necessarily
suited them each to the other. But of a poem, a cantata, a picture
or other artificial production, a true relish is not commonly attained
without some study and much practice.’ Shaftesbury, who con-
nected the sublime with astonishment, regarded it as of earlier
growth. ‘’Tis easy to imagine, that amidst the several stiles
and manners of discourse or writing, the earliest attained, and
earliest practised, was the miraculous, the pompous, or what we
generally call the Swd/ime. Astonishment is of all other passions
the easiest raised in raw and unexperienced mankind. Children in
their earliest infancy are entertained in this manner. . . . Thus the
florid and over sanguine humour of the high stile was allayed by
something of a contrary nature. The comick genius was apply’d as
a kind of caustic. . . . He shows us that this first formed Comedy
and scheme of /udicrous wit was introduced upon the neck of the
sublime’ (Advice to an Author, Pt. Il, sect. 2.) ‘When the
admiring world made their first judgment, and essayed their taste
in the elegancies of this sort ; the /o/ty, the sudlime, the astonishing
and amazing would be the most in fashion, and preferred. AZe¢a-
phorical speech, multiplicity of figures and high-sounding words
would naturally prevail. ... A better judgment was soon form’d

266 Notes

when a DEMOSTHENES was heard, and had found success. . . .
And now in all the principal Works of /ngenuity and Art, SIM-
PLICITY and NATURE began chiefly to be sought: And this was
the TASTE which lasted thro’ so many Ages, till the Ruin of all
things, under a Universal Monarchy.’ (Miscellaneous Reflections,
Misc. 3, ch. i.) Of course Kant has a much higher conception of
the sublime than that eve contemplated by Shaftesbury. But
whether it would be of later development than the gure judgement
of taste is another question.

ll. 16, 17. ‘the straining of the imagination to use nature as
a schema for ideas.’ Nature is more successfully used to provide
symbols for ideas.

PAGE 116, 1. 12. ‘introduced in a more or less conventional way
into society.’ Cf. p. 85, 1. 12. The modality of the judgement
upon the sublime is conditioned by the capacity for the moral
feeling in man, just as the judgement of the beautiful is conditioned
by the sensus communis. But § 59 proves, and $ 60 recognizes
clearly, that the existence of taste presupposes man’s moral capacity.

1.24. ‘he has no feeling In the representation of the sublime
the mind feels itself se¢ 2 motion (p. 107, 1.1), and experiences
a feeling of emotion (p. 68, 1.27). In connexion with this technical
use of the word ‘feeling, cf. pp. 162, 1.25 ; 227, 1.25 et seq. Inthe
case of the sublime there is an immediate reference to this ‘feeling’;
in the case of the beautiful the ‘ feeling’ for beautiful nature only
arises on reflection upon the import of the beauty.

PAGE 117, 1. 3. ‘In this modality of aesthetic judgements.’ Notice
that Kant does not say ‘ of aesthetic judgements upon the sublime’.
Also observe the generality of the whole paragraph, which reads
strangely after §§ 18-22. Compare with p. 132. Further, observe
that, despite its heading, this section seems only to contemplate
the dynamically sublime.

1. 9. ‘of finer feeling.” This seems aimed at Hume and his
followers.

PAGE 118, 1. 16. ‘hindrances on the part of sensibility.’ Cf.
Religion within the Bounds of mere Reason (Ethics, p. 325, and
especially pp. 352-60; Werke, vol. vi, pp. 44-52).

PAGE 119, 1. 14. ‘he elevation of nature beyond our reach’, or
“the transcendency of nature’—die Unerreichbarkeit der Natur.
This would be translated more literally by “the unattainability of
nature’, but I was anxious to make it clear that what Kant here
refers to is not nature’s inadequacy in respect of ideas of reason,
but nature’s physical superiority over us—its immeasurableness
and invincibility. Kant has so far advanced from the purely
negative conception of the sublime as to allow us to predicate
of nature, not true sublimity, but a relative physical superiority
which we can look upon as a presentation of ideas. Once we
have grasped the meaning of true sublimity we may treat the
immeasurableness and invincibility of nature as aesthetically

Notes 267

sublime. Nature is aesthetically sublime in such of its phenomena
as convey the idea of infinity. Thus Kant carries his account of
the sublime to a point at which it meets his account of symbolism
and aesthetic ideas. When, a few pages on, he says that sum-
Blicity (artless finality) is, as it were, the style adopted by nature in
the sublime, the transition is completely effected.

PAGE 120, 1.15. ‘presupposes and cultivates a certain /éberality
of thought.’ This to some extent modifies the statement that the
sense of the beautiful presupposes far less culture than the sense of
the sublime. This, again, is modified by what follows. But surely
the fact that in the former case freedom is represented ‘ rather as
in Hay’ does not make the degree of culture presupposed any less.
The very fact that it is represented ‘as zm Play’ argues greater
culture. Undoubtedly in the case of the beautiful all that is pre-
supposed in the individual is a mere moral capacity (as a Nafur-
anlage); but more than this is presupposed in the race, and it is
precisely by culture that the individual reaps the benefit of this
‘something more’ presupposed in race, without himself requiring
an active /ee/ing for moral ideas.

Pace 122, 1. 5. ‘just as it strikes the eye.’ Cf. Shaftesbury,
The Judgment of Hercules, Intro. (4): ‘Probability or seeming
truth (which is the real truth of Art)’; also Home, Zlements of
Criticism, vol. ii, p. 327: ‘Where the subject is intended for enter-
tainment, not for instruction, a thing ought to be described as it
appears, not as it is in reality.’ Thus Shakespeare says:

Look how the floor of heaven,
Is thick inlaid with patterns of bright gold!

PAGE 127, 1. 21. ‘in their moral period’ This unkind qualifica-
tion is a regrettable concession to continental prejudice.

PAGE 128, 1. 6. ‘and which facilitate their being treated as
though they were merely passive’—und wodurch man ihn, als
bloss passiv, leichter behandeln kann. Kirchmann’s reading, als
bloss positiv, has not been followed by any other editor. But it
would make excellent sense. Men are meant to progress ; but to
fix them within arbitrary limits would be only to allow them to be
so much and no more. From the point of view of governments this
is an advantage, for it enables the subjects to be dealt with in
a merely positive, definitely assigned, capacity. Within the limits
the subjects are allowed to be as active as they like ; but any ten-
dency to transcend them is regarded as a tendency to anarchy.
Such a point would be quite germane to Kant’s argument. For
governments to attempt to fix arbitrary limits to the progress of
their subjects is like attempting a positive presentation of the sub-
lime. On the other hand the reading in the text, which almost
involves a truism, seems a very weak ending to a forcible passage.
Hence, despite the fact that all the three editions read als bloss
Passiv, I should feel inclined to follow Kirchmann if I could find a

268 Notes

single precisely analogous passage in which Kant uses the word
positiv in this connexion. This I have been unable to do, although
there are many in which Kant makes exactly similar references to
passivity. . .

1. 18. ‘delirium... mania’ The Latin equivalents are
dementia and insania. See Anthropology, § 52.

1, 25. ‘Simplicity. Home has some excellent remarks on
simplicity. But he does not confine it in any way to the sublime,
though he says: ‘There is an additional reason for simplicity, in
works of dignity and elevation; which is, that the mind attached
to beauties of a high rank cannot descend to inferior beauties.’
(Elements of Criticism, vol. i, p. 202.) Simplicity, he also says, is
the governing taste in architecture. The importance of simplicity
was frequently emphasized by English writers. Gerard seems to
place simplicity almost on a level with magnitude. ‘ Objects are
sublime which possess guanzity, or amplitude, and szmplicity in
conjunction.’ (Zssay on Taste, p. 11.) Gerard refers to An Essay
on the Sublime, by Dr. Baillie. I have not seen this work.

PAGE 129, 1. 2. “isolation from all society’ Cf. Burke, Pt. I,
§ 11, ‘Society and Solitude.’

PAGE 130, |. 22. ‘Burke.’ Cf. Part IV, $$ 7, 19.

PAGE 131,1. 3. ‘(from which, still, he would have desire kept
separate).’ Cf. Pt. III, $1.

PAGE 132, 1. 3. ‘all censorship of taste.’ Observe how Kant is
referring principally to taste, and preparing for the Deduction in
a manner quite unnecessary having regard to the second and fourth
moments of the judgement of taste.

PAGE 183, ll. 24-7. Kant shows a greater regard for the truth
than Spence does. The latter observes : ‘And I the rather take
part of the beauty of all these creatures to be meant, by the bounty
of nature, for us; because most of the different sorts of sea-fish
(which live chiefly out of our sight) are of colours and forms more
hideous, or (at best) less agreeable to us.’ (Cro, Fugitive Pieces,
vol. i, p. 56.)

PAGE 184, 1. 13. “the mere occasion.’ Veranlassung (occasion,
inducement, incentive). Cf. p. 149, |. 27.

PAGE 186, 1. 16. ‘ compare the aesthetic form with the form of the
objective judgements as prescribed by logic.’ Cf. p. 41, 1. 25.

l. 29. ‘to suppose .. . that its beauty is to be taken for a
property of the flower itself.” Cf. pp. 51, ll. 6-12; 52,1. 18; 216,
l.11. British writers were generally quite clear on the point that
beauty is not a property of the object, e.g. Home, Elements of
Criticism, vol. i, p. 208: ‘ Beauty therefore, which for its existence
depends on the percipient as much as on the object perceived,
cannot be an inherent property in either. And hence it is wittily
observed by the poet, that beauty is not in the person beloved, but
in the lover’s eye.’ Cf. Hutcheson, Inguiry, sect. i, subsect. 17.
In the essay on ‘The Standard of Taste’ Hume says: ‘Though it

Notes 269

be certain that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter,
are not qualities in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment,
internal or external, it must be allowed, that there are certain
qualities in objects which are fitted by nature to produce those
particular feelings.” Also in his essay, ‘The Sceptic’, he says:
‘But the case is not the same with the qualities of beautiful and
deformed, desirable and odious, as with truth and falsehood. In
the former case, the mind is not content with merely surveying its
objects, as they stand in themselves: it also feels a sentiment of
delight or uneasiness, approbation or blame, consequent to that
survey; and this sentiment determines it to affıx the epithet
beautiful or deformed, desirable or odious. Now, it is evident,
that this sentiment must depend upon the particular fabric or
structure of the mind, which enables such particular forms to
operate in such particular manner.’ Reid, however, contends that
beauty is a quality of the object. In the course of his remarks he
observes: ‘ This sense of beauty, like the perceptions of our other
senses, implies not only a feeling, but an opinion of some quality
in the object which occasions that feeling’ (Zssays on the Intel-
lectual Powers, Essay VIII, ch. i, § 6.) Does this only mean what
Kant says at pp. 91,1.3; 93,1. 31? If not, what does it mean?
Cf. quotation from Reid in annotation to p. 51, ll. 6-12.

PAGE 137, 1. 32. ‘the works of the ancients.’ Cf. Hume’s
remarks in essay on ‘The Standard of Taste’, quoted in annotation to
p-75,1.13. Also see in his essay on ‘The Rise and Progress of the
Arts and Sciences’: ‘If the natural genius of mankind be the same
in all ages, and in almost all countries (as seems to be the truth),
it must very much forward and cultivate this genius, to be possessed
of patterns in every art, which may regulate the taste, and fix the
objects of imitation. The models left us by the ancients gave birth
to all the arts about two hundred years ago, and have mightily
advanced their progress in every country in Europe.’ Wy

PAGE 141, 1. 16. ‘as Hume says.’ Zssays, Part I, xvili, ‘The
Sceptic’: ‘There is something approaching to principles in mental
taste; and critics can reason and dispute more plausibly than cooks
or perfumers. We may observe, however, that this uniformity
among human kind hinders not, but that there is a considerable
diversity in the sentiments of beauty and worth, and that education,
custom, prejudice, caprice, and humour, frequently vary our taste
of this kind. You will never convince a man, who is not accus-
tomed to Italian music, and has not an ear to follow its intricacies,
that a Scots tune is not preferable. You have not even any single
argument beyond your own taste, which you can employ in that
behalf; and to your antagonist his particular taste will always
appear a more convincing argument to the contrary.’

Pace 148, Il. 27-8. ‘of the facu/ty of intuitions .. . under the
Jaculty of concepts.’ Cf. pp. 30,1. 28; 42,1. 17; 90,1. 16; 133, 1, 20.

PaGE 144, 1. 6. ‘a judgement of experience.’ This seems the

270 Notes

most convenient point at which to collect the various passages in
which Kant considers the character of judgements of taste in con-
nexion with his general division of empirical judgements into Judge-
ments of perception and judgements of experience. The basis of
this division is clearly stated in the Prolegomena, $$ 18, 19 (see
Bax’s translation, p. 45). Kant there observes ‘ Empirical judge-
ments, in so far as they have objective validity are JUDGEMENTS OF
EXPERIENCE; but those which are merely subjectively valid | call
judgements of perception. The last require no pure conception of
the understanding ; but only the logical connexion of perception in
a thinking subject. But the first demand, above the presentation
of sensuous intuition, sdecial conceptions originally generated in
the understanding, which make the judgement of experience
objectively valid.

“All our judgements are at first mere judgements of perception ;
they are valid simply for us, namely, for our subject. It is only
subsequently that we give them a new reference, namely, to an
object, and insist that they shall be valid for us always, as well
as for every one else. For when a judgement coincides with an
object, all judgements must both coincide with the same object and
with one another, and thus the objective validity of the judgement
of experience implies nothing more than the necessary universal
validity of the same. But, on the other hand, when we see reason
to hold a judgement of necessity universally valid (which never
hinges on the perception itself, but on the pure conception of the
understanding under which the perception is subsumed), we are
obliged to regard it as objective, i.e. as expressing not merely the
reference of the perception to a subject but a quality of the object;
for there would be no reason why the judgements of other persons
must necessarily coincide with mine, if it were not that the unity
of the object to which they all refer, and with which they coincide,
necessitates them all agreeing with one another.

‘Objective validity and necessary universality (for every one) are
therefore exchangeable notions, and although we do not know the
object in itself, yet when we regard a judgement as at once universal
and necessary, objective validity is therewith understood.’ But
Kant now recognizes that judgements of perception may be brought
into connexion with an @ Zriorz conception that is not a category of
understanding capable of being used, by means of an appropriate
schema, for the determination of objects, but which is quite indeter-
minate and indeterminable, and is only capable of being used in a
reflective judgement. A new kind of necessity is now recognized—
a mere exemplary necessity which can avail itself of no rule for the
determination of objects—and necessary universality of this kind in
no way involves any objective validity. But the connexion between
objective validity and necessary universality is still so close that under
the presupposition of a common sense the subjective necessity, which
is implied in judgements of taste, is represented as objective, Judge-

Notes 271

ments of taste thus appear as judgements of perception which are
transformed by reference to an indeterminable conception of a
finality for the cognitive faculties generally, and which, under pre-
supposition of common sense, assume, as it were, the character
of singular judgements of experience. Judgements of taste thus
occupy an intermediate position between judgements of perception
and judgements of experience. The problem is outlined in the
Preface, pp. 5,6. It is restated and solved in $$ 6, 8, 9, 20, 21, 22.
It is again restated and similarly solved in the Deduction.

From the whole discussion we may see that empirical judgements
are divisible into those that depend upon an a Zriori conception and
those that do not. Those that do may be divided into those in
which the conception is provided with a schema and in which the
judgement is consequently determinant, and those in which no
schema can be provided, and in which the conception is conse-
quently only available for a reflective judgement. The former are
judgements of experience : the latter judgements of taste. Empiri-
cal judgements which have no underlying @ Srzori conception are
mere judgements of perception. The primary class of these judge-
ments refer to what belongs to the cognition of an object. But
from them are developed, on the one hand, judgements which
merely concern agreeableness, and which are still mere judgements
of perception, and, on the other, judgements of taste. Both of
these refer to what is subjective and incapable of forming any part
of the cognition of an object. But in the latter case the subjective
element is immediately bound up with the representation of the
form of the object, whereas in the former it is only concerned with
the matter of sensation.

PAGE 146, 1. 12. ‘not the pleasure but ¢he universal validity of
this pleasure.’ Cf. p. 57, 1. 24 et seq.

PAGE 148, ]. 19. We cannot assign any reason a friori why
nature must be beautiful; we only find that, as a contingent fact,
it contains objects which we may validly, on subjective grounds,
consider beautiful.

PAGE 150, 1. 16. ‘is requisite also for ordinary sound under-
standing.’ Cf. Hume, Essays, xxiii, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’:
‘It seldom or never happens, that a man of sense, who has ex-
perience in any art, cannot judge of its beauty ; and it is no less
rare to meet with a man who has a just taste without a sound
understanding.’

PAGE 151, 1. 17. ‘a public sense’—eines gemeinschaftlichen
Sinnes. Kant does not say ‘a sense common to all’. This would
not give his meaning ; which is perhaps best suggested by the
expression ‘public sense’. For if public spirit is a spirit which
pays regard to the public good, a sense ‘which in its reflective act
takes account of the mode of representation of every one else’ may
be called a public sense. Cf. definition of taste atp.154.

PaGE 153, |. 7. ‘if he detaches himself from the subjective

272 Notes

personal conditions of his judgement.’ Cf. Hume, Essays, Pt. I,
xxiii, ‘Of the Standard of Taste’: ‘A person influenced by pre-
judice complies not with this condition, but obstinately maintains
his natural position without placing himself in that point of view
which the performance supposes. If the work be addressed to
persons of a different age or nation, he makes no allowances for
their peculiar views and prejudices.’

PAGE 154, 1. 17. ‘ The empirical interest in the beautiful” Ct.
p. 128, l. 31 et seq. .

PAGE 155,1. 10. ‘as a creature intended for society.’ Grotius
and Pufendorf had emphasized the social nature of man, and the
important bearing of this point on aesthetics was recognized by most
of the British writers. Cf. Shaftesbury, Essay on the Freedom of
Wit and Humour, Pt. III, sects. 1,2; Zhe Moralists, Pt. II, sect. 4.
Home recognized the importance of “our destination for society’.
Cf. Elements of Criticism, vol. i, p.192. Hume insisted on the con-
nexion between art, refinement, society, and humanity. (Cf. Part II,
Essay II, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts.’)

PAGE 156, 1. 12. ‘of no importance for us here’—not because it
is merely zndirectly attached (see 1. 14) but because only indirectly
attached by the zzc/ination to society. Something deeper than
a mere empirical inclination must be sought.

1. 16. “a transition.’ Cf. p. 225, l. 19. As explained in the
introductory essays, the final solution of this problem is not given
in § 42, but in § 59.

PAGE 158, 1. 30. The influence of Rousseau is seen in this para-
graph. The other side of the question is forcibly argued by Hume,
Essays, Part II, Essay II, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts’ The
question is ably dealt with by Hartley, Odservations on Man, vol. ii,
Prop. 57. As against the immoderate pursuit of the elegancies of
life he argues: ‘Thirdly, That the Beauties of nature are far
superior to all artificial ones, Solomon in all his Glory not being
arrayed like a Lily of the Field; that they are open to everyone,
and therefore rather restrain than feed the Desire of Property ; and
that they lead to Humility, Devotion, and the Study of the Ways
of Providence. We ought therefore much rather to apply ourselves
to the Contemplation of natural than of Artificial Beauty’ In
vol. i, Prop. 94, Hartley makes an observation which may be
quoted as bearing on the general problem of this section. ‘ Those
Persons who have already formed high Ideas of the Power, Know-
ledge, and Goodness, of the Author of Nature, with suitable
affections, generally feel the exalted Pleasures of Devotion upon
every View and Contemplation of his Works, either in an explicit
and distinct Manner, or in a secret and implicit one. Hence, part
of the general and indeterminate Pleasures, here considered, is
deducible from the Pleasures of Theopathy.’ There would seem
to be a good deal of the indeterminate pleasures of Theopathy
underlying the intellectual interest described by Kant.

Notes 273

PAGE 159, 1. 5. ‘in a train of thought.’ Alison placed beauty
entirely in these trains of thought. ‘When any object of sublimity
or beauty is presented to the mind, I believe every man is conscious
of a train of thought being immediately awakened in his imagina-
tion, analogous to the character or expression of the original
object.” (Essays on Taste, p.2; cf. pp. 3, 11, 13, 48.)

1.6. “which he can never completely evolve.’ Presumably he
has come across what suggests an aesthetic idea. He will certainly
never completely evolve how it can have objective reality.

1. 29. ‘objective reality.’ Cf. pp. 147, 1. 8; 176, 1. 26; 221,
1. 23 ; and also p. 92, ll. 16-28.

1, 31. ‘some ground or other.’ Cf. p. 224, ll. 15-22.

PAGE 160, 1. 8. ‘the presence of at least the germ of a good
moral disposition’ —eime Anlage zu, &c. Anlage (capacity,
basis, predisposition, tendency, rudiment, talent) is generally
a difficult word to translate. In the present case it would be
accurately hit off by an Irishman, ‘he has ¢he makings of a good
moral disposition.’ (Cf. p. 162,1. 22.) The modality of the intel-
lectual interest in the beauty of nature rests on the same basis as
that of the judgement upon the sublime. Hence, as shown above
(p. cxiv), it could not explain why agreement in judgements upon the
beautiful is exacted as a duty—which is the problem. (Cf. p. 154
l. 9 et seq.) For the claim to agreement in the latter case has the
firmer basis. (Cf. p. 149.)

l. 19. ‘the analogy.’ Cf. pp. 222, 1. 24; 224, 1. 23; 225,1. 13.

PaGE 161, i. 3. ‘in the Teleology.’ The promised discussion
occurs in § 67, in which Kant argues that, once the teleological
judgement has justified the idea of a great system of ends of nature,
then, instead of merely saying that we regard nature with favour
(cf. p. 220, 1. 16), we can regard it as a favour of nature that it has
been willing to minister to our culture by exhibiting so many
beautiful forms. (Cf. Dr. Bernard’s translation, p. 286.) But as
this way of looking at the matter is not necessary for the aesthetic
judgement, nor for science, nor for morality, there does not appear
to be any object in adopting an attitude so at variance with all that
was said in $ 58. (Also see p. 148, ll. 12-20.) It is to be observed
that Kant refers in the footnote in § 67 to what had been said ‘in
the part on aesthetics’, but does not mention the section referred
to. But what is stated to have been said shows that the reference
is to § 58. This helps to connect $ 42 and $ 58. The justification
for requiring the agreement of others in our aesthetic judgement as
a sort of duty is not based on any teleological judgement as to ends
of nature. (Cf. p. 220, 1. 17 et seq.)

l. 22. ‘The charms in natural beauty.’ Cf. p. 157, 1.29 et seq.

1. 31. ‘colours.’ Cf. Alison, Zssays on Taste, p. 197. _ The
meaning of the language of colours contemplated by Kant obviously
depends upon an association of ideas. Universal agreement with
the interpretation of the seven colours given could not be expected,

1193 2

274 Notes

and he qualifies his remarks with the word ‘seems’. Cf. his
remarks on music, p. 194, 1. 7 et seq.

PAGE 163, 1. 30. ‘Camper’—Peter Camper (1722-89), a Dutch
physician and scientist, and author of anatomical and „medical
works. Also referred to in Anthropology ; Werke, vol. vii, p. 299,
l. 15. (See editor’s note on p. 366 of same.)

PAGE 164, 1.9. ‘Whether in the list of arts and crafts we are
to rank watch-makers as artists’ Cf. Duff, Essay on Original
Genius, pp. 75, 76: ‘To constitute an excellent watch-maker,
or even a carpenter, some share of this quality [genius] is
requisite. In most of the arts indeed, of which we are speaking,
industry, it must be granted, will in a great measure supply the
place of genius; and dexterity of performance may be acquired
by habit and sedulous application ; yet in others of a more elegant
kind, these will by no means altogether supersede its use and exer-
cise; since it can alone bestow those finishing touches that bring
credit and reputation to the workman. Every ingenious artist, who
would execute his piece with uncommon nicety and neatness, must
really work from his imagination. The model of the piece must exist
in his own mind. Therefore the more vivid and perfect his ideas
of this are, the more exquisite and complete will be the copy.’

l. 24. ‘leaders of a newer school.’ The reference is to the
leaders of the Sturm und Drang movement. Cf. pp. 168, ll. 31,
32; 171,1. 27 et seq.; 182,1. 14 et seq.; 201, 1. 30 et seq.

PAGE 165, 11. 9, 10. Similarly Duff remarks: ‘The truth is, to
bring philosophical subjects to the tribunal of Taste, or to employ
this faculty principally in their examination, is extremely dangerous,
and naturally productive of absurdity and error. The order of things
is thereby reversed; reason is dethroned, and sense usurps the
place of judgement.’ (Essay on Original Genius, p. 12; cf. p. 16.)
Reid has a number of similar observations.

PAGE 167, 1. 11. ‘ Now art has always got a definite intention of
producing something ’—yet it must be free. This difficulty is only
to be solved by recognizing genius and aesthetic ideas. Cf. pp.171,
123; 173,15; 175, 1. 2; 180, I. 19; 185, 1. 12 et seq.; 220, l. 32
et seq. ; 226, 1.1 et seq. Alison, Essays on Taste, p. 307: ‘ Every
work of Art supposes Unity of Design, or some one end which the
Artist had in view in its structure or composition.’

1. 24. ‘fine art must be clothed with £he aspect of nature,
although we recognize it to be art.’ Fine art, though it has an end
In view, must at least be master of the ars celare artem. Kant’s
point is zof that all art must be an imitation of nature (in the usual
sense), which must not be carried to the point of deception. (Cf.
pp. 161, 1.6 et seq-; 174, 1. 7; where the case of imitation
approaching deception is touched upon incidentally.) English
writers from Sir Philip Sidney down to Whistler and Wilde have
endeavoured to reconcile the conception of art as imitative with the
conception of art as the product of original genius. The solution

Notes 275

as reached by Whistler and Wilde seems to come to this, that art
is only concerned with certain values which are freely assigned by
art itself. These values art introduces into nature, which in itself
is quite indifferent to them, and which thus merely contains the
raw material of art. Art, therefore, merely wses nature as a medium
for the expression of the artist. Beautiful nature is only objec-
tified, or, if we may use the word in a good sense, vulgarized art.
This solution has obviously a very strong Kantian colour. But in
this section Kant evades the question of how far art is imitative.
This he apparently does deliberately, and, playing on the ambiguity
of the expression ‘looks like nature’, prepares for his statement
that genius, which is the source of art, is nature in the Subject.
Certain arts may use representations of natural objects as the
medium for the expression of aesthetic ideas, and their products
may be like nature in a special sense (cf. § 51); but all art must be
like nature in the sense of being free from all constraint of arbitrary
rules. It may be remarked that the emphasis here would seem
to be on ‘constraint’ and ‘arbitrary’ and not upon ‘free’. The
product of genius is not like nature in being free, but in its rules
not being imposed arbitrarily from without. The rule must seem
to belong to the constitution of the product itself. Kant might,
perhaps, have seemed more convincing if he had said that the
finality of the form of a product of art, while appearing free from
all constraint of arbitrary rules (as the freedom of art implies),
must appear just as zzevitable and predetermined as if it were
a product of mere nature produced according to universal laws of
nature. But the only way that this is possible is through unity
of design, where the idea of the whole is antecedent to the parts
and determines their connexion. Cf. Kant’s reference to the
‘feeling of unity in the presentation’ (p. 182, 1. 8). Shaftesbury’s
remarks on /rufk may be quoted here as suggestive: ‘For all
Beauty is Truth. ... A Painter, if he has any Genius, understands
the ¢ruth and Unity of Design; and knows he is even then
unnatural, when he follows Nature too close, and strictly copys
Life. ... His Piece, if it be beautiful, carrys Truth, must be
a Whole, by it-self, complete, independant.’ (Zssay on the Free-
dom of Wit and Humour, Part IV, sect. 3.) ‘Every just work of
theirs comes under those natural rules of proportion, and ¢ruth.
This creature of their brain must be like one of nature’s formation.’
Cf. Reynolds, Fourth Discourse (1771): ‘The Painter will not
enquire what things may be admitted without much censure; he
will not think it enough to show that they may be there; he will
show that they must be there, that their absence would render his
picture maimed and defective.’

ll. 25-9. (Pünktlichkeit .. . ohne Peinlichkeit). Cf. p. 181,
ll. 12-15. Peinlichkeit comes near what Reynolds called ‘ super-
fluous diligence’ as opposed to ‘unexpected happiness of execu-
tion’ (Eleventh Discourse, 1782). Young, in his Discourse on

T2

276 Notes

Lyric Poetry, had observed that in the case of rhyme the writer
must make it ‘consistent with as perfect sense and expression, as
would be expected if he was free from that shackle’. FitzOsborne
remarks: ‘The thoughts, the metaphors, the allusions, and the
diction should appear easy and natural, and seem to arise like so
many spontaneous productions, rather than as the effects of art or
labor. (Letters, p. 135.) j

PAGE 168, 1. 5. ‘Genius is the innate mental aptitude (z7x-
genium). Poeta nascitur non fit. Thus Blair observes that
genius ‘is used to signify that talent or aptitude which we receive
from nature, for excelling in any one thing whatever. ... This
talent or aptitude for excelling in some one particular, is, I have
said, what we receive from nature. By art and study, no doubt, it
may be greatly improved; but by them alone it cannot be acquired.’
(Lectures on Rhetoric, vol. i, p. 49.) This was the generally received
view. It had been contested by William Sharpe in his Dzssertation
upon Genius, in which he attempted to show ‘That the several
instances of Distinction, and Degrees of Superiority in the human
Genius are not, fundamentally, the result of nature, but the effect of
acquisition’. He investigates the subject elaborately, his motive
evidently being to bring genius within the reach of those who are
willing to improve their natural faculties, and [thus seeks to show
that it is ‘not the effect of any cause exclusive of human assistance’.
(p. 6.) If genius were the result of simple nature, then every one
would be a genius. The principle omnes homines sunt natura
aeguales is true in relation to natural faculties. (p. 74.) ‘No;
nature is that general, whether physical or divine, cause, or both,
of our being, which forms our faculties in their order and species
perfect, and is simple and uniform, fixing no difference at allamong
individuals.’ (p. 109.) What does it mean, to say that genius is
nature in the individual? ‘Synonymously, nature is more nature
in one person, than in another, or, one person with all his faculties
of body and senses, particularly of the pre-eminent one, common
sense, in their proper order, strength, and subservience is not so
complete in his formation as another! For this is the conclusion,
upon a supposition that the difference of genius or understanding is
the creature of nature’s original operations.’ (pp. 108, 109.) ‘Ex-
perience’, he says, ‘could never prove that the difference was due
to difference of nature and not acquired.’ Referring to Locke’s
Essay, Book I, ch. iii, $ 23, he says: ‘But since we are ignorant
by what special means and steps the possessor of such a capacity
arrives at that acuteness, we implicitly call it a qualification of
nature.’ (p. 96.) That genius receives its differences from art,
he argues is apparent from the fact that ‘no instances of genius
are found in any branch of art or science, in places where no
improvements in that art or science are pursued’. (p. 92.) But it
is evident that all Sharpe combats is the opinion that genius is the
result of an original special favour or distinction on the part of

N. otes 277

nature. The gist of his argument is that the genius is the man who
has not sfoz/ed nature, but has sedulously cultivated and improved
it. Hence he deals at length with the stumbling-blocks in the way
of becoming a genius. These are faults of Temper, e.g. ‘ fretfull-
ness, perplexity, indolence, impatience, precipitancy’ ; or of Moral
Habits, e.g. ‘avarice, idleness, sensuality, pride, obstinacy.’ So he
takes up the bold position that ‘every good man is a wise man’,
and ably defends it by saying: ‘ Doubtless, in many instances
sense and virtue are divided, but when they are found to be so,
either habit and appetite has the predominancy, and so it is an
implicit misconduct, or else the judgment has been wrong directed,
and thus degenerated into that wisdom which the apostle styles,
earthly, sensual, devilish.’ (p. 81.) Genius is the very bent and
tendency towards preventing the deceptions of self-deceit and delu-
sion, and is originally incumbent upon the understanding. As to
improvement he says: ‘Every man is, if not the founder, yet the
refiner and polisher, of his own Genius.’ (p. 129.) Genius is
a ‘second nature’ which is ‘ mistaken for the constitutional charac-
ter of our being’. (p. 110.) The only weakness of Sharpe’s account
lies in the absence of any adequate analysis of the specific function
of genius as exhibited, dar excellence, in fine art. Young, Duff,
and Gerard directed their inquiries to this point, and emphasized
the importance of imagination. The whole investigation culminates
in Kant’s specific definition of genius as the faculty of aesthetic ideas.

1.6. ‘through which nature gives the rule to art.” Cf. Pope,
Essay on Criticism :

These Rules of old discover’d, not devised,
Are nature still, but nature methodized:
Nature, like liberty, is but restrain’d

By the same laws which first herself ordain’d.

Pope, in his Preface to the Works of Shakespeare, says: ‘If ever
any author deserved the name of ovigzza/, it was Shakespear. .. .
The poetry of Shakespear is inspiration indeed: he is not so much
an imitator, as an instrument, of nature; and it is not so just to say
that he speaks from her, as that she speaks through him.’ (See
Webb, Beauties of Poetry, p. 36, where this passage is quoted.)
The point is clearly recognized by J. Harris in his Phzlological
Inguiries, Part II, ch. xii: ‘And yet ’tis somewhat singular in
Literary Compositions, and perhaps more so in Poetry than else-
where, that many things have been done 7m Zhe best and purest
taste, long before RULES were established, and systematized in form.
This we are certain was true with respect to HOMER, SOPHOCLES,
EURIPIDES, and other GREEKS. In modern times it appears as
true of our admired SHAKESPEARE; for who can believe that
Shakespeare studied Rules, or was ever versed in Critical Sys-
tems?—A specious Objection then occurs. “ // these great Writers
were so excellent before Rules were established, what had they

278 Notes

to direct their Genius, when RULES (to them at least) DID NOT
EXIST?”—To this Question ‘tis hoped the Answer will not be
deemed too hardy, should we assert, that THERE NEVER WAS
A TIME, WHEN RULES DID NOT EXIST; that they always made
a Part of that IMMUTABLE TRUTH, the natural object of every
penetrating Genius; and that, if at that early Greek Period,
Systems of Rules were not established, THOSE GREAT and SUBLIME
AUTHORS WERE A RULE TO THEMSELVES. They may be said
indeed to have excelled not by ArZ, but by NATURE; yet by
a Nature, which gave birth to the perfection of ART.’ Gerard
observes: ‘It is very remarkable that all the fine arts have
been cultivated, and even brought to perfection, before the
rules of art were investigated or formed into a system: there
is not a single instance of any art that has begun to be prac-
tised in consequence of rules being prescribed for it.’ (Assay on
Genius, p. 72.) But, of course, Kant is not merely thinking of
rules that can be ‘ methodized’ or ‘formed into a system’. He is
thinking of that indeterminate quality which makes a work exem-
plary, and gives it the appearance of inevitability—We must
remember throughout that Kant is using the word ature in
a special sense. It is something szßersensible regarded as the
birthright of a human being. It is the end as the Zrzus, and in
actual operation. Thus, just as Kant speaks of Genius as nature
in the individual, so he speaks of Grace (what we call divine grace)
as ‘the nature of man, so far as he is determined to actions by his
own inner, but supersensible principle (the representation of his
duty)’. (Conflict of the Faculties, Werke, vol. vii, p. 43.) It is a
peculiarity of Kant’s manner to accept generally received propo-
sitions and then to put his own interpretation upon them. This
course is frequently misleading, but probably it is less so than the
opposite one of completely denying doctrines that contain an ele-
ment of truth which may be preserved by an esoteric interpretation.

1,28 et seq. Cf. pp. 180,1. 16-18; 212,1. ı6etseq. That no
definite rule can be given for productions of genius was recognized
as far back as Bacon. ‘I think a painter may make a better face
than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician
that maketh an excellent air in music), and not by rule’ (Essay
on Beauty.) Sir W. Temple says: ‘From this arises that eleva-
tion of genius, which can never be produced by any art or study,
by pains or by industry, which cannot be taught by precepts or
examples ; and therefore it is agreed by all, to be the pure and free
gift of Heaven or of nature, and to be a fire kindled out of some
hidden spark of the very first conception.’ (Essay on Poetry.) By
the time of Reynolds the point was so well recognized that he says
in his Szxth Discourse (1774), Essay on Genius: ‘Genius is sup-
posed to be a power of producing excellencies which are out of the
reach of the rules of art, a power which no precepts can teach, and
which no industry can acquire.’ In this view Reynolds does not

Notes 279

altogether acquiesce. He contends: ‘What we now call Genius
begins not where rules, abstractedly taken, end, but where known
vulgar and trite rules have no longer any place. It must of neces-
sity be that some works of Genius, like every other effect, as they
must have their cause, must likewise have their rules. Unsubstan-
tial, however, as these rules may seem, and difficult as it may seem
to convey them in writing, they are still seen and felt in the mind
of the artist; and he works from them with as much certainty as if
they were embodied, as I may say, upon paper. Art in its perfec-
tion is not ostentatious; it lies hid, and works its effect, itself
unseen. It is the proper study and labour of an artist to uncover
and find out the latent cause of conspicuous beauties, and from
thence form principles of his own conduct: such an examination
is a continual exertion of the mind, as great, perhaps, as that of the
artist whose works he is thus studying.’ Cf. the 7hird (1770) and
Thirteenth (1786) Discourses. Reynolds admits that ‘could we
teach taste or genius by rules, there would no longer be taste and
genius’ (Third Discourse), but he sees that art implies rules. He
does not, however, clearly grasp the distinction between a rule
prescribed to genius and a rule which genius gives to art, nor that
between determinate and indeterminate rules. Also cf. Kant’s
remarks at p. 226, ll. 4-24.

1. 30. ‘ originality must be its primary property.’ Sir P. Sidney,
Sir W. Temple, and most of the early English writers recognized
the importance of invention. Sir W. Temple would allow poetry
‘to rise from the greatest excellency of natural temper, or the
greatest race of native genius’, and he also says that ‘invention’
is ‘the mother of poetry’. Young observes, in his Discourse on
Lyric Poetry: ‘Above all, in this, as in every work of genius,
somewhat of an original spirit should be at least attempted.’ In his
later Conjectures on Original Composition he elaborates the point
still further. It is there that the well-known passage occurs: ‘ He
that imitates the divine //zad does not imitate Homer, but he who
takes the same method which Homer took for arriving at a capacity
of accomplishing a work so great. Tread in his steps to the sole
fountain of immortality ; drink where he drank, at the true Helicon,
that is, at the breast of nature. Imitate; but imitate not the
composition, but the man. For may not this paradox pass into
a maxim ?—namely, “ The less we copy the renowned ancients, we
shall resemble them the more.”’ W. Duff contends in his Essay
on Original Genius that original denotes the degree, not the kina.
He gives this definition: ‘ By the word Original, when applied to
Genius, we mean that Nazive and Radical power which the mind
possesses, of discovering something ew and umcommon in every
subject on which it employs its faculties.’ (p. 86.) Gerard says
that “Genius is properly the faculty of invention: by means of
which a man is qualified for making new discoveries in science, or
for producing original works in art’.

280 Notes

PAGE 169, 1. 5. ‘he does not himself know.’ Cf. Gerard, Essay
on Genius, p. 72: ‘The first performers could not have explained
the several rules which the nature of their work made necessary ;
but their judgment was notwithstanding so exact and vigorous as
to prevent their transgressing them.’ as :

1. 13. ‘and this, also, only in so far as it is to be fine art’—
ie. the rules to which a product has to conform in order to be
academically correct are not prescribed by genius. Cf. pp. 791.17;
171,1. 22.

ü 1. 18. ‘Every one is agreed on the point of the complete
opposition between genius and the sfirit of imitation” Reynolds
seems, at first sight, to dissent from ‘every one’. As against
Young, Duff, Gerard, and the leading authorities, he asserts:
‘I am on the contrary persuaded that by imitation only, variety,
and even originality of invention, is produced. I will go further:
even genius, at least what generally is so called, is the child of
imitation. But, as this appears to be contrary to the general
opinion, I must explain my position before I enforce it. Invention
is one of the great marks of genius; but if we consult experience
we shall find that it is by being conversant with the inventions of
others that we learn to invent, as by reading the thoughts of others
we learn to think. The mind is but a barren soil, a soil which is
soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be
continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter’ (S7xth
Discourse.) But this only means that a genius displays his
originality as a critic of his predecessors. Kant admits the im-
portance of models on which even the genius forms his taste.

1. 19. ‘Now since learning is nothing but imitation.’ Young,
in his Conjectures on Original Composition, said: ‘Genius is
a master-workman, learning is but an instrument.’ He contrasts
learning and genius at length. Also, cf. Gerard, Essay on Genius,
pp. 7, 8: ‘Genius is confounded, not only by the vulgar, but even
sometimes by judicious writers, with mere capacity. Nothing how-
ever is more evident than that they are totally distinct. A capacity
of learning is very general among mankind. Mere capacity, in
most subjects, implies nothing beyond a little judgment, a tolerable
memory, and considerable industry. But true genius is very dif-
ferent, and much less frequent.’

PAGE 170, 1. 1. ‘ Newton’ We must remember that in Kant’s
day scientists did not, 22 all departments of science, exercise quite
the same restraint in the framing of hypotheses as they do now, and
that Kant may have been somewhat influenced in his conclusion
by practical considerations, and by reason of having the welfare and
interests of science at heart. If the creative imagination was to
have scope in science, what limits were to be assigned to it?
Besides, he probably felt that genius must be confined to fine art
unless we are to allow an intellectual intuition. But the real
question seems to be whether the scientist who opens up new

Notes 281

paths and the framer of concrete ethical systems are not to some
extent artists, and whether genius has not some application in
respect of such art. If we regard genius as essentially the result of
a bearing of the practical upon the theoretical faculty, and not as
a sort of feminine instinct, there seems to be no reason for denying
the title of genius to philosophers such as Kant himself, or to the
founders of religions, or to scientists such as Newton or Darwin, or
even to some statesmen. But when politics is regulated by a mere
balance of interests, and the only question is that of choosing the
best plank for a General Election, then there is no room for genius.
In the case of science, when new points of view have been opened
out, a number of discoveries often follow in the course of ordinary
research—requiring, perhaps, considerable patience, accuracy, and
even ingenuity ; such discoveries do not necessitate genius. But,
on the other hand, Kant’s remarks, in the Preface to the second
edition of the CrzZigue of Pure Reason (p. xxvi), suggest that genius
was required for founding the principles of mathematics. He there
speaks of a revolution effected ‘ by the happy idea of one man, who
struck out and determined for all time the path which this science
must follow, and which admits of indefinite advancement. A new
light must have flashed on the mind of the first man (Zales, or
whatever may have been his name) who demonstrated the proper-
ties of the zsosceles triangle’. An analysis which admits the
existence of genius, but denies genius to the author of a revolution
of this character, can hardly be adequate. Sir W. Temple rightly
recognized the supremacy of artistic genius, but did not confine
genius to art. (Essay on Poetry.) Reid expresses a view that
accords with that of Kant. ‘ The productions of imagination require
a genius which soars above the common rank; but the treasures of
knowledge are commonly buried deep, and may be reached by
those drudges who can dig with labour and patience, though they
have not wings to fly.’ (/nguiry into the Human Mind, Dedication ;
Collected Works, p. 96.) Reid also quotes an interesting anecdote
about Newton, and one relevant to the present question. ‘Sir
Isaac Newton, to one who complimented him upon the force of
genius which had made such improvements in mathematics and
natural philosophy, is said to have made this reply, which was both
modest and judicious, That if he had made any improvements in
those sciences, it was owing more to patient attention than to any
other talent.’ (Essays on the Active Powers of Man, 1788, Essay Il,
ch. iii.) Young thought that Scotus and Aquinas, in their own
way, deserved the title of genius as much as Pindar and Homer.
Gerard held that genius was twofold, i.e. for science or for the arts,
and contrasts both at great length. Newton was his favourite
instance of a scientific genius. .

1.6. ‘all the steps.’ Yes, all the steps. But what led him to
take the first step? This was the point made by Duff and Gerard.
Referring to Locke, Essay concerning Human Understanding,

282 Notes

Book IV, ch. 17, $$ 2, 3, Gerard argues: ‘He might have justly
given this as an enumeration of all the steps which the znd takes
in the discovery of new conclusions: But they are not all to be
ascribed to season. The first of them, the finding out of ideas or
experiments which may serve for proofs, is the province, not
of reason, but of imagination.’ (Essay on Genius, p. 34.) He
admits that ‘The rest demands, not invention, but the same abilities
which are necessary for apprehending the discoveries of other men’.
(Ibid., p. 36.) The point that the ‘steps’ could not involve genius
had been ably argued by Sharpe, who referred to Locke’s Essay,
Book IV, ch. 2, $ 3. The steps only require ‘study and appli-
cation’. ‘By a progression”... “by steps and degrees”... and
if the working of these into demonstration is also “not without
much pains and attention”—say, where is that marvellous genius?’
(Dissertation upon Genius, p. 58.) Reid admitted that genius
might ‘display its powers by putting Nature to the question in well
contrived experiments, but it must add nothing to her answers’.
(Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay VI, ch. viii.) Kant
might advisedly have made the same concession, with the same
proviso. P

1, 16. ‘No disparagement.’ Evidently not. The question is
whether Kant has not unduly disparaged his one mediating faculty
by absolutely restricting it to fine art.

1.25. ‘A point at which art must make a halt.’ Cf. Hume, Essays,
Part I, Essay XIV, ‘ Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences’ :
‘When the arts and sciences come to perfection in any state, from
that moment they naturally, or rather necessarily, decline, and
never revive in that nation where they formerly flourished.’ While
Hume makes no distinction between art and science in respect of
this limit of progress, his arguments and examples apply more to
art than to science. But, probably, his observations are as true of
science as of art. For while we cannot suppose that there is any
limit to progress in science itself, society and the social conditions
favourable to the advance of science after a time always become
subject to degenerating and disintegrating influences.

PaGE 171, 1. 4, 5. ‘the rule must be gathered from the per-
formance.’ Cf. p. 226, 1. 4 et seq. For the rule must be intimately
connected with the specific kind of makzng upon which the par-
ticular art in question depends. Cf. Reynolds’s remarks on ‘the
genius of mechanical performance’ (a bold phrase) in the Eleventh
ne (1782), and, on the other hand, Kant’s remarks at p. 171,

. 19-22.

l. 7. ‘not for Zmitation, but for following’—nicht der Nach-
ahmung, sondern der Nachfolge. In the manuscript Nachahmung
stood in both places, and Kiesewetter changed the first Mach-
ahmung to Nachmachung. Though he informed Kant of the change,
there does not seem any reason for supposing that Kant looked
into the matter. (Kant’s Briefwechsel, i. 136, 152.) So the text

‚Notes 283

reads ‘nicht der Nachmachung, sondern der Nachahmung’, and
this reading has been followed by all editors. But to say that the
model is ‘not to be copzed, but to be zmztated’ involves a verbal
inconsistency with other passages (cf. pp. 138, ]. 29; 181, IL 9-11;
226, 1.18) which can only be explained away by saying that here—in
the very section in which genius is expressly contrasted with the
spirit of imitation—Kant uses imitation in a good sense, i.e. in the
sense of following. But, then, as Nachahmung had to be changed
in one of the two places, why did not Kiesewetter leave the first
and change the second to Nachfolge and avoid all inconsistency ?
Besides, it would seem a more natural slip for Kant to repeat the
word Nachahmung when he meant to write Wachfolge, than to
begin with the wrong word. I have, therefore, no hesitation in
emending the passage.

l. 30. ‘emancipating themselves from all academic constraint
of rules.’ Shaftesbury, A/zscellaneous Reflections, Misc. 5, ch. 1,
makes a similar attack: ‘The excessive Indulgence and Favour
shown to our Authors on account of what their mere Genius and
Jiowing Vein afford, has rendered them intolerably supine, con-
ceited, and admirers of themselves. . . . They think it a disgrace
to be criticiz’d, even by a Friend, or to reform, at his desire, what
they themselves are fully convinc’d is negligent, and uncorrect....
The Zimae Labor is the great Grievance with our Country-men.
An English Author would be all Genius. He would reap the
Fruits of Art ; but without Study, Pains, or Application.’

1, 31. ‘in the belief that one cuts a finer figure on the back of
an ill-tempered than of a trained horse.’ Cf. Pope, Essay on
Criticism :

For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Though meant each other’s aid, like man and wife.
’Tis more to guide, than spur the Muses’ steed ;
Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed ;

The winged courser, like a generous horse,

Shows most true mettle when you check his course.

Gerard also employs the same simile: ‘A horse of high mettle
ranging at liberty, will run with great swiftness and spirit, but in an
irregular track and without any fixt direction: a skilful rider makes
him move straight on the road, with equal spirit and swiftness. In
like manner, a fine imagination left to itself, will break out into bold
sallies and wild extravagance, and over-leap the bounds of truth or
probability.’ (Essay on Genius, p. 71.) ;

1. 33. ‘Genius can do no more than furnish rich material for
products of fine art.’ According to Gerard, ‘the associating prin-
ciples’ (which he made the basis of genius) ‘suggest abundance of
materials suited to the design.’ This he represents all through as
the specific function of genius.

284 Notes

PaGE172, 1.3. Inthe Critigue of Practical Reason (Ethics, p. 262;
Werke, vol. v, p. 163) Kant spoke of ‘¢he extravagances of genius, by
which, as by the adepts of the philosopher’s stone, without any me-
thodical study or knowledge of nature, visionary treasures are prom-
ised and the true are thrown away’. Reid has a number of remarks
in the same strain. ‘It is genius, and not the want of it, that adul-
terates philosophy, and fills it with false error and false theory. A
creative imagination disdains the mean offices of digging for a foun-
dation, of removing rubbish, and carrying materials; leaving these
servile employments to the drudges in science, it plans a design,
and raises a fabric. Invention supplies materials where they are
wanting, and fancy adds colouring and every befitting ornament.
The work pleases the eye, and wants nothing but solidity and
a good foundation. It seems even to vie with the works of nature,
till some succeeding architect blows it into rubbish, and builds as
goodly a fabric of his own in its place. Happily for the present
age, the castle-builders employ themselves more in romance than
in philosophy. That is undoubtedly their province, and in those
regions the offspring of fancy is legitimate, but in philosophy it is
all spurious.’ (Jaguiry into the Human Mind, Introd., sect. ii.)
Cf. Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay VI, ch. viii, $4. In
the latter part of the paragraph Kant is not referring to obscurity
and affected depth in poetry. As to such obscurity, see FitzOs-
borne’s Leiters, p. 317: ‘Others, on the contrary, mistake pomp for
dignity; and, in order to raise their expressions above vulgar
language, lift them up beyond common apprehensions, esteeming it
(one should imagine) a mark of their genius, that it requires some
ingenuity to penetrate their meaning.’

ll. 17-18. ‘ For estimating ...for the production.’ Cf. pp. 80,
ll. 7-10; 226, ll. 20-24. Kant adopts the received distinction.
Cf. Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric, vol. i, p. 48: ‘Taste consists in
the power of judging: Genius, in the power of executing.’ Kant
says nothing of the intermediate case of performing. Duff had
drawn this latter distinction. ‘The talents of a PERFORMER, and
a MASTER and composer in music are very different. To constitute
the first, a nice musical ear, and a dexterity of performance acquired
by habit, are the sole requisites. To constitute the last, not alone
a nice musical ear, but an exquisite sensibility of passion, together
with a peculiar conformation of genius to this particular art, are
indispensably necessary. Though all the liberal arts are indebted
to Imagination in common, a talent for each of them respectively
depends upon the peculiar MODIFICATION and ADAPTATION of this
faculty to the several RESPECTIVE ARTS’ (Essay on Original
Genius.)

_ 1 26. ‘a possibility to which regard must also be paid in
estimating such an object.’ Even taste must estimate a product of
art as one requiring genius for its possibility. But is mere taste
competent to judge whether a work of art is ‘full of soul’, or

Notes 285

‘inspired’, instead of being merely ‘in good taste’? Cf. p. 174,
ll, 28-30 and § 49.

1, 28. ‘A beauty of nature is a beautiful thing ; beauty of art is
a beautiful representation of a thing.’ Of course ‘ representation’
is not here used in the technical sense with which readers of the
Critigue of Pure Reason will be familiar. At the same time it is
somewhat difficult to fix its meaning. For it must be used in
a sense in which a beautiful cathedral, for instance, is not merely
a beautiful thing but a beautiful representation of a thing. But why
is a cathedral not merely a beautiful thing ? Is it because we may
regard it simply as a cathedral, although we vay also look on it as
a cathedral which is the product of an art in which regard is also
paid to aesthetic ideas? Kant’s distinction raises more difficulties
than it solves.

PAGE 173, ll. 28-9. ‘Where fine art evidences its superiority is in
the beautiful descriptions it gives of things that in nature would be
ugly or displeasing.’ Cf. Aristotle’s Poetics, ch. iv, and Rhetoric,
Book I, ch. xi. Sir Philip Sidney, Aßologie for Poetrie, quotes
Aristotle with approval on the point. Cf. Burke, Part I, § 16.
Barni refers to the lines of Boileau in the A7t poétigue :—

Il n’est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l’art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux:
D’un pinceau delicat artifice agréable

Du plus affreux objet fait un objet aimable.

The majority of British writers of the eighteenth century who
mention the point follow Aristotle in accounting for the fact by
referring the pleasure to the mode in which art discharges its
specific function of imitation. The judgement is on the imitation,
as imitation, and not upon the object represented. Kant does not
here offer any explanation. (But cf. p. 176,1. 32 et seq.) Of course
there is nothing in the point if art merely improves on nature, in
the way a skilful photographer improves on his subject by eliminat-
ing the wrinkles. Art shows no superiority if it only represents
what would naturally be ugly or displeasing in nature, as if it
would be naturally beautiful and pleasing, i.e. if it is only ‘nature
to advantage dress’d’. But a dwarf painted by Velasquez does not
suggest a person whom we might meet in nature and consider
beautiful. But it does suggest a Serson, and a person the pecu-
liarity of whose appearance we might learn to forget on intimate
acquaintance. The artist’s treatment has a meaning which enables
us to see with deeper insight. Rembrandt’s Anatomy Lecture is
instructive in this connexion. One habituated to the dissecting-
room sees a corpse on the dissecting-table in quite a different light
from one to whom such a sight is strange, and who could only see
in such a corpse a dead body partly cut up. Rembrandt by means of
his consummate art at once puts the whole scene in that different
light. He makes us join the company of the anatomists, and lets

286 Notes

us see with their eyes—and with his own as well, i.e. to a certain
extent sub specie aeternitatis. ; u

It may be doubted, however, whether the word beautiful ’,
when applied to works of art such as those contemplated, has quite
the same meaning as ‘beautiful’ when applied to nature. If the
Anatomy Lecture is called ‘beautiful’ it can only be in the sense of
‘artistically true’. :

Alison repeatedly dwells on the shortcomings of nature, and
would agree with Whistler that nature is seldom right. Some of
his remarks are well worth quoting. ‘In real Nature, we often
forgive, or are willing to forget slight inaccuracies, or trifling incon-
sistencies.’ (Essays on Taste, p. 76.) ‘In real Nature, we willingly
accommodate ourselves to the ordinary defects of scenery, and
accept with gratitude those simpler aspects in which some pre-
dominant character is tolerably preserved.’ (Ibid., p. 82.) ‘And
one great source of the superiority which such imitations [by
poetry] have over the originals from which they are copied, consists
in these cases, as well as the former, in the power which the artist
enjoys, of giving a unity of character to his descriptions, which is
not to be found in real nature.’ (Ibid., p. 92.) ‘As soon, however,
as from the progress of our own sensibility, or from our acquaintance
with poetical composition, we begin to connect expression with such
views of nature, we begin also to understand and to feel the beauties
of landscape painting. It is with a different view that we now
consider it. It is not for imitation we look, but for character... .
It is not now a simple copy that we see, nor is our Emotion limited
to the cold pleasure which arises from the perception of accurate
Imitation.’ (Ibid., p. 79.) But here Alison probably confuses the
excellence of painting with that of poetry (cf. ibid., pp. 40, 81), the
mistake made by Spence and exposed by Lessing in the Zaocoon.
Kant shows signs of falling into the same error. It is not clear how
far his aesthetic ideas are not merely poetic. The importance
attributed to landscape-gardening probably was largely, though not
solely, responsible for the generally prevalent recognition of the
superiority (in this case doubtful) of art over nature. But Thomp-
son’s Seasons also exerted a considerable influence—they were
certainly far better than the seasons to which we are accustomed.

1. 31. ‘nay even represented in pictures.’ Kant follows Burke,
Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, Part I, $ 16, and Home,
Elements of Criticism, vol. ii, p. 362, in opposition to Lessing,
Laocoon, ch. xxiv.

PAGE 174, 1. 1. ‘disgust’—Ekel. Cf. Lessing, Zaocoon, ch. xxv.
The object could not be beautifully described as an object of
‘disgust’. This shows that Kant means that the ugly object may
be beautifully described as an object that is ugly. But does not
‘ugliness’ depend upon a reference to imagination? Perhaps this
is why Kant says ‘ ugly or displeasing’.

ll. 7-9. ‘ The art of sculpture, again, since in its products art

Notes 287

is almost confused with nature, has excluded from its creations
the direct representation of ugly objects’ Cf. Adam Smith,
‘The Imitative Arts,’ Essays, p. 137: ‘In painting, the imita-
tion frequently pleases, though the object be indifferent, or
even offensive. In Statuary and Sculpture it is otherwise. The
imitation seldom pleases, unless the original object be in a very
high degree either great, or beautiful, or interesting. A butcher’s
stall, or a kitchen-dresser, with the objects which they commonly
present, are not certainly the happiest subjects, even for Painting.
They have, however, been represented with so much care and
success by some Dutch masters, that it is impossible to view the
pictures without some degree of pleasure. They would be most
absurd subjects for Statuary or Sculpture, which are, however,
capable of representing them. ... Painting is not so disdainful ;
and, though capable of representing the noblest objects, it can,
without forfeiting its title to please, submit to imitate those of a
much more humble nature. The merit ofthe imitation alone, and
without any merit in the imitated object, is capable of supporting
the dignity of Painting; it cannot support that of Statuary. There
would seem, therefore, to be more merit in the one species of
imitation than in the other” When sculpture is coloured the
comparison between nature and art is so great that we lose the
sense ofart. Thus, in continuing the above remarks, Adam Smith
observes: ‘A painted statue, though it certainly may resemble a
human figure much more exactly than any statue which is not
painted, is generally acknowledged to be a disagreeable, and even
an offensive object ; and so far are we from being pleased with this
superior likeness, that we are never satisfied with it.’ Similarly
Home points out that when sculpture is coloured the resemblance
is so entire that ‘no other emotion is raised, but surprise occasioned
by deception’.

l. 15 et seq. This paragraph and the next are of extreme
importance. In the last paragraph of the preceding section we
are told that genius can only produce rich materéal for products of
fine art. Here we learn the converse, that the beautiful form is
only due to taste. Kant is in his usual dramatic vein. He wants
us to fling the book down and say, ‘ Well, then, you have no
business to call fine (beautiful, scköze) art the art of genius.’ For
he knows he can make us take it up again, as he calmly replies : ‘ You
want me to be a mere formalist. If fine art is a species of making
or producing, and if fine art is to be fine art zn z£s production, and not
a mere mechanical art of producing according to rules such things
as are approved by taste, then it is absolutely necessary for me to
throw the emphasis in fine art on che content, and to show that
it is a specific content that must be due to genius.’ From this
point’ Kant works steadily forward to his definition of beauty
(whether of nature or of art) as the expression of aesthetic ideas.
The reconciliation between the form and the content in the case of

288 Notes

the beautiful is one of Kant’s greatest triumphs. For qualifying
remarks, see $ 50. 5 2

l. 21. ‘after many, and often laborious, attempts to satisfy
taste.” Cf. Sir W. Temple, Essay on Poetry: ‘Besides the heat
of invention and liveliness of wit, there must be the coldness of
good sense and soundness of judgment, to distinguish between
things and conceptions, which, at first sight, or upon short glances,
seem alike ; to choose among infinite productions of wit and fancy,
which are worth preserving and cultivating, and which are better
stifled in the birth, or thrown away when they are born, as not
worth bringing up. Without the forces of wit, all poetry is flat and
languishing; without the succours of judgment, ’tis wild and
extravagant.’ Reid makes a similar remark: ‘Granting that the
fertility of the poet’s imagination suggested a variety of rich
materials, was not judgement necessary to select what was proper,
to reject what was improper, to arrange the materials into a just
composition, and to adapt them to each other, and to the design of
the whole?’ (Essays on the Intellectual Powers, Essay IV, ch. 4,
Collected Works, p. 385.)

PAGE 175, ll. 8-10. ‘in a would-be work of fine art we may
frequently recognize genius without taste, and in another taste
without genius.’ This distinction was so well recognized by
British writers that it was applied even to scientists. Thus Adam
Smith says in his ‘ History of Astronomy’, Essays, p. 67 : ‘ Kepler,
with great genius, but without the taste, or the order and method
of Galileo,” &c. Similarly Reynolds, Fourth Discourse (1771):
‘The language of Painting must indeed be allowed those Masters;
but even in that they have shown more copiousness than choice,
and more luxuriancy than judgment.’ Also, Fifth Discourse
(1772), ‘ If we put these great artists in a light of comparison with
each other, Raffaelle had more Taste and Fancy; Michel Angelo
more Genius and Imagination. The one excelled in beauty; the other
in energy. Michel Angelo has more of the poetical Inspiration ;
his ideas are vast and Sublime. Raffaelle’s materials are generally
borrowed, though the noble structure is his own. The excellency
of this extraordinary man lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty
of his characters, the judicious contrivance of his composition, his
correctness of Drawing, purity of Taste, and skilful accommodation
of other men’s conceptions to his own purpose.’ Alison thought
that Shakespeare had more genius than taste. (Essays on Taste,
P- 96.) Gerard’s Essay on Genius abounds with similar com-
parisons.

1.13 et seq. Gezs¢ is a difficult word to translate, but as we
commonly speak of people singing or playing with great ‘soul’ the
use of this word will, probably, not be generally misunderstood—
though, of course, there may be some who will insist that ‘soul’
should only be understood as in the statement that ‘a corporation
has neither a body to be kicked, nor a soul to be damned’. ‘Soul’

‚Notes 289

being used to translate Gezst, a different word has to be found for
‚Seele, which occurs a few lines lower down. Perhaps ‘psychic
substance’ will satisfy all parties. The following may be compared
with Kants remarks: ‘As Genius is the vital principle which
animates every species of composition, the most elaborate per-
formances without it, are no other than a lifeless mass of matter,
frigid and uninteresting, equally destitute of passion, sentiment and
spirit” (Duff, Essay on Original Genius, p.25.) ‘In poetry this
vital spirit is INVENTION. By this quality it is primarily charac-
terized ; which, being the very soul of all poetical composition, is
likewise the source of that inchanting delight, which the mind
receives from its perusal.’ (Ibid., p. 126.) Similarly Donaldson :
‘The great charm of poetry is that sfzrz¢ or muse which inspires
everything with elegance and amzmation. The beautiful and the
graceful of sentiment, are expressions of the highest degree of /z/e
or human feeling. ... And this is, no doubt, what is meant by
that fine allegory of Venus attired by the Graces, that everything
that is graceful in outward appearance, is only as it were the trap-
pings and ornaments of that heavenly love of the soul, by the
ancients ascribed to the Venus Urania, or celestial; in opposition
to what is attributed to the other Venus, worshipped by them as
the earthly and vulgar.’ (Zhe Elements of Beauty, pp. 64-6.)
Shaftesbury recognized the importance of the je ze sas guoi—and
left it at that.

1.27. ‘i.e. into a play which is self-maintaining and which
strengthens those powers for such activity. Cf pp. 60, ll. 4-17;
61, ll. 16-22. Kant’s expressions show clearly how genius is the
source of aesthetic finality. The only question is as to whether he
did not suppose the existence of certain elementary forms (cf.
Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty) to be regarded as given, and merely
to be approved by taste. But even these are only considered
beautiful when interpreted through the analogy of art, and they
have to be compared with what imagination, if left to itself, would
freely project. Even if they have merely to be recognized by taste,
this taste introduces a principle (third moment) which seems related
to aesthetic ideas simply as abstract to concrete.

l. 30. ‘the faculty of presenting aesthetic ideas’ It must be
remembered that these ideas are essentially aesthetic. They are
not quasi-philosophical conceptions. Watts’s Dweller in the Inner-
most or Stiick’s Die Sünde are not to be supposed more full of
aesthetic ideas than a nocturne by Whistler. Aesthetic ideas in-
volve a reconciliation, as far as fine art is concerned, between sense
and reason. The expression is one of Kant’s paradoxes. The subse-
quent definition of genius as the faculty of aesthetic ideas explains its
fundamental characteristics. In particular it explains why what can
be learned is not to be attributed to genius. On this point we may
recall Aristotle’s remarks on metaphors. ‘The greatest thing of all
is to be powerful in metaphor ; for this alone cannot be acquired

1193

290 Notes

from another, but is a mark of original genius: for to use metaphors
well, is to discern similitude” (Poetics, 22 ; cf. Rhetoric, iii. 11. 5.
See J. Harris, Philological Inquiries, Part II, ch. x, where the
subject of metaphors is dealt with, and the above passages from
Aristotle quoted.) Perhaps the British author who had approached
nearest to Kant’s conception of aesthetic ideas was Duff. ‘ The
third species of Invention, by which we observed original genius
will be distinguished, is that of IMAGERY. The style of an original
Author in Poetry is for the most part FIGURATIVE and META-
PHORICAL, The ordinary modes of speech being unable to express
the grandeur or the strength of his conceptions, appear FLAT and
languid to his ardent Imagination. In order, therefore, to supply
the poverty of common language, he has recourse to METAPHORS
and IMAGES. (Essay on Original Genius, p. 143.) So he thinks
that the first essays of Original Genius will be ‘in ALLEGORIES,
VISIONS, or the creation of ideal beings, of one kind or another’.
(Ibid., p. 172.) Beattie, Gerard, and Alison also approached the
subject in connexion with the association of ideas. Reid, also,
attaches great importance to metaphors and analogies. (Zssays on
the Intellectual Powers, Essay VIII, ch. iii, iv.) But Kant’s account
has a depth of significance which is hardly more than suggested by
any of the above writers. This is largely due to its systematic
connexions.

PaGE 176, 1. 7 et seq. This point had been emphasized by most
of the English school. Thus Sir Philip Sidney in his Afologie for
Poetrie observes: ‘Only the Poet, disdayning to be tied to any
such subiection, lifted up with the vigor of his owne inuention,
dooth growe in effect, another nature, in making things either better
than Nature bringeth forth, or quite a newe formes such as never
were in Nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras,
Furies, and such like: so as he goeth hand in hand with Nature,
not enclosed within the narrow warrant of her guifts, but freely
ranging onely within the Zodiac of his owne wit.’ Cf. Burke, Essay
on the Sublime and Beautiful, Introduction, ‘On Taste’: ‘The
mind of man possesses a sort of creative power of its own; either
in representing at pleasure the images of things in the order and
manner in which they were received by the senses, or in combining
those images in a new manner, and according to a different order.
This power is called imagination; and to this belongs whatever is
called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it must be observed,
that this power of the imagination is incapable of producing any-
thing absolutely new; it can only vary the disposition of those
ideas which it has received from the senses,’ Young, Conjectures
on Original Composition, observes: ‘In the fairyland of fancy,
genius may wander wild; there it has creative power, and may
reign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras,’ Also Home,
Elements of Criticism, vol. ii, p. 518: ‘Further, man is endued
with a sort of creative power: he can fabricate images of things

Notes 291

that have no existence. This singular power of fabricating images
without any foundation in reality, is distinguished by the name of
imagination.’ Also cf. Addison, Sfectator, Nos. 411 to 421.
Reynolds, in his Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Thirteenth Dis-
courses, argues that the painter has something more to do than to
take nature as he finds it, and concludes: ‘ Upon the whole, it seems
to me that the object and intention of all the arts is to supply the
natural imperfection of things, and often to gratify the mind by
realizing and embodying what never existed but in the imagination.’
( Thirteenth Discourse, 1786.) Hartley, Beattie, Gerard, and Alison
eee this power of imagination dependent on the association of
ideas,

l. 10. ‘where experience proves too commonplace.’ Cf. p. 111,
l. 2, where objects are said to be called sublime ‘because they raise
the forces of the soul above the height of vulgar commonplace’.

1. 16. ‘our freedom from the law of association.’ Cf. pp. 86,
ll. 1-6; 177, l. 12. This seems evidently aimed at Hartley,
Beattie, and Gerard. But Kant does not prove that the talent of
the imagination which works up the borrowed material is whol/y
independent of laws of association, though he does seem to show
that it implies something more. The laws of association belong to
mere nature, but may be pressed into the service of art.

l. 18. ‘the material can be borrowed by us from nature’. This
is excellently put by Whistler in his Ze o’Clock: ‘Nature contains
the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard
contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick, and
choose, and group with science, these elements, that the result may
be beautiful—as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords,
until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the
painter, that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to say to the player,
that he may sit on the piano.’ But Whistler is hardly correct when
he states that the proposition ‘ Nature is always right’ is one
‘whose truth is universally taken for granted’. (See passages
quoted from Alison in note to p. 173, I. 28.)

], 19. Then, apparently, genius not alone provides the material,
but works it up into something surpassing nature.

1.20. ‘what surpasses nature.’ This beauty that surpasses
nature only differs from the sublime, properly so called, because in
its case the ideas of reason are given the semblance of objective
reality. (Cf. 1. 25.) :

. PAGE 177, ll. 2-4. ‘and it is... precisely in the poetic art that the
faculty of aesthetic ideas can show itself to full advantage.’ Here,
and in his illustrations, Kant betrays a deficient insight into the
import of his discovery. In the first book of the Azalytic he had
the arts of painting and sculpture too much in view ; in the second
book he is thinking too much of poetry. The various arts are co-
ordinate, and all depend upon specifically different aesthetic ideas.
This is why a man may have, for instance, a genius for painting,

U2

292 ‚Notes

a taste for poetry, and be insensible to music. But Kant frequently
speaks as if aesthetic ideas were specially connected with poetry.
A couple of passages from Reynolds and Whistler will indicate
what is meant. ‘It is not properly in the learning, the taste, and
the dignity of the ideas, that genius appears as belonging to
a painter. There is a genius particular and appropriated to his own
trade (as I may call it), distinguished from all others. For that
power, which enables the artist to conceive his subject with dignity,
may be said to belong to general education, and is as much the
genius of a poet, or the professor of any other liberal art, or even
a good critic in any of those arts, as of a painter. Whatever
sublime ideas may fill his mind, he is a painter only as he can put
in practice what he knows, and communicate those ideas by visible
representation.” (Reynolds, Eleventh Discourse.) Probably Rey-
nolds had Beattie and Gerard especially in mind. Whistler ex-
presses himself with great clearness on this point. ‘For him a
picture is more or less a hieroglyph or symbol of story. Apart from
a few technical terms, for the display of which he finds occasion,
the work is considered absolutely from a literary point of view;
indeed, from what other can he consider it? ... Meanwhile the
painter’s poetry is quite lost to him....A curious matter, in its
effect upon the judgement of those gentlemen, is the accepted
vocabulary of poetic symbolism, that helps them, by habit, in
dealing with Nature: a mountain, to them, is synonymous with
height—a lake with depth—the ocean, with vastness—the sun,
with glory. So that a picture with a mountain, a lake, and an
ocean—however poor in paint—is inevitably “lofty”, ‘‘ vast,” “in-
finite,” and “ glorious’’—on paper.’ (Ten o’Clock.)

l. 5. ‘no more than a talent.’ Cf. pp. 168, 1. 3; 180, 1.5.

1.9. ‘such a wealth of thought as would never admit of com-
prehension in a definite concept.’ Cf. Burke, Essay on the Sublime
and Beautiful, Part II, § 11, ‘Infinity in Pleasing Objects’:
‘Imagination is entertained with a promise of something more, and
does not acquiesce in the present object of sense. In unfinished
sketches of drawing I have often seen something which pleased me
beyond the best finishing; and this I believe proceeds from the
cause I have just now assigned.’

l. 31. ‘which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for
logical presentation.’ Cf. p. 119,1. 16.

PAGE 178, 1. 13 et seq. Kant does not give the original lines,
but only a German translation. Windelband mentions that the
original lines are to be found at the close of the Epitre XVIII, Au
Marechal Keith, Imitation du troisieme livre de Lucréce: ‘Sur
les vaines terreurs de la mort et les frayeurs d’une autre vie,’
Poésies diverses, Berlin, 1762, vol. ii, p. 447; cf. Euvres de
Frederic le Grand, vol. x, p. 203.

1.32. Windelband states that the lines were shown by E. Schmidt
and R. M. Meyer to have been taken from the Academische

‚Notes 293

Gedichte of Withof, Third Song of the Szunliche Ergötzungen,
Leipzig, 1782, i, p. 70.

PAGE 179, 1. 15. ‘Now, since the...’—reading, Mun da...
instead of Mur, da.... Nur would imply some qualification of the
first sentence, whereas what follows is simply an advance in the
argument.

1, 27. ‘to find out ideas for a given concept, and, besides, to
hit upon the erression for them. Both originality and a refer-
ence to universal communicability are involved. Hence a work
of genius must be in good taste. Cf. § 50.

1. 31. ‘Segner.’ Johann Andreas v. Segner, 1704-1777, Pro-
fessor of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Göttingen.

PAGE 180, ll. 8-10. ‘A multitude of fleeting objects glide before
his [the poet’s] imagination at once, of which he must catch the evan-
escent forms : he must at the same time comprehend these in one
instantaneous glance of thought, and delineate them as they rise
and disappear, in such a manner as to give them a kind of stability
in description.” (Duff, Essay on Original Genius, p. 193.)

l. 24. ‘in the working out of the projected end.’ This reminds
us of the main problem: How can art be free, having regard to the
fact-that it must be recognized to be art, and that all art has the
definite intention of producing something? The solution lies in
the distinction between a mechanical art and an art directed to
the expression of aesthetic ideas. Cf. references collected in note
to p. 167, 1.11. In the emphasis on the ‘working out’ we are
reminded that the artist is essentially a »zaker. He must be able
to feel his way in the medium in which he works. It is not in
abstract thinking but in aking that inspiration comes to him.

PAGE 18], 1. 14. ‘for art itself a new rule is won.’ Cf. p. 180,
l. 11. Also Reynolds, Zhzrteenth Discourse: ‘and by the same
means the compass of art itself is enlarged.’ :

1, 23. ‘But this imitation becomes agizg when the pupil copies
everything ....’ We have (1) following, (2) imitation, and, still
worse, (3) aping. This passage explains why Kant probably
passed Kiesewetter’s ‘nicht der Machmachung, sondern der
Nachahmung’ (cf. note to p. 171, l. 7) without looking up the precise
passage. With Kant’s remarks on aping we may compare Hurd,
Discourse on Poetical Imitation, Works, vol. ii, p. 225: ‘Every
original genius, however consonant, in the main, to any other, has
still some distinct marks and characters of his own, by which he
may be distinguished ; and to copy Secwliarsties, when there is no
appearance of the same original spirit, which gave birth to them, is
manifest affectation.’ Reynolds, Sixth Discourse (1774): ‘When
I speak of the habitual imitation and continued study of masters,
it is not to be understood that I advise any endeavour to copy the
exact peculiar colour and complexion of another man’s mind ;
the success of such an attempt must always be like his who imitates
exactly the air, manner, and gestures, of him whom he admires.

294 Notes

His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridiculous: this
ridicule does not arise from his having imitated, but from his not
having chosen the right. mode of imitation. It is necessary and
warrantable pride to disdain to walk servilely behind any indi-
vidual, however elevated his rank. The true and liberal ground of
imitation is an open field, where, though he who precedes has had
the advantage of starting before you, you may always propose to
overtake him: it is enough, however, to pursue his course; you
need not tread in his footsteps; and you certainly have a right to
outstrip him if you can. ... Peculiar marks I hold to be, generally
if not always, defects, however difficult it may be wholly to escape
them. Peculiarities in the works of art are like those in the human
figure: it is by them that we are cognizable and distinguished one
from another, but they are always so many blemishes. It must be
acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, either from its novelty or
by seeming to proceed from a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes
blame ; on the contrary, it is sometimes striking and pleasing ; but
this it is a vain labour to endeavour to imitate, because, novelty and
peculiarity being its only merit, when it ceases to be new it ceases
to have value.’

1,27. ‘A certain doldness,’ &c. Cf. Pope, Essay on Criticism :

Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,

And rise to faults true critics dare not mend;
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.

PAGE 182, 1. 8. ‘the /ce/ing of unity in the presentation.’ Cf.
Reynolds, Eveventh Discourse: ‘This genius consists, I conceive,
in the power of expressing that which employs your pencil, what-
ever it may be, as a whole.’

1. 28 et seq. Duff was of opinion that imagination was the
more important. ‘We have already considered IMAGINATION and
TASTE as two material ingredients in the composition of GENIUS.
The former we have proved to be the more essential ingredient,
without which Genius cannot exist; and the latter is indispensably
necessary to render its productions ELEGANT and correct.’ (Essay
on Original Genius, pp. 63-4.) :

PAGE 183, ll. 2-3. ‘For in lawless freedom imagination, with all
its wealth, produces nothing but nonsense.’ Similarly Duff had
observed: ‘The ingredients of Genius depend entirely upon the
acceptation in which we take it, and upon the extent and offices we
assign to it... . If, after all, any person should still continue to
think that Genius and Imagination are synonymous terms, and
that the powers of the former are most properly expressed by the
latter ; let him reflect, that if the former is characterised by these
alone, without any proportion of judgment, there is scarce any
means left us of distinguishing betwixt the flights of Genius and
the reveries of a Lunatic.’ (Zssay on Original Genius, pp. 23, 24.)

Notes 295

Cf. Gerard: ‘If fancy were left entirely to itself, it would run into
wild caprice and extravagance, unworthy to be called invention,’
(Essay on Genius, p. 36.)

ll. 3-5. “the power of judgement, on the other hand, is the
faculty that makes it consonant with understanding. Judge-
ment and taste are not synonymous. Taste implies judgement,
just as genius implies imagination. This explains the opening
sentence of the section, and why Kant had to state the problem in
a more accurate form. Duff devotes considerable attention to
defining the different functions of judgement and taste. He says
that the sphere of judgement is to guard an author ‘against faults
rather than to assist him in the attainment of any uncommon
beauty, a task which this faculty is by no means qualified to
accomplish.’ (Essay on Original Genius, p. 10.) ‘In a word,
the man of judgment approves of and admires what is merely
mechanical in the piece; the man of taste is struck with what
could only be effected by the power of Genius.’ (Ibid., p. 15.)

1,7. ‘It severely clips its wings, and makes it orderly or
polished.’ Cf. Sir W. Temple, Zssay on Poetry: ‘But, though
invention be the mother of poetry, yet the child is, like all others,
born naked, and must be nourished with care, clothed with exact-
ness and elegance, educated with industry, instructed with art,
improved by application, corrected with severity, and accomplished
with labour and with time, before it arrives at any great perfection
or growth: ’tis certain that no composition requires so many several
ingredients, or of more different sorts than this, nor that, to exceed
in any qualities, there are necessary so many gifts of nature, and so
many improvements of learning and of art.’ Young emphasizes
the same point in his Déscourse on Lyric Poetry: ‘Judgment,
indeed, that masculine power of the mind, in Ode, as in all com-
positions, should bear the supreme sway ; and a beautiful imagina-
tion, as its mistress, should be subdued to its dominion. Hence,
and hence only, can proceed the fairest offspring of the human
mind.’ Duff devotes considerable space to the point. Judgement,
he says, ‘appears to be in every respect a proper counterbalance
to the RAMBLING and VOLATILE power of Imagination’ (Zssay
on Original Genius, p. 9.) Gerard has a number of similar
observations. ‘The most luxuriant fancy stands most in need of
being checked by judgment.’ (Zssay on Genius, p. 75 ; cf. pp. 37,
38, 54, 71.) , ,

l. 21. ‘zmagination, understanding, soul, and taste’ Ac-
cording to Duff three faculties are necessary. ‘If we suppose
a plastic and comprehensive Imagination, an acute intellect, and
an exquisite Sensibility and refinement of taste, to be all combined
in one person, and employed in the arts or sciences, we may easily
conceive, that the effect of such an union will be very extra-
ordinary. In such a case these faculties going hand in hand
to-gether, mutually enlighten and assist each other. Imagination

296 [Votes

takes a long and adventurous, but secure flight, under the guiding
rein of judgment; which, though naturally cool and deliberate,
catches somewhat of the ardor of the former in its rapid course,
To drop the allusion, imagination imparts vivacity to judgment, and
receives from it solidity and justness : Tasze bestows elegance on
both, and derives from them Zrecision and sensibility.’ (Essay on
Original Genius, pp. 20, 21; cf. pp. 73, 72.)

l. 25. ‘whether it be of nature or of art.’ Cf. p. 212,1. 16 et
seq. At last Kant shows his hand. Even natural beauty, which is
estimated as a merely given quality of objects, has its source in the
faculty of aesthetic ideas.

PAGE 185, 1. 12. ‘what is studied and laboured.’ Cf. p. 167, 1.29.

ll. 13-14. ‘not alone in a sense opposed to contract work '—
Lohngeschäft. Cf. p. 164, 1. 2 (Lohnkunst).

PAGE 186, 1. 13. ‘Or, whatever the archetype is, either the
reference? &c.—oder, was auch das erstere ist, entweder die
Beziehung auf einen wirklichen Zweck, oder nur der Anschein
desselben der Reflexion zur Bedingung gemacht. (Windelband—
who refers das erstere to Urbild.) The.original reads oder, wenn
auch, &c., and M. Barni translates, ‘et, dans le premier cas, on
peut avoir en vue et donner pour condition A la réflexion ou un
but réel ou seulement l’apparence d’un semblable but.’ Similarly
Dr. Bernard: ‘In the first case the condition given to reflection
may be either the reference to an actual purpose or only the
semblance of it.” The ‘first case’ is presumably meant to refer to
the case in which the figure is given in its bodily extension, viz.
to plastic art. But, then, what Kant evidently has in view is what
distinguishes architecture from sculpture and landscape gardening
from painting, viz. the reference to an actual end (in architecture)
or only the semblance of one (in landscape gardening). Hence
what we should have expected Kant to say would be ‘or, in either
case, it may be that the expression of aesthetic ideas is the main
intention, or, else, either the reference to an actual end, or only the
semblance of one, may be imposed upon reflection as its condition’.
a paragraphs that follow show plainly what Kant had in
mind.

PAGE 187, ll. 3-5. ‘is, as a corporeal presentation, a mere imita-
tion of nature, though one in which regard is paid to aesthetic
ideas.’ This is one of Kant’s few references to the imitation of
nature. In the Anthropology Kant says that ‘the painter of
nature, be it with the brush or the pen (and, in the latter case, be
it in prose or in verse) is not a beautiful soul, for he only imitates ;
it is the aznter of ideas that alone is master of fine art. (Anthro-
pology, $71.)

Il. 5-7. ‘in which, therefore, serszous truth should not go the
length of losing the appearance of being an art.’ Kant is probably
thinking of painted statues, to which he refers in the Anthropology,
$ 13. Cf. references given in note to p. 174, 1. 7.

Notes 297

1, 30. ‘simple aesthetic painting that has no definite theme.’
Cf. p. 72, 1. 27.

PAGE 188, 1. 11. ‘those which are not intended to ¢each history
or natural science.’ Cf. Sir Philip Sidney’s Afologie for Poetrie.
Sidney says that ‘A Poet can scarcely be a lyer’, for ‘the Poet, he
nothing affirms, and therefore never lyeth’. This may have sug-
gested Wilde’s Decay of Lying. Also cf. Hurd, On the Idea of
Universal Poetry, Works, vol. ii, p. 16: ‘ For, though the poets, no
doubt . . . frequently zzs¢ruct ws by a true and faithful representa-
tion of things ; yet even this instructive air is only assumed for the
sake of pleasing ; which, as the human mind is constituted, they
could not so well do, if they did not instruct at all, that is, if /ru2%
were wholly neglected by them. So that Pleasure is still the
ultimate end and scode of the poet’s art, and zzstruction itself is,
in his hands, only one of the #zeazs by which he would effect it.’

ll. 28-30. Cf. Reid, Zssays on the Intellectual Powers,
Essay VIII, ch. iii: ‘Of all figurative language, that is the most
common, the most natural, and the most agreeable, which either
gives a body, if we may so speak, to things intellectual, and clothes
them with visible qualities; or which, on the other hand, gives
on qualities to the objects of sense.’ (Collected Works,
P- 497.

l. 31. (die von aussen erzeugt werden), welches sich gleichwol
doch muss allgemein mittheilen lassen, kann u.s.w. Windelband,
accepting Frey’s emendation, continues the brackets till after
lassen. 1 prefer the brackets in the original place, but have substi-
tuted welches for und das.

PAGE 189, |. 31 et seq. These instances are mentioned in the
Anthroßology, $ 28, but without any suggestion of the point here
made. In fact Kant goes on to say that similarly men may be
lacking in the sense of taste or of smell. This seems rather sub-
versive of the argument in the present case. —Although the Azthro-
pology was published eight years after the Cr7tigue of Judgement,
and although it contains several passages that are certainly of
a late date, it was evidently, in substance, only the lectures of
a much earlier date. Again and again we find in it expressions
of views much less mature than those expressed in works previously
published. wo :

PaGE 190, ll. 28-9. ‘having regard to the multiplicity of dif-
ferent kinds of delight which cross one another.’ Cf. Reynolds,
Thirteenth Discourse (1786): ‘And here I must observe, and
I believe it may be considered as a general rule, that no art can
be grafted with success on another. For though they all profess
the same origin and to proceed from the same stock, yet each has
its own peculiar modes both of imitating nature and of deviating
from it, each for the accomplishment of its own peculiar purpose.
These deviations, more especially, will not bear transplantation to
another soil’, Reynolds, however, is speaking rather of each art

298 Notes

1
being true to itself, e.g. of painting not seeking after dramatic
effect, than of the combination of different arts in a new and
distinct product. ; :

PAGE 191, ll. 10-11. “Where fine arts are not, either proximately
or remotely, brought into combination with moral ideas.” Reynolds
makes observations in somewhat the same strain: ‘ Well-turned
periods in eloquence, or harmony of numbers in poetry, which are
in those arts what colouring is in painting, however highly we may
esteem them, can never be considered as of equal importance with
the art of unfolding truths that are useful to mankind, and which
makes us better or wiser. How can those works which remind us
of the poverty and meanness of our nature be considered as of
equal rank with what excites ideas of grandeur, or raises and
dignifies humanity; or, in the words of the late poet, which makes
the beholder /earn to venerate himself as man? (Seventh Dis-
course.) Hartley goes further than Kant, and contends that the
fine arts should be made to serve religion. Pursued merely on
their own account, ‘they are very apt to excite Vanity, Self-
conceit, and mental Flatteries, in their Votaries.’ But, on the
other hand, ‘All these Arts are capable of being devoted to the
immediate Service of God and Religion in an eminent manner; and,
when so devoted, they not only improve and exalt the Mind, but
are themselves improved and exalted to a much higher Degree
than when employed upon profane Subjects; the Dignity and
Importance of the Ideas and Scenes drawn from Religion adding
a peculiar Force and Lustre thereto. And, upon the Whole, it will
follow, that the polite Arts are scarce to be allowed, except when
consecrated to religious Purposes; but that here their Cultivation
may be made an excellent Means of awakening and alarming our
Affection, and transferring them upon their true Objects.’ (Odbserva-
tions on Man, vol. ii, p. 254.) Puttenham thought that in cases
where poetry was only addressed to ‘the common solace of man-
kind in all his trauails and cares of this transitorie life’ it should be
allowed a fairly free hand, for ‘in this last sort being used for
recreation only, [it] may allowably beare matter not always of the
grauest, or of any great commoditie or profit, but rather in some
sort, vaine, dissolute, or wanton, so it be not very scandalous and
of euill example’. (Zhe Arte of English Poesie, ch. x.) Hume
considers the beneficial social effects of advances in the fine arts,
but regards these merely as natural results quite independent of
any combination with moral ideas. ‘/ndustry, knowledge, and
humanity, are linked together by an indissoluble chain, and are
found, from experience as well as reason, to be peculiar to the more
polished, and, what are commonly denominated the more luxurious
ages.’ (Essays, Part II, ‘Of Refinement in the Arts.’) Beattie,
in his ponderous Essay ‘On Poetry and Music’, is unexpectedly
good on this point. He contends that art must pay regard to
moral ideas simply for the sake of pleasing. Thus he remarks:

Notes 299

‘the bard who would captivate the heart must sing in unison to the
voice of conscience.’ On the other hand poetry ‘that is uninstruc-
tive, or immoral, cannot please those who retain any moral
sensibility, or uprightness of judgment; and must consequently
displease the greater part of any regular society of rational
creatures’, Shaftesbury deals with the problem in one of his
noblest passages. He contends, with deep philosophical insight,
that the proper influence of moral ideas in art consists in making
art true to itself. ‘Whoever has heard any thing of the Lives
of famous Statuarys, Architects, or Painters, will call to mind
many Instances of this nature. Or whoever has made any acquain-
tance with the better sort of Mechanzcks, such as are real Lovers of
Art, and Masters in it, must have observ’d their natural Fidelity
in this respect. Be they ever so idle, dissolute, or debauch’d ; how
regardless soever of other Rules; they abhor any transgression 77
their Art, and wou’d choose to lose Customers and starve, rather
than by a base Compliance with ¢he IVorld, to act contrary to
what they call the Justness and Truth of Work. “Sir,” (says
a poor Fellow of this kind, to his rich Customer) “ you are mis-
taken in coming to me, for such a piece of Workmanship. Let
who will make it for you, as you fancy; I know it to be wrong.
Whatever I have made hitherto, has been /7we IVork. And neither
for your sake or any body’s else, shall I put my hand to any other.”
This is Virtue! real Virtue, and Love of Truth; independant of
Opinion, and above the World’—In point of clearness Kant’s
remarks do not compare favourably with any of the above. It is
difficult to interpret his statement as meaning ‘ unless the fine arts
are made to attract an intellectual interest of a quasi-moral character,
then,’ &c., since, according to § 42, an intellectual interest does
not attach to the beauties of art. Also, it is difficult to suppose
that Kant refers to a connexion between moral ideas and the form
of the beautiful, because this is essential, and not a contingent
combination into which the fine arts may be brought. Yet the
second half of the preceding paragraph would suggest this inter-
pretation. But perhaps Kant may mean ‘only ona theory which’,
&c., are they saved from this fate. Again, it also seems difficult to
suppose that Kant is thinking of cases where moral ideas supply
the content—the rich material. For this would be to advocate an
interest in the subject-matter. However, the words ‘ proximately
or remotely’ would seem to indicate an intentional vagueness on
Kant’s part, and it may be that he is merely leading up to the
estimate of the different arts in the next section from the point of
view of the culture which they prepare in the mind, He would
then mean that it is only through the value of the arts as an
instrument of culture that they can command our permanent
approval.

1. 19. ‘the beauties of nature are in general the most bene-
ficial’ This seems to relieve art of some of its responsibility !

300 Notes

Pack 191, 1. 24. ‘ Poetry. Itisto be noticed that Kant does not
institute a comparison between poetry and painting. He makes no
mention of the distinctive point, that, ‘What is done by Painting
must be done at one blow’ (Reynolds, Ezghth Discourse, 1778).
This will, doubtless, be greatly regretted by English students—for
is there any English student who has not read Lessing’s epoch-
making work, Laocoon (1764)? The point, however, had been
made, and illustrated as far as painting is concerned, by Shaftes-
bury, in his treatise A zotion of the Historical Draught or Tabla-
ture of the judgment of Hercules (1713). Hartley probably had
this work in mind when he wrote ‘ Painting has a great advantage
over verbal description, in respect of the vividness and number of
ideas to be at once excited in the fancy ; but its compass is, upon
the whole, much narrower ; and it is also confined to one point of
time’ (Observations on Man, 1748, vol. i, ch. iv, sect. I, p. 428).
The distinction was also emphasized by J. Harris in his Discourse on
Music, Painting, and Poetry, and, subsequently, in his PAzlological
inquiries (Works, vol. iv, pp. 61-4). Spence lost sight of the point
in his Polymetzs, and, accordingly, was severely criticized in Lessing’s
work. However, the distinction had been reaffirmed by Webb in
his Beauties of Painting, pp. 158-90, which work was dedicated
to Spence. Lessing’s chief claim to originality (in this connexion)
consists in the illustration his own work gives of the manner in
which prose can spin out a single point indefinitely. The Zaocoon
might have gone on for ever, but for the timely appearance of
Winckelmann’s great work. Kant, however, does not trouble
himself with points of this kind at all. He is rather concerned
with the manner in which aesthetic ideas ensure the freedom of the
different arts.

PAGE 192, 1. 6. ‘It plays with semblance.’ Cf. Shaftesbury,
The Judgment of Hercules, Introduction, sect. 4; ‘ Probability or
Seeming Truth (which is the veal Truth of Art).’

l. 10. ‘ Rhetoric” Cf. Locke, Essay, Book III, ch. x, § 34. ‘But
yet, if we would speak of things as they are, we must allow, that all
the art of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, all the artificial and
figurative application of words eloquence hath invented, are for
nothing else but to insinuate wrong zdeas, move the passions, and
thereby mislead the judgment, and so indeed are perfect cheat:
and therefore however laudable or allowable oratory may render
them in harrangues and popular addresses, they are certainly, in all
discourses that pretend to inform or instruct, wholly to be avoided ;
and where truth and knowledge are concerned, cannot but be
thought a great fault, either of the language or person that makes
use of them.’

PAGE 194, |. 2. ‘the play of thought incidentally excited’ Cf.
Beattie, An Essay on Poetry and Music as they affect the Mind,
Part I,ch.vi. Also Alison, Essays on Taste, p. 169: ‘Music which
can avail itself of these signs only, can express nothing more parti-

Notes 301

cular than the Signs themselves. It will be found accordingly, that
it is within this limit that musical expression is really confined ;
that such classes of Emotion it can perfectly express; but that
when it goes beyond this limit, it ceases to be either expressive or
beautiful.’

1.9. ‘ Every expression in language has an associated tone suited
to its sense.’ Cf. Hutcheson, /rguiry, sect. vi, subsect.12: ‘The
Human voice is obviously vary’d by all the stronger Passions ; now
when our Zar discovers any resemblance between the A77 of a Tune,
whether sung or play’d upon an Instrument, either in its Tine or
Modulation, or any other Circumstance, to the sound of the Auman
Voice in any Passion, we shall be touch’d by it in a very sensible
manner, and have Melancholy, Joy, Gravity, Thoughtfulness,
excited in us by a sort of Sympathy or Contagion. Webb remarks:
‘Music therefore becomes imitative, when it so proportions the
enforcement or diminution of sound to the force or weakness of the
passion, that the soul answers, as in an echo, to the just measure of
the impression. It is from a propensity in our nature to fall in with
these reciprocal or responsive vibrations, that, in expressing our own
sentiments, or in reciting those of others, the voice mechanically
borrows its tone from the affection; thus it rises into vigour with
the bold, and subsides into softness with the gentler feelings.’
(Poetry and Music, p. 43.) Cf. Reid, Essays on the Intellectual
Powers, Essay VIII, ch. iv (Collected Works, p. 504); Alison,
Essays on Taste, p. 168; Brown, Dissertation, p. 27.

PAGE 195, 1. 6. ‘music.’ Adam Smith makes an excellent point
about music. He calls attention to the peculiar advantage which it
derives from its power of dwelling on a particular theme. It can
imitate the way in which an idea takes hold of the mind and engages
its attention for a considerable time. ‘ Neither Prose nor Poetry
can venture to imitate those almost endless repetitions of passion.
They may describe them as I do now, but they dare not imitate
them ; they would become most insufferably tiresome if they did.’
Cf. Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ‘Of the Imitative Arts,’
p. 155. The power of insiszence possessed by music is unrivalled
by any of the other arts. Among poets, Swinburne frequently
achieves considerable success in this direction. .

1. 12. ‘ by affections.’ James Harris, in his short but tedious
Discourse on Music, Painting, and Poetry (Works, vol. i, p. 99),
maintained that the power of music is one ‘ which consists not in
Imitations and the raising Ideas; but in raising Affections, to
which Ideas may correspond’. . DR:

l. 29. ‘Music advances from sensations to indefinite ideas.’
A most significant course, on Kant’s theory.

PAGE 197, 11. 28-30. ‘Also this gratification may amount to an
affection, although we take no interest in the object itself, or none,
at least, proportionate to the degree of the affection.’ (Cf. p. 198,
1.9.) Notice that this remark is not an admission that our apprecia-

302 Notes

tion of the laughable is disinterested in the sense In which our
delight in the beautiful is disinterested. The remark is, in fact,
applied to all play. As for the laughable, it is stated to rest upon
gratification, which always implies an interest (see § 3, especially the
last paragraph). An interest is implied in our delight ‘at being
able to reach the body through the soul and use the latter as the
physician of the former’. Reading the section as a whole it seems
obvious that Kant only examines the problem from a psychological
point of view. He makes no attempt to develop the conception of
a pure aesthetic judgement in respect of what is laughable—at least
till he comes to speak of naivere. If the result of his psychological
investigations in the case of the laughable is only to represent wit
and humour as agreeable arts this is merely because the investiga-
tions are only psychological. It is clear that the question is not
approached from the point of view which he adopted in the Azalyzic
of the Beautiful. From the latter point of view it made no differ-
ence whether any one ever laid down a pure judgement of taste or
not. Similarly, if Kant had approached the problem of the laugh-
able in his true critical spirit he would have seen that it is quite
immaterial whether or not most people laugh from mere merriment,
and a belief in the proverb ‘ Laugh and grow fat’. Perhaps Kant
was influenced, as Spencer seems to have been, by the presence
of the physical phenomenon of laughter. But from a tran-
scendental point of view this is unimportant. A Dublin lady, the
wife of an eminent musician, used always to keep nodding her
head (like a china doll) when listening to sweet music. Suppose
we all nodded our heads, or leant them to one side, whenever we
recognized beauty, this would not affect the analysis of a pure
judgement of taste. If we are entitled, not merely to laugh, but to
say that some things are /aughadle, then our judgement purports to
be disinterested. It may be added that the conception of a dis-
interested judgement in respect of the laughable is by no means
foreign to us, as it is generally recognized that it betrays an un-
cultured mind to ask, of a good story, whether it is really true or
not. Also it is regarded as evidence of detachment to be able to
enjoy a joke against oneself. It is undoubtedly hard to do, but,
where serious interests are not at stake, it is expected from us; and
we generally do make an attempt to work up some sort of a smile
in such cases. But if once the moment of disinterestedness is made
good, then the other moments follow by exactly the same process
of reasoning as that which Kant adopted in the case of the
beautiful. It seems obvious that if the laughable is not placed on
the same basis as the beautiful it turns Kant’s whole Analytic of
the Beautiful into ridicule. For it is obviously one thing to laugh
(which we may do when we are merely tickled), and another to say
that something zs laughable—and not merely laughable Zo me. So
here we can play Kant’s own trump card. It may also be said
that, reading the section as a whole, and paying especial attention

Notes 303

to the exact import of the remarks upon interest, it is difficult not
to suppose that it was written before Kant had recognized the dis-
interestedness of delight as the first moment of the judgement of
taste and seen how the other moments might be deduced from it.

PAGE 198, ll. 17-20. ‘ But as the play of ¢hance is not one that
is beautiful, we will here lay it on one side. Music, on the contrary,
and food for laughter are two kinds of play with aesthetic ideas.’
The words ‘on the contrary’ would seem to imply that music and
what excites laughter are not to be laid on one side because they
are concerned with what is beautiful, and belong to fine art. But
Kant says below that they deserve to be ranked rather as agreeable
than as fine arts. Otherwise we might think that in the remarks
that follow he was only showing that the gratification was irrelevant
to a pure judgement.

l. 21. ‘by which, all said and done, nothing is thought ’—
wodurch am Ende nichts gedacht wird. (Cf. infra, p. 334, |. 26.)
No doubt this reflection greatly influenced Kant in disparaging
wit and humour. But it seems a mistake to suppose that nothing
is thought. If nothing were thought ridicule would not be as
effective as it is. Addison seems to show far more insight when he
speaks of the ‘little triumph of the understanding, under the guise
of laughter’. In fact, in wit the triumph of understanding is so
essential that mere logical point often passes for wit. ‘Seeing
the joke’ almost invariably requires a certain keenness and
alertness of intellect, and the pleasure is bound up with the sense
of mental stimulation. The appearance which is reduced to
nothing is final for the quickening of the faculties. Undoubtedly
it is a mere Zlay of the imagination. But is not the case the same
with the beautiful? The latter is not dependent upon the objective
reality of any concept. If nature, as nature, is hopelessly Scotch,
so, also, is it entirely devoid of any beauty on its own account.
Against all this it may be urged that when Kant says ‘nothing is
thought’ he means that we are left where we were, without being
led to look out towards the supersensible. Cf. p. 126, ll. 18-25.
It might be thought that a piece of sculpture such as Rodin’s
‘Le Penseur’ differed from a caricature by Phil May because
(apart from everything else) it pays regard to aesthetic ideas,
whereas the latter does not. But, Kant himself says, in this very
sentence, that both music and laughter ‘are two kinds of play with
aesthetic ideas’.

PAGE 199, I. 1. ‘and use the latter as the physician of the
former.’ Cf. Home, Elements of Criticism, vol. i, p. 272; also
Webb, Odservations on Poetry and Music, p. 6. Hartley, Observa-
tions on Man, vol. i, p. 440, remarks: ‘ And it is useful not only in
respect of the good Effects which it has upon the Body, and the
present Amusement and Relaxation that it affords to the Mind;
but also, because it puts us upon rectifying what is so amiss, or
any other similar error, in one another, or in Children; and has a

304 ‚Notes

tendency to remove many Prejudices from Custom and Education.’
It would be easy to enlarge on the social function of laughter.
A laugh enjoyed in common gives a very lively sense of harmony
with social environment. Thus Hutcheson, in his Reflections upon
Laughter, contends that it is of considerable moment in society
and that ‘There is nothing of which we are more communicative
than a good jest’. He explains its final cause tobe: (1) that itis a
remedy for discontent and sorrow ; (2) that it is very contagious
and promotes sociability; (3) that it preserves the equilibrium of
the mind.

1. 6. ‘deserves to be ranked rather as an agreeable than a fine
art.’ As far as music is concerned this seems in open contradiction
with p. 190, 1. ı2. Inthe Anthropology, § 71, Kant says that music
‘is only a /ine (not merely agreeable) arZ, because it serves as a
vehicle for poetry’.

1, 15. ‘Something absurd (something in which, therefore, the
understanding can of itself find no delight)’ But this merely
proves that the laughable, like the sublime, resides only in the
mind. May not an intellectual pleasure supervene upon the
momentary displeasure at the disappointed expectation analogous
to that in the case of the sublime? From a teleological point of
view a certain independence of the imagination—a certain sub-
jectivity and power to go wrong—has meaning for the whole
province of the mind, provided it is subject to the control and
correction of higher faculties. To be able to send imagination out,
even on senseless errands, and whistle it back at pleasure, shows a
relation of imagination and understanding which has advantages
extending far beyond that of beneficial influence upon the health.

1.17. ‘Laughter ts an affection arising from a strained ex-
pectation being suddenly reduced to nothing Or we might say
that laughter is the response to a stimulus, mental or physical,
which continues to strain an expectation which is repeatedly
baffled. In defining the laughable, as the object of an aesthetic
judgement, the main question is to decide whether the emphasis
should be laid on the ‘ sudden glory’ (Hobbes) or the conversion
into nothing (Kant), or, in other words, upon imagination or upon
understanding, or whether both sides should be equally recognized,
as in the definition of the beautiful: ¢he conformity to law ot
imagination 2% z¢s freedom. The latter would seem the proper course.
We might, therefore, define the laughable as a representation
which provides the imagination with a pretext for making a sudden
and forcible excursion into fields from which it is customarily
debarred by the conditions of a required harmony with under-
standing. If this definition were adopted the laughable would at
once fall into line with the beautiful and the sublime as defined by
Kant, and would do so even from the point of view of the super-
sensible. For the laughable might be.regarded as always furnish-
ing us with a playful reminder that the world of understanding

Notes 305

is the mere phenomenon of a thing-in-itself. The decrees of
understanding are subject to the jurisdiction of a higher court,
which, if it does not always decide in favour of the laughable,
generally allows it the costs of attending at the trial.

PAGE 200, 1. 2. ‘ This is not because we think ourselves, maybe,
more quick-witted than this ignorant Indian.’ In deference to
Hobbes, Kant might have supported this statement with some argu-
ment. Hutcheson combats Hobbes’s view that laughter must be a
joy springing from ‘interest’ or ‘some selfish view’, but he admits
that his theory has some application to rzdicwle, from which, how-
ever, he says laughter must be distinguished.

PAGE 201,1.16, ‘ For supposing we assume that some movement
in the bodily organs is associated sympathetically with all our
thoughts.’ The influence of David Hartley’s Odservations on Man
seems apparent throughout this whole section. Hartley traced all
intellectual energy to vibrations in the nerves. He may also be said
to be the founder of the English Association School of psychologists.
He connected the association of ideas with his doctrine of vibra-
tions (vol. i, pp. 56-114).

1, 28. ‘ Voltaire’—in Zenriade, chant 7:
Du Dieu qui nous créa la clémence infinie,
Pour adoucir les maux de cette courte vie,
A placé parmi nous deux étres bienfaisants,
De la terre 4 jamais aimables habitants,
Soutiens dans les travaux, trésors dans l’indigence:
L’un est le doux sommeil, et l’autre l’espérance.

PAGE 202, 1. 11. ‘ Maiveté’ The remarks on naivere are far the
best in the whole section. Cf. Hartley, Odservations on Man,
vol. i, p. 441: ‘Thus we often laugh at Children, Rustics, and
Foreigners, when yet they act right, according to the truly-natural,
simple and uncorrupted Dictates of Reason and Propriety, and are
guilty of no other Inconsistency, than what arises from the Usurpa-
tions of Custom over Nature ; and we often take notice of this, and
correct ourselves, in consequence of being diverted by it.’

PAGE 208, |. 8. ‘it is a fine art.’ This is so because what
reduces the false appearance to nothing is unspoiled nature. But in
everything that we say zs laughable there is a play between appear-
ance and reality—between what has a mere subjective validity and
what is held to be true according to some standard. In maiveté
we have only the particular case where the standard is nature
unspoiled by custom or education. But there are many other
cases in which the standard involves even a reference to ideas.
Kant seems to have been misled by the German for ine art, viz.
schöne (beautiful) Kunst, and also by his division of the subject-
matter of the Critique into the sublime and the beautiful. No one
could maintain that the laughable falls simply under the head of
either the beautiful or the sublime. The question is whether the

1193 x

306 ‚Notes

judgement upon the laughable belongs to aesthetic modes of esti-
mating, and, if so, how it is related to the sublime and beautiful.

1. to. ‘the conventions of good society — was Kunst des Um-
ganges sei. See note to p. 10, |. 22. ; ,

1. 23. ‘on behalf of a lively presentation drawn from a ludicrous
contrast.’ Here, also, ‘what goes on in the mind’ seems to be of
some importance. Cf. Hartley, Observations on Man, vol. i, p. 439:
‘ Those that are Judges of Politeness and Propriety, laugh only at
such Strokes of Wit and Humour, as surprise by some more than
ordinary Degree of Contrast or Coincidence; and have at the same
time a due Connection with Pleasure and Pain, and their several
Associations of Fitness, Decency, Inconsistency,Absurdity, Honour,
Shame, Virtue, and Vice.’ It is strange that the following passage
in Addison, assuming that Kant was acquainted with it, does not
seem to have suggested anything to him: ‘ Humour should always
lie under the check of reason, and it requires the direction of the
nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself in
the most boundless freedoms.’ (Sfectator, No. 36.) Hutcheson,
Reflections upon Laughter, and Gerard, Essay on Taste, both
insisted on contrast as of fundamental importance in the laugh-
able. The former said that what seems generally the cause of
laughter is ‘the bringing together of images which have contrary
additional ideas, as well as some resemblance in the principal
idea.’ Campbell, PAxlosoßhy of Rhetoric, adopts the converse view
(in respect of wit, which he distinguishes from humour and ridi-
cule), and says that ‘this enchantress exults in reconciling contra-
dictions, and in hitting on that special light and attitude, wherein
you can discover an unexpected similarity in objects, which, at first
sight, appear the most dissimilar and heterogeneous’. Duff lays
great stress on the imagination. Wit and humour are produced by
the efforts of a ‘rambling and sportive fancy’. (Zssay on Original
Genius, p. 52.)

1. 24. ‘his way of speaking’—sein Vortrag.

ll. 27-8. ‘an evident intrinsic worth ... a certain serious-
ness, Cf.p.191, Il. 10-20; also p. 195, 1.23. So Kant has to fall
back on the due combination of fine art with moral ideas, and
humour is excluded from fine art because of its want of serious-
ness! Kant might have reflected that humour sometimes results
from a very lively sense that ideas cannot be presented, and from
being too serious with the sublime.

PAGE 205, l.2. The various discussions on The Standard of Taste
by British writers exerted a considerable influence on Kant’s concep-
tion of the critical problem in respect of taste. This is especially
apparent in § 57. As far back as 1709 Shaftesbury had said: ‘’Tis
controverted “Which is the finest Z7/e, the loveliest shape or face”:
But without controversy ’tis allow’d “There is a BEAUTY of each
kind.” This no one goes about to Zeach: nor is it earnt by any;
but confess’d by all. AM own the standard, rule, and measure;

Notes 307

büt in applying it to things, disorder arises, ignorance prevails,
interest and passion breed disturbance.’ (The Moralists, Part III,
sect. 2.) Hume, however, was the first to deal with the problem
with a clear perception of the difficulties which it involved. Cf.
his Essays, ‘ Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion,’ ‘ The Sceptic,’
‘Of the Standard of Taste.’ He regarded the distinction between
good and bad taste as perfectly valid, and, moreover, may be said
to have estimated good taste by reference to an ideal norm. His
ideal norm was the delicate taste of the man of culture and refine-
ment. He justifies this conception principally by two considera-
tions. On the one hand, ‘Some particular forms or qualities, from
the original structure of the internal fabric are calculated to please,
and others to displease ; and if they fail of their effect in any parti-
cular instance, it is from some apparent defect or imperfection in
the organ. A man ina fever would not insist on his palate as able
to decide concerning flavours; nor would one affected with the
jaundice pretend to give a verdict with regard to colours. In each
creature there is a sound and a defective state; and the former
alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and
sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire
or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men, we may
thence derive an idea of perfect beauty; in like manner as the
appearance of objects in daylight, to the eye of a man in health, is
denominated their true and real colour, even while colour is allowed
to be merely a phantasm of the senses.’ This is supplemented by
the further considerations: ‘ Where the organs are so fine as to
allow nothing to escape them, and at the same time so exact as
to perceive every ingredient in the composition, this we call
delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the literal or
metaphorical sense. It is acknowledged to be the perfection of
every sense or faculty, to perceive with exactness its most minute
objects and allow nothing to escape its observation. Nothing tends
further to increase and improve this talent, than Zraczice in a parti-
cular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular
species of beauty. In a word, the same address and dexterity
which practice gives to the execution of any work, is also acquired
by the same means in the judging of it.’ But, of course, the
possession of what, because of its accurate discernment, would
be called, in the case of music, a good ear, is not sufficient to con-
stitute a good taste. Hence, on the other hand, he insists ‘It is
well known that in all questions submitted to understanding,
prejudice is the destruction of sound judgment, and perverts all
operations of the intellectual faculties: it is no less contrary to
good taste; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiment of
beauty. It belongs to good sense to check its influence in both
cases; and in this respect, as well as in many others, reason, if
not an essential part of taste, is at least requisite to the operations
of this latter faculty. It seldom or never happens, that a man of
X 2

308 ‚Notes

sense, who has experience in any art, cannot judge of its beauty;
and it is no less rare to meet with a man who has a just taste
without a sound understanding.’ Such is the taste which, ac-
cording to Hume, fixes on certain objects ‘the epithet deautiful
or deformed’ by virtue of a sentiment which ‘must depend upon
the particular fabric or structure of the mind, which enables
such particular forms to operate in such a particular manner, and
produces a sympathy or conformity between the mind and its
objects’. An interesting discussion of the same subject will also
be found in Home’s Elements of Criticism, vol. ii, ch. xxv. He
begins his discussion by saying, °“ That there is no disputing about
taste”, meaning taste in its figurative as well as proper sense, is
a saying so generally received as to have become a proverb’. At
p. 488 he observes: “However languid and cloudy the common
sense of mankind may be as to the fine arts, it is notwithstanding
the only standard in these as in morals.’ The subject was also
discussed by FitzOsborne, Zezters, No. 39, ‘Concerning the Criterion
of Taste’; by Burke, in the Introduction to his Essay ; by Gerard,
Essay on Taste (3rd ed.), Part IV, ‘The Standard of Taste’; by
Reynolds, Seventh Discourse; and by Reid, Essays on the Intel-
lectual Powers, Essay VI, ch. vi, sect. 4; Essay VIII, ch.i. Reid’s
treatment of the problem is very disappointing—especially as it
concludes the series.

PAGE 208, 1. 26. What saves the antinomy from being a mere
verbal confusion, and makes it worthy of the name of an antinomy, is
that it is only solved by taking the distinction between determinate
concepts and the rational concept of the supersenszble.

We say that a particular subject (S) is beautiful (P), and we
argue: if S is P, then it must be because it is M and not not-M.
But, if so, are we not entitled to say ‘All Mis P’? The mistake
we make is that M is not a predicate which determines S, and
which can be extracted from S, but only the conception of the
harmony of imagination and understanding (allowing us merely to
subsume the facz/ty of intuitions or presentations under the faculty,
of concepts, p. 143) which we introduce into our representation of
S, as an interpretation of our purely subjective sensation (of the
quickening of our faculties) in the apprehension of the object. Thus
an aesthetic idea is an 7weapontble representation of the imagina-
tion. Its import cannot be exhausted by determinate concepts.
Hence we can only interpret it through the rational concept of the
supersensible, and it is this that is the ground of the predicate
beautiful,

PAGE 209, 1. 31. ‘no objection will be raised.’ Certainly not at
this stage. A few more or less will not be worth fighting about.
But, besides, the whole discussion that follows is most important
from a systematic point of view.

PAGE 210, 1. 8. “rational ideas’ The italics are the translator’s.

PAGE 215, 1. 10. ‘deduction.’ To what does Kant refer? Pos-

Notes 309

sibly to the solution of the antinomy, but, more probably, to all
that has preceded, including the Introduction. It hardly refers to
the Deduction proper. The whole paragraph reads as if it might
have been at one time intended as the conclusion of the Crztzgue of
Aesthetic Judgement. Compare the remarks on clearness with
those at p. 7, Il. 5-7.

PAGE 217, 1. 5. ‘and, beyond all else, the variety and harmony in
the array of colours.’ Cf. Home, Elements of Criticism, vol. i,
p. 327: ‘Nature in no particular seems more profuse of ornament,
than in the beautiful colouring of her works. The flowers of plants,
the furs of beasts, and the feathers of birds, vie with each other in
the beauty of their colours, which in lustre as well as harmony are
beyond the power of imitation.’

PAGE 218, 1.4. Hutcheson similarly refers to the process of
crystallization. /rgwiry, sect. i, subsect 5.

PAGE 223, 1. 25. ‘all our knowledge of God is merely symbolic.’
Kant’s object in calling attention to the fact that all our knowledge of
God is symbolic appears to be more than that of mere illustration.
If beauty does depend on symbolism, then, it may be asked, how
can we call on others to agree in the interpretation? Kant’s reply is
that the process is by no means arbitrary, but depends upon a real
analogy (1% the rule of reflection), and that, in fact, it is all that we
have to rely upon in the case of our knowledge of God. The im-
portance which Kant gives to symbolism is the necessary conse-
quence of his whole system. Owing to the essential difference
between schemata and symbols it is obvious that his Critical Philo-
sophy allows considerable latitude for difference of opinion on
theological questions. For when a species of knowledge is only
symbolical, the precise meaning of the symbolism and the closeness
of the analogy on which it rests, seems to be left an open question.
It is sometimes very difficult to decide how far Kant himself
supposed the analogy to extend.

PAGE 224, 1.6. “This is that zz¢el/igible to which taste, as
noticed in the preceding paragraph, extends its view.’ Windelband
remarks that the only passage in § 58 to which this could refer is
p. 220, 1. 20 et seq. He thinks that it is much more probable that
what Kant had in mind was what he laid down in § 57 about ‘the
supersensible substrate of humanity’ as ‘the key to the riddle’ of
the judgement of taste, and elaborated in the first Remark. He
refers to pp. 208, Il. 8, 9, and 208, ll. 33 et seq. :

But if we are to go back to § 57, then why not take the last lines
of that section: ‘the antinomies compel us, whether we like it or
not, to look out beyond the horizon of the sensible and to seek in
the supersensible the point of union of all our faculties a prtori.’
In this passage the words Aimaus zu sehen occur, and seem to
answer to worauf der Geschmack hinaussieht (to which . . . taste
extends its view). Now there is a close connexion between this
passage and the last paragraph of § 58; and the latter naturally

310 Notes

recalls the former. The last paragraph of § 58 states Kant’s con-
clusion in general terms, and from it we look back to the reference
to autonomy and to the supersensible in $ 58 and thence to the
above-quoted passage in § 57. For these reasons we may doubt
whether Kant had the conclusions which he drew in § 57, rather than
those drawn in $ 58, principally present to mind. But, beyond all
this, the close connexion between § 58 and § 59 seems against
Windelband’s view. In § 58 Kant tells us what we are not to look
to, and in $ 59 he tells us what we are to look to. This latter he had
merely indicated in a general way in § 58. (Also see next note.)
It may also be remarked that Windelband does not suggest that
§ 58 might have been written after § 59 or offer any other explana-
tion of what he regards as the mistake in Kant’s quotation.

ll. 13, 14. Cf. the reference to heteronomy and autonomy,
p. 220, ll. 23-7. This strengthens the conclusion that ‘the previous
paragraph’ refers to § 58.

1.25. ‘The beautiful pleases zmedzately.’ Cf. pp. 69, 1. 16;

132, 1. 25.

° PAGE 225, ll. 12-19. Donaldson regarded the expression of
goodness as the highest beauty. Reid remarks: ‘ There is nothing
more common in the sentiments of all mankind, and in the lan-
guage of all nations, than what may be called a communication of
attributes; that is, transferring an attribute, from the subject to
which it properly belongs, to some related or resembling subject.
. . . The attributes of body we ascribe to mind, and the attributes
of mind to material objects.’ (Essays on the Intellectual Powers,
Essay VIII, ch.iv; Collected Works, p. 501.) ‘I apprehend, there-
fore, that it is in the moral and intellectual perfections of mind,
and in its active powers, that beauty originally dwells; and that
from this as the fountain, all the beauty which we perceive in the
visible world is derived.’ (Ibid., p. 503.) In a letter to Alison,
Reid takes somewhat undue credit for being the first to have ex-
pressed these views ‘in clear and explicit terms, and in the cool
blood of a philosopher’. (Ibid., p. 99.) He ranks Plato and
Shaftesbury with Akenside, as handling the subject of beauty rather
with ‘the enthusiasm of poets or lovers, than with the cool temper
of philosophers’.

PAGE 226, 1. 30. ‘the universal feeling of sympathy.” Cf. Adam
Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part I, sect. i, ch. i, ‘Of the
Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.’

1, 31. ‘to communicate universally one’s inmost self’—sich
innigst und allgemein mittheilen. A wealth of meaning lies
beneath these words. This ‘inmost self’ is the universal self—the
self that is the a/fer ego of every true member of the human
brotherhood. It is, in the last analysis, this self—humanity in the
man—which the poet seeks to express. It is the same self that all
true friends have at some time, be it only by a mere tone of the
voice, a look, or a pressure of the hand, revealed to one another.

Notes zu

It is just the power of being moved by certain thoughts too deep
for words.

PAGE 227, 1. 4. ‘freedom (and, therefore, equality also). Cf.
Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author, Part II, sect.2: ‘ Hence it is that
those Arts have been delivered to us in such perfection, by free na-
tions; who from the nature of their government, as from a proper soil,
produced the generous plants ; whilst the mightiest bodies and the
vastest empires, governed by force and a despotic power, could,
after ages of peace and leisure, produce no other than what was
deformed and barbarous of the kind.’ Similarly, Hume’s Zssay on
the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences : ‘ My first observa-
tion on this head is, Zatz z£ is zmpossible for the arts and sciences
to arise, at first, among any people, unless that people enjoy the
blessing of a free government.’

ll. 10, 11, ‘of the former .. . of the latter’—des ersteren ...
des letzteren. Windelband reads: der ersteren . . . des letzteren.
The original has der in both places.

ll. 29-32. This statement is the complement of that at p. 225,

ll. 19-24. Taste and art promote, and in turn are promoted by,
the culture of moral ideas.

ANALYTICAL INDEX TO THE
TRANSLATION

Abstraction. From content of judgement of taste, 136 ; from concept
of object, 72, 74 ; from the agreeable and good, 57.

Admiration. Definition of, 125.

Aesthetic. Aesthetic quality, defined, 29 ; transcendental, of judge-
ment, only deals with pure judgements, 121; faculty, legislative, 220, and
mathematical estimation of magnitude contrasted, 99 ; all estimation of
magnitude in the last resort, 98. See Attributes.

‘Aesthetic ideas. Meaning of, 175 ; justification for name, 175 ; soul,
the faculty of presenting, 175; counterpart of rational idea, 176; con-
trasted with intellectual ideas, 176; faculty of, best displayed in poetry,
177; serves rational idea instead of logical presentation, 177 ; beauty, the
expression of, 183 ; the mere expression of, the main intention in sculpture,
186; fine art must derive its rule from, 221; distinguished from rational
ideas of determinate ends, 221; music and what provokes laughter two
kinds of play with, 198.

Aesthetic judgement. 4 priori principle of, difficulty of discovering,
5; evidences a bearing of faculty of knowledge on feeling of pleasure, 6;
defined, 36; compared with teleological judgement, 36; compared with
logical judgement, 42 ; pleasure in, 65; division of, 65 ; does not afford even
a confused knowledge of objects, 71; subjective reference of, 71; the
ought in, 82 ; logical peculiarities of, 136; arises by delight being attached
as predicate to object, 144; contrasted with cognitive judgements, 144,
cf, 5,1. 35; contrasted with judgements of experience, 144; the principle
in, both object and law, 145}; dialectic of, 204; unique principle of,
287.

Affection. Physiological concomitants, 16, n.; freedom from, repre-
sented as sublime, 124; of strenuous type, sublime, 125; of languid type
not sublime, 125.

Agreeable. The, defined, 44; delight in, interested, 44 ; the, does
not merely please but gratifies, 45; compared with the good, 46, 48;
contrasted with delight in the beautiful, 46, 53, 55; rests entirely on
sensation, 46; contrasted with the beautiful and good, 49, 51, 81;
difference of opinion as to, tolerated, 53; abstraction from, 57; con-
trasted with the beautiful, the sublime, and the good, 116, cf. 90; as
motive of desire, always of one and the same kind, 117; difference
among men as to the, 149; empiricism confuses, with aesthetic delight,
215; art, agreeable or beautiful, 165: music and jest belong to agreeable
rather than to fine art, 198, cf. 193, 194, but see also 190.

Agreement. As to the beautiful, necessity of, 82; of different judging
Subjects, 85; the judgement of taste exacts agreement from every one, 84;
asa duty, 154, cf. 82, 84, 132, 223, 224; ofall ages, empirical criterion, 75.

Analytical Index 313

Analogy. Between art and expression, 184 ; presentation of concept
by means of, 222 ; words having at their basis an, 223; points of, between
beautiful and morally good, 224 ; names applied to beautiful objects after
analogy with morally good, 225 ; between finality of reflective judgement
and practical finality, 20; imagination building up another nature on
basis of an, 176 ; beautiful nature regarded after the analogy of art, 92.

Ancients. Works of, regarded as models, 137, which a later age will
hardly dispense with, 227. Cf. 75, 7.

Anthropomorphism, 223.

Antinomy. Of judgement of taste, 205; solution of same, 206, and
alternatives for avoiding, 214 ; forces us to look beyond the sensible, 209 ;
of pure reason, three kinds, 213, and how they arise, 213.

Apprehension. Pleasure connected with, when not referable to
Object, 30; prior to any concept, 33, cf. 32.

Archetype. Of taste, 75; set by nature, 79.

Architecture. Asa plastic art, 186; design the essential in, 67.

Art. Judgements as to products of, claim universal agreement, 32 ;
function of imagination in, 34 ; in, we realize a preconceived concept of
an object which we set before ourselves as a purpose, 34; field of
application of principle of finality, 39, 1. 22; beauty of, restricted by
conditions of required agreement with nature, 91; beautiful nature
regarded after the analogy of, 92; sublime not to be sought in works of,
if judgement to be pure, 100; fine, interest in, no evidence of moral dis-
position, 157 ; beauty of, beauty of nature superior to, in that it awakens
an immediate interest, 158 ; nature in the beautiful displays, 160; delight
in fine, not immediate, 161; imitation by, of nature, 161; general dis-
cussion on, 162; how distinguished from nature, 162; as human skill,
distinguished from science, 163 ; distinguished from handicraft, 164; as
free, 164; regarded as play, 164; requires a mechanism, 164; when
merely mechanical, 165, 167, 171; fine, general discussion on, 165; how
far art avails itself of science, 165 ; aesthetic, defined, 165; distinguished
from agreeable, 165; fine, though devoid of an end advances interests of
social communication, 166 ; has for standard reflective judgement and not
organic sensation, 166 ; only beautiful when it appears like nature, 167;
nature only beautiful when it has the appearance of, 167 ; fine, must please
in the mere act of judgement, 167; has always the definite intention of
producing something, 167, cf. 171, 173, 175, 221, 226; how a product of,
may seem like nature, 167; fine, is the art of genius, 168, 221 ; nature
through genius gives the rule to, 168; presupposes rules, 168; limit to
the progress of, 170 ; involves something academic, 171; the thought of
something as end always present to, 171; genius supplies the material for,
17t, cf. 176; its form depends upon discipline, 171, 172; genius re-
quired for production of, 172; beauty of nature and of, contrasted, 172;
requisites for judging of beauty of nature and of, respectively, 172;
involves a reference to perfection, 173; shows superiority in being able
to give a beautiful description of what is. ugly in nature, 173; requires
more than mere conformity to taste, 174 ; form of, must not appear sought
after, 175 ; combination of taste and genius in products of, 191; beautiful
or inspired, 182; faculties requisite for, 183; concept of object necessary
in, 183 ; division of fine, 183 ; conjunction of understanding and sensibility
in fine, must appear undesigned, 185 ; combination of fine, in one and the
same product, 190; fate of, when not combined with moral ideas, 191;

314 Analytical Index

respective worth of different, 191 ; the nature of the individual and not a
set purpose gives the rule to, 213 ; no rule or precept can serve as stand-
ard for, 211; finality of, 215; successful attainment of, ends only a
determining ground of judgement in mechanical, 221 ; must derive its rule
from aesthetic ideas, 221 ; the element of science in, only an indispensable
condition, 226; has only a manner and not a method of teaching, 226;
propaedeutic to all fine, 226.

Assent. (See Agreement.) Necessity of universal, 84.

Association. Law of, imagination borrows material supplied according
to law of, 176; laws of, 86, 121.

Astonishment. Defined, 125; cf. 120.

Attributes. Aesthetic, defined, 177; logical, 177; examples of the
use of aesthetic, 178.

Autonomy. Of higher faculties, 38; does not belong to imagination
itself, 86 ; judgement of taste should found on, 220.

Batteux. Referred to as an art critic, 140.

Beautiful. Analytic of the, 41; definition of the, 118; definitions of
the, resulting from moments, 50, 60, 80, 85 ; pleases in the mere reflection,
149, and in the mere estimate of it, 167 ; independent of definite concept,
46, 72,150; the, contrasted with the agreeable, the sublime, and the good,
49, 52, 53, 54, 90, 117; points of agreement and difference between the,
and the sublime, 90, 93, 104, 107, 115; in judging of the, mind in restful
contemplation, 94, 107, 110; we dwell on the contemplation of the, 64 ;
charms compatible with the, 91; person captivated by inclination and
appetite cannot judge of the, 110; delight in the, connected with re-
presentation of quality, 91 ; implies a necessary reference to delight, 81 ;
the, a presentation of an indeterminate concept of understanding, 90; delight
in the, is positive, 120; the, requires a certain quality of the object, 117;
ground of the, sought in what is external to ourselves, 93; ground of the
estimation of, a mere formal finality, 69 ; what required for calling an
object, 43; difference of opinion not tolerated when anything described
as, 84 ; no criterion or objective rule for determining what is, 75; no
science of the, 225 ; deduction of judgements upon, 133; so called by
reference to that character to which the thing adapts itself to our mode of
taking it in, 137 ; pleasure in the, attends a process of judgement which
must be exercised for the commonest experience, 150 ; pleasure in the,
must depend for every one on the same conditions, 150; proportion of the
faculties necessary for the perception of the, 150; mistakes in the judge-
ment upon, 150; culture, how far necessary for its appreciation, 115 ;
cultivates us, 117; the immediate pleasure in, cultivates liberality of mind,
120; finality of, in connexion with the moral sense, 119; conformity to
law of action done from duty may be represented as, 118; only pleases
universally in reference to morality, 224 ; beautiful representation of an
object defined, 174 ; beautiful object distinguished from beautiful views
of objects, 89; objects, examples of, 46.

Beauty. Nota property of the object, 136, 215, cf. 51; the expression
of aesthetic ideas, 183 ; finality in this case has its ground in the form and
figure of the object, 133; of object, consists in the form of mutual sub-
jective finality of faculties of imagination and understanding, 141; why
scattered abroad so lavishly, 133; intellectual an inaccurate expression,
123 ; ofnature, mind cannot dwell on, without finding its interest engaged,

Analytical Index 315

160 ; of, nature superior to that of art, in that it awakens an immediate
interest, 158; symbol of morality, 223; has only significance for human
beings, 49.

Camper, 163.

Caricature, 79, 7.

Categories, Basis of experience is general, 22; no pleasure from
the coincidence of perceptions with, 27.

Charm. Dwelling on, 64; pure judgement of taste independent of,
65, cf. 191, 193, 225; abstraction from, where judgement intended to
serve as a universal rule, 152; cannot enhance beauty of form, 66;
may lend an adventitious interest where taste still immature, 66; absence
of, test of correctness of ideal of beauty, 80 ; person captivated by inclina-
tion and appetite cannot judge of beautiful, 110; beautiful compatible
with, gı ; charms repugnant to the sublime, 91; of nature belong to
modifications of light and sound, 161; interest in charm of nature empirical,
157; attract in society before forms, 155; taste makes possible the
transition from charm-sense to habitual moral interest, 225.

Civilization. Connexion of appreciation of beauty with develop-
ment of, 156.

Coexistence. How made intuitable, 107.

Cognition. Our faculty of, its field, territory, and realm, 12; the one
kind of representation that is valid for every one, 58.

Cognitive faculty. (Or faculty of knowledge.) Bearing of, on
feeling of pleasure, 6 ; presented with an unbounded field, 13; finality
for our, 26, 35; pleasure expressing conformity of object to, 30; accord
of object with, contingent, 25, 26, 31 ; harmony with, 33; harmonious
accord of, 39; table of, 39; free play of, 58.

Cognitive powers. Proportion of accord of, 83, cf. 100.

Colossal, Defined, 100.

Colour. Difference of opinion as to, 51; charm of, 66; when con-
sidered beautiful, 66 ; Euler’s theory of, 66; beautiful, in organic nature,
217; seven colours, and what they suggest, 161; names given to, by
analogy with what is moral, 225 ; art of, 189.

Columbus. His problem of the egg, 163.

Common sense. (See Sensus communis.) Condition of necessity in
aesthetic judgement, 82; meaning of, 82; ground for supposing a, 83 ;
subjective necessity represented as objective on presupposition of a, 84;
experience not ground of, 84; a mere ideal norm, 84; constitutive or
regulative, 85; elements of faculty of taste united in, 85.

Communicable. The manner in which genius arrives at its ideas not,
169; artistic skill not, 170; universally, what is, in judgement of taste,
57; and why, 58. .

Communicability. Of sensation, 148; of moral feeling, 149; of
pleasure in the sublime, 149 ; of pleasure in the beautiful, 150 ; of thoughts,
requires what, 153; of cognitions and judgements, 83; universal, cogni-
tion alone capable of, 57; of accord of cognitive faculties, 83 ; universal,
of a feeling, presupposes a common sense, 82; universal, of a pleasure
proves it to be one ofreflection, 166; free play of cognitive faculties must
admit of universal, 58; universal, the feeling which apart from concepts
alone admits of, is that of the freedom in the play of our cognitive
faculties, which play is also final, 167 ; pleasure in object consequent on

316 Analytical Index

the universal, of mental state in representation, 57 ; what sensation unl-
versally communicated in judgement of taste, 60; in the case of the
sublime, 128; empirical pleasure in, deducible from propensity to
sociability, 59 ; universal, result of supposing that it carries an interest,
154; universal, a source of interest in society, 128, 156; a regard to
universal, required of every one 155; value of sensations placed in
universal, 156.

Communication. Indifference to, of observations to others, required
if interest in the beautiful is to evidence a good moral disposition, 158 ;
mode of, in speech, adopted as guiding division of fine arts, 184 ; power
of, of one’s inmost self, implied by ‘ humanity’, 226 ; reciprocal, between
cultivated and uncultivated, what age discovered, 227; social, fine art
advances interest of, 166.

Concept. Division of concepts into those of nature and of freedom, 8,
cf. 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 23, 37; their field, territory, and realm, 12; of nature
and freedom, transition, 38, 39; manifold modification of transcendental
concepts of nature, 18; not required to enable us to see beauty ; cannot
be determining ground of judgement of taste, 70 ; judgement of taste upon
object prior to any, 146, cf. 32 ; confused and clear, 71 ; abstraction from,
72, 74; material beyond what is included in, 179; presentation of,
occasioning a wealth of thought, ıgı ; of understanding, immanent as
opposed to transcendent, 210; of understanding, always demonstrable, 210.

Conversation, Art of, described, 166.

Criterion. No universal, of the beautiful, 75 ; universal communica-
bility as, 75; empirical, 75.

Criticism. Limits of, in relation to taste, 142.

Critique. Of Pure Reason, 3, 4, 17; of Pure Reason (in narrow
sense), why judgement and reason excluded therefrom, 3 ; of pure reason
(in wide sense) incomplete unless it treated of judgement, 4; of Practical
Reason, 4; of Judgement, topic of, 4; of Judgement, not directed to
culture of taste,6; plays part of Theory in case of Judgement, 7; of
Pure Reason, non-interference of legislations shown by, 13; of judge-
ment, connects both parts of philosophy, 14; general statement of nature
and functions of, 14; has no realm, and is not a doctrine, 14; of pure
reason, divisions of, 17; of judgements of taste, why required, 32; of
aesthetic judgements, ground of twofold division of, 33; of Judgement,
why divided into that of aesthetic and teleological judgement, 34; of
judgement, aesthetic part of, essential, 35 ; position of aesthetic judgement
in, 36; propaedeutic, 36; of taste, when an art and when a science, 142;
transcendental, 142; The Dialectic, a dialectic of the Critique of taste, not
of taste itself, 204.

Sryetallzatiog, Used as an example of a free formation of nature,
218.

Culture. Of taste, not the object of the critique,6; how far necessary
for the estimate of the sublime and the beautiful, 115; fine art promotes,
166 ; progressive, stability of judgement a guarantee of, 183; pleasure in
fine art is culture, 191 ; art of tone, more a matter of enjoyment than of,
194; adopted as standard, 195 ; examples of what has approved itself in
the progress of culture, 183 ; propaedeutic to fine art, 226 ; mean between
higher and modest worth of nature, the true standard of taste, 227; con-
straint of, united with truth and force of nature, 227.

Cypher. Through which nature speaks to us figuratively, 160.

Analytical Index 317

Dance. Combination of arts in a, 190.

Decoration, 188.

Deduction. Of principle of finality, 22 et seq.; of pure aesthetic
judgements, 133 ; in what cases obligatory, 133; only necessary in the
case of judgements upon the beautiful, 133; what suffices for, in case of
aesthetic judgements, 135, 136; method of the, of judgements of taste,
135; of judgements of taste, problem of, 144 ; of judgements of taste, 146;
also in the sublime, 215.

Definition. Transcendental, 16, x.

Deism, 223.

Delight. Disinterested, 42, 49; comparison of the different kinds of,
48; as related to inclination, favour, and respect, 49 ; universal, 50; taste
gains by combination of intellectual with aesthetic, 73 ; in the good but
not in the beautiful, when, 86; in the way a figure strikes the eye, 87;
purpose in respect of knowledge combined with, 87; serving instead of
a predicate of the object, 144 ; nature of, in a moral action, 149.

Design. The essential element in the formative arts, 67, 68,

Desire. (See Reason.) Faculty of, defined, 16, ». ; faculty of principles
of, 4, 6; definition tested by consideration of fantastic wishes, 16, 7. ;
causal reference of, 16, n. ; purpose of propensity to, consciously vain,
16, n.; reference of interest to, 42.

Dialectic. Of the aesthetic judgement, 204 ; not of taste but of the
critique of it, 204.

Disgust. What excites, cannot be represented in fine art, 174.

Disputes. As to questions of taste, 74.

Division. Of philosophy, 7 ; of philosophy, as theoretical or practical,
8; of metaphysic, 75; why Kant’s divisions always threefold, 39; of
investigation, into that of the beautiful and the sublime, 33; of the sublime
into the mathematically and the dynamically sublime, 94.

Doctrine. Principles belonging to, must be determinant, 36.

Dominion. Defined as might which is superior to resistance of that
which itself possesses might, 109.

Drama. Rhetoric combined with pictorial presentation in, 190.

Emotion. Spirited and tender emotions, 125.

Empiricism. Of critique of taste, 215.

End. Defined, 19; natural end, 34 ; analogy of an, 34; natural beauty
and natural ends, contrasted, 34 ; no reason assignable a priori why there
should be objective ends of nature, 35 ; of nature, teleological estimation
of, 35; final, condition of possibility of, presupposed by judgement, 38.

Enjoyment. Those intent on, would dispense with all judgement,
45, 47; an obligation to, an absurdity, 48 ; nature of pleasure of, 149;
pleasure in the beautiful not a pleasure of enjoyment, 149.

Enlightenment. Defined, 152. j

Entertainment. Of the mental faculties, 88; social, taste in, 53.

Enthusiasm. Sublimity of, 124 ; compared with fanaticism, 128,

Epicurus. Corporal basis of gratification and pain, 131, 197, 202.

Euler. Colour theory of, 66.

Evil. That which we strive to resist, 109. BER ie,

Examples. Function of illustration by, 141; intuitions verifying
reality of empirical concepts are called, 221.

318 Analytical Index

Existence. Real, of objects, taste indifferent to, 43. ;
Expression. Nature and function of, 180 ; beauty, the, of aesthetic
ideas, 183; by word, and tone, complete, 184.

Faculty. Ofintellectual and aesthetic judgement compared, 159 ;, ofthe
soul, reducible to three, 15; when called pure, 18; list of mental faculties, 39.

Fanaticism. Compared with enthusiasm, 128.

Fear. Accessto, through imagination, 121. :

Feeling. Ofpleasure and displeasure, middle term between faculties
of cognition and desire, 4, cf. 15,17 ; of pleasure or displeasure, reference
to, riddle of judgement, 6; constitutive principle in respect of, 38, 39;
aesthetic judgement decides questions of taste, not by any harmony
with concepts, but by feeling, 35; the purely subjective element in
a representation, 30, 42, 45; of respect, derivation of, in Critique of
Practical Reason, 63; taste as a faculty of judging of the communicability
of, 160 ; want of taste contrasted with want of, 116 ; for the beautiful, 162.

Field. Of concepts, defined, 12.

Finality. Defined, 19, 61; practical, differs from that of the reflective
judgement, 20, 27; practical, analogy to, 20; transcendental principle of
judgement, 19, 20, 21, 22, 35; practical, principle of, metaphysical, 21 ;
empirical nature must be regarded on a principle of, 22 et seq.; of nature,
transcendental concept of, not one of nature or of freedom, 23 ; of nature,
principle of, recognized as objectively contingent, 25 ; feeling of pleasure
associated with concept of, 26 ; is determined by an a priori ground, 27 ;
concept of, takes no account of faculty of desire, 27 ; of nature, extent of,
undetermined, 28; of nature, aesthetic representation of, 29; not a
quality of object itself, 30; why attributed to object, 30, 34, 51; of
nature, logical representation of, 33; objective and subjective compared, 33,
34; subjective, rests on pleasure, 33; objective, not concerned with
pleasure, 34; and natural ends, the latter represented in organic bodies,
34; of nature, concept of, not a concept of object, 34 ; formal, a prin-
ciple without which understanding could not feel itself at home in nature,
35 ; principle of, leaves question of application in particular cases unde-
termined, 35; mediating link, 38, 39; of nature, concept of, belongs to
natural concepts, 39; generally, 61; may be devoid of purpose, 62, 69 ;
form of, basis of judgement of taste, 62 ; consciousness of, pleasure itself,
64 ; objective, 69 ; formal, 69; ofthe representative state of the Subject,
70; subjective, 70, Tor; in the sublime, 100, 109; example of stone
implements, 80, ». ; nature of, in beautiful and sublime, 92 ; ideality of,
215; realism and idealism of, considered, 216.

Form. Ofobject, reflection on, apart from a concept, 32; of aesthetic
judgements implies abstraction from all content, 136; of subjective
finality, 141 ; nature of the pleasing, imparted to works of art, 174; of
fine art, must not appear sought after, 175. ;

Formative arts. Division of, 185; analogy to gesture, 188; con-
trasted with art of tone, 195 ; painting pre-eminent among, 196.

Freedom, (See Concept.) World of, meant to have an influence on
world of nature, 14; causality through, and causality through nature,
37; imagination regarded in its, 86; fine art impossible without, 226;
problem of uniting, and constraining force, 227.

Furniture. Classed under head of Painting, 188.

Analytical Index ~ 319

Gardening. Art of ornamental, 187.

General. Aesthetic pre-eminence of, over the statesman, 112.

Genius. Definition of, 168, 180, 212; fine art the art of, 168; relation
of, to taste, 172, 175, 182, 183; originality of, 168; its models exem-
plary, 168, 181 ; cannot indicate how it brings about its product, 169 ;
rule prescribed through, not to science but to art, 169 ; opposed to spirit
of imitation, 169 ; not something which may be learned, 169, 181; func-
tion of, to supply material, 171; out of place in the province of rational
investigation, 172; faculties of mind which constitute, 175, 179 ; licence of,
181; union of taste and, in products of fine art, 182; taste the discipline
of, 183 ; to be sacrificed rather than taste, 183 ; poetry owes its origin
almost entirely to, 191; as the nature of the Subject, 212; stifled by un-
critical imitation of master, 226; predominance of special faculties in a, 79, n.

Geometry. Geometrically regular figures, 86.

Gesture. Connexion of formative arts with, 184, 188.

God. All our knowledge of, symbolical, 223; the fear of, 110;
becoming attitude in the presence of, 113.

Good. The, defined, 46, 48; contrasted with the agreeable, the beau-
tiful, and the sublime, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 70, 90, 117; happiness a,
47; the beautiful independent of a representation of, 69; affects purity
of judgement of taste, 73; union of the beautiful with the, 74 ; delight in,
associated with interest, 46 ; moral, carries with it the highest interest,
48; points in the analogy between beauty and the morally, 224; the
moral, to be aesthetically represented as sublime not beautiful, 123.

Gratification. The agreeable gratifies, 44, 45, 46; nature of, 196;
the changing free play of sensations, always a source of, 197.

Grotesque. Taste for what borders on, 88.

Ground. Cause applied to supersensible signifies, 37; clear and
distinct grounds of judgement, 70, 71. :

Handicraft. Art distinguished from, 164.

Happiness. Precepts for attaining, 10; not unconditionally a
good, 48.

Harmony. (See Cognitive faculty, Imagination.) Of nature with our
judgement, 216.

Health. Asa good, 47; the feeling of, 197.

Hindrances. Opposed by nature, 37, n.; on the part of sensibility,
118, cf. 109, 124.

Homer. Contrasted as poet with Newton as scientist, 170.

Humanity. Saved from humiliations in presence of might of nature,
111 ; implies feeling of sympathy and power of communication, 226.

ume. His comparison between critics and cooks, 141; his com-

parison of English and French works of art, 183.

Humility. Sublimity of, 114.

Humour. Defined, 203.

Hypotyposis. Schematical or symbolical, 222; examples of symbolical,
223.

Idea, (See Aesthetic ideas and Reality.) Defined, 76, 209 ; transcen-
dent, regulative function of, 3; field of supersensible to be occupied
with, 13; have only practical reality, 14; normal, 77; normal, how
formed, 77; presentation of, in logical sense, not possible, 119 ; reason
interested in objective reality of, 159 ; terms corresponding to distinction

320 Analytical Index

between, and concept of understanding, 209; palm given to painting
because it penetrates far into the region of, 196; of reason, effort to attain

to, a law for us, 106.

Ideal. Defined, 76; art has always an, in view, 226; of beauty, 74;
of beauty, how we arrive at, 76; of beauty, of what objects possible and
what not, 76, 77; of beauty, correctness of, how tested, 80; estimate
formed according to, not a pure judgement of taste, 80.

Ideality. Of finality, 215 ; of objects of sense as phenomena, 221.

Imagination. Harmony of, and understanding, 30, 31, 32, 58, 60, and
understanding, mutual relation of, that is requisite for every empirical
cognition, 32; employed in presentation, 34; object referred by, to the
Subject, 41; and understanding, requisite for cognition, 58; effort to
grasp a given form in the, 70; power to recall and reproduce, 77 ; taste
a free conformity to law on the part of, 86; productive not reproductive,
where, 86; forms such as imagination would project in conformity to law
of understanding, 86 ; understanding at service of, 88 ; what gives the,
scope for unstudied and final play, 88; what, grasps, 89; straining of
the, to use nature as ascheme for Ideas, 115.

Imaginative power. Great, required for what, 80.

Imitation. Contrasted with following, 77, 1€9, 170, 171, 181; of
nature, to the point of deception, 158, 161 ; of nature in an intentional
art, 161; opposition between genius and spirit of, 169, 181; learning
only, 169; becomes aping, when, 181; examples of master not to be
imitated without criticism, 226.

Impression. On senses, aesthetic judgements should refer to, 122.

Inclination. Aroused by what gratifies, 45.

Infinite. The, is absolutely great, 102.

Inspiration. Where not required, 174.

Intellectual. Beauty or sublimity, a misnomer, 123; delight, pure,
moral law the object of, 123.

Intelligible. As supersensible substrate of nature, 37, 2. ; basis of our
nature, final end set by, the harmonious accord of all our faculties of
cognition, 212; reference of, to the morally good, 223, 224.

Intentional. Art, obviously addressed to our delight, 161.

Interest. Defined, 42, cf. 48; delight in the good associated with,
46; moral good carries with it the highest, 48 ; presupposes a want, 49;
of inclination in case of agreeable, 49; pure practical laws carry.an, 51;
detachment from, 51; contemplative pleasure does not bring about an,
64; vitiates judgement of taste, 64; empirical, in the beautiful, 155;
cannot be determining ground of, but may be combined with pure judge-
ment of taste, 154; combination of an, with the judgement of taste, can
only be indirect, 154 ; consists in pleasure in real existence of object, 154 ;
empirical, in the beautiful, only exists in society, 155 ; empirical, in the
beautiful, affords very doubtful transition from the agreeable to the good,
156; intellectual, in the beautiful, discovers a link in the chain of our
faculties a prior’, 156; intellectual, in the beautiful, 157; in beautiful,
regarded as a mark of good moral character, 157; in the beautiful of art,
no evidence of good moral disposition, 157; in charms of nature, no
evidence of good moral disposition, 157; the thought that the object is
nature’s handiwork, the basis of intellectual, in the beautiful, 158. :

Intuition. Combination of, with concepts for cognition generally, 33.

Analytical Index 321

Judgement. Middle term between understanding and reason, 4, 15;
principles of, annexed as needful to theoretical or practical philosophy, 4;
as synonymous for sound understanding, 5 ; a prior! principle of, difficulty
in discovering, 5; especially great in case of aesthetic judgements, 5;
a prior’ principle of, necessary in logical judging of nature, when, 6; no
reference to feeling of pleasure in logical judging of nature, 6; separate
division for, why necessary in Critique, 6; Critique plays part of theory
in case of, 7; principle of, territory of, 15; presumption of an a priort
principle of, that has reference to the feeling of pleasure and displeasure,
15; presumption that, effects transition from realm of nature to that of
freedom, 17; asa faculty that prescribes laws a priori, 18; defined, 18;
determinant and reflective, contrasted, 18; reflective compelled to ascend
from particular to universal, 18 ; transcendental principle of reflective, 19,
20, 21; maxims of, 21, 23; law of specification makes us proceed on
principle of conformity of nature to our faculty of cognition, 29 ; reflective,
what is final for, 30; aesthetic, on finality of object, 30; nature of the
principle of, 25 ; empirical, singular, claims universal assent, 32; function
of, when concept given, 34 ; teleologically employed, assigns determinate
conditions, 35; connects legislations of understanding and reason, 36;
provides mediating concept, 38; provides constitutive @ prioré principle
for feeling of pleasure and displeasure, 39; grounds of, clear or con-
fused, 71; mathematically determinant and reflective, contrasted, 96; of
experience, 144, cf. 31, 32; cognitive, contrasted with aesthetic, 144.

Judgement of taste. A subdivision of aesthetic judgements, 65; is
aesthetic, 41 ; defined, 41, 2. ; involves a reference to understanding, 41 ;
not a cognitive judgement, 41, 48, 72, 210; affords no knowledge of any-
thing, 207; the determining ground of, may be objective, 205, but not
reducible to definite concepts, 205 ; the extended reference of, requires
a concept for basis, 207; a special faculty for estimating by rule and not
by concepts, 36; is reflective, not determinant, 36 ; is contemplative, 48 ;
compared with empirical judgements generally, 32; rests on a priori
grounds, 63; hence requires a Critique, 32 ; is both synthetic and a prior?
145 ; position of, in a Critique, 36 ; constitutive principle in respect of the
feeling of pleasure and displeasure, 38; can only have its ground in the
subjective condition of a judgement in general, 143; what asserted
in a, 145 ; subjective finality of nature for the judgement of the concept
upon which it depends, 207; unique principle of, finality of nature and of
art, 215 ; how we become conscious of accord in, 59; relative priority of
feeling of pleasure and estimate of the object in, 57; shouldbe founded on
autonomy and not heteronomy, 220, 224 ; contrasted with logical judge-
ments, 142, 140, 147; logical peculiarities of, 136; not determinable by
grounds of proof, 139, 205, 206 ; logical quantity of, singular, 55, 90,
146 ; how converted into a logical judgement, 65, cf. 119; not determined
by interest, 42, 154 ; should be disinterested, 43; may be combined with
interest, 154 ; what represented a priori in, not pleasure but its universal
validity, 146; universality of delight in, only represented as subjective,
53; speaks with a universal voice, 56; consistent statement of the view
denying any claim to its necessity, 214 ; how imputed as a sort of duty,
154; as a faculty of communicating even our feelings to others, 155; put
forward as example of judgement of common sense, 84 ; pure, independent
of charm and emotion, 64; not pure, if condition is a definite concept, 72 ;
purity of, affected by association with the agreeable or the good, 73 ; pure,

1193 u

322 Analytical Index

when, in respect of object with definite internal end, 73; pure, in estim-
ating a free beauty, 72; independent of concept of perfection, 69 ; pure,
interest may be combined with, 154 ; false, how possible, 57, cf. 54, 147,
150 ; conflict of, 204, cf. 74; deduction of, 204 ; riddle of, key to, supplied
by indeterminate idea of supersensible, 208 ; rational concept of super-
sensible lies at basis of, 207 ; universal validity of, explained by reference
to rational concept of supersensible, 207 ; determining ground, perhaps
the supersensible substrate of humanity, 208,

Knowledge. (See Cognitive faculty.) Of things, aesthetic estimates do
not contribute, 5 ; how far dependent on universal communicability, 83 ;
end in respect of, coupled with delight, 87.

Landscapes. See Views.

Laughter. Generally, 196-203 ; physical character of the cause of,
198 ; account of its production as a phenomenon, 198; something absurd
always its basis, 199; defined, 199; art of inducing an air of gaiety by
jest and, an agreeable art, 166.

w. Contrasted with precepts and rules, 10; conformity to, without
a, 86, :

Legislation. Of reason and understanding, 12; non-interference of,13.

Lessing. As an art critic, 140.

Link. In the chain of the faculties a priori, the intellectual interest in
the beautiful discovers a, 156 ; mediating, between concept of nature and
of freedom, 38.

Logic. Contrasted with philosophy, 8,

Logical judgement, Compared with aesthetic judgement, 42; ana-
logy of judgement of beautiful to, 51; judgement of taste, how converted
into a, 50,140; knowledge to be had only from a, 71 ; judgement of taste,
how distinguished from, r42,

Logical presentation, 177.

Logical quantity. Of aesthetic judgements, 55, 90, 119, 136, 146.

Logical universality, Aesthetic universality compared with, 54.

Logical validity. Defined, 29.

Magaitiise, Mathematical and aesthetic estimation of, 98 ; representa-
tion of, 101.

Man. An ideal of beauty only possible in case of, 77.

Mannerism. A mode of aping, 182.

Marsden. His description of Sumatra, 88.

Master. Can only teach by illustration, 226; examples of, not to be
imitated without a criticism, 226,

Mathematical. Estimation of magnitude, 98.

Maxims. Of judgement, 21,23, cf. 217; of empirical science, 21, 24 ;
of common human understanding, 152; of unprejudiced thought, 152; of
enlarged thought, 153; of consistent thought, 153; of the aesthetic
judgement, 206, cf. 20, 23.

Means. , Choice of a means to enjoyment, 44.

Mechanism, Conception of nature as, enlarged to that of nature as
art, 92; required in art, 171; of nature, 217.

an en Sn of, 5; requires preliminary Critique,
5; divisible into that of nature and morals, 7; meta i inci .

Methodology. Of taste, 225. Ene Peis) DOnmDIE a8

Analytical Index 323

Might. A power to resist great hindrances, 109 ; sublime represented
as, 124.

Misanthropy. When sublime and when not, 129.

Modality. Of judgement of taste, 81.

Models. Exemplary, 75; in arts of speech, 75, 7. ; taste displayed by
criticism of, 75 ; works of ancients regarded as, 137 ; of genius, exemplary,
168 ; aid genius, how, 171 ; of ancients, not to be dispensed with, 227.

Moments of judgement of taste. Founded on logical functions of
judgement, 41, rn. ; why quality first considered, 41, .; of the beautiful,
quality, 41; quantity, 50; relation, 61; modality, 81; of the sublime,
115, cf 134, 149.

Monstrous, The, defined, 100.

Moral feeling. Beautiful and sublime both final in respect of, 116;
communicability of, 149 ; union of a feeling for the beautiful with, 157;
judgement of, contrasted with, of taste, 159 ; harmony of, with sensibility,
necessary for genuine taste, 227.

Moral ideas. Alone attended with self-sufficing delight, 191 ; respect
for, raises us above the necessity for gratification, 202 ; taste a faculty of
judging of the rendering of, in terms of sense, 227; beauty in human
figure consists in expression of, 79.

Moral judgement. Pleasure in, practical, 64; analogy between, and
judgement of taste, 160.

Moral law. Basis of communicability of feeling of the sublime, 149.

Morality. Beauty the symbol of, 221 ; taste in, 50.

Music. At banquets, 166; nature of, 189, 193, 194, 195 ; poetry com-
bined with, in a song, 190; compared with other arts, 195; lack of
urbanity of, 196 ; nothing is thought in, 198; physical character of the
quickening effects of, 199 ; play in, proceeds from sensations to aesthetic
ideas, 195 ; an agreeable rather than a fine art, 198, cf. rgo.

Nature. (See Concept, Finality.) Reference of natural thing to
unknowable supersensible, 6; finality of, 19, 20; multiplicity of, 22 et seq. ;
might baffle our understanding, 25; law of the specification of, 25;
harmony of, in its particular laws, with our cognitive faculties, contingent,
25, 26; universal laws of the understanding necessarily accord with, 26;
cognizable order of, 24; pleasure derived from uniting empirical laws of,
27; extent of finality of, indeterminate, 28; aesthetic representation of
finality of, 29 ; technic of, agent for presentation of concepts, 34 ; beauty
and finality of, defined, 34; no a priori ground why there should be objective
ends of, 35; finality and the laws of, 35; only cognized as phenomenon,
38; free beauties of, 72; wild and regular beauty of, compared, 88, 89 ;
art restricted by conditions of a required agreement with, 91; object of,
may properly be called beautiful but not sublime, 91; self-subsisting
beauty of, reveals a technic of, 92 ; conception of, as mechanism enlarged
to that of, as art, 92 ; in which of its phenomena sublime, 103 ; the proper
unchangeable measure of, its absolute whole, 104 ; sublime not to be sought
in, 97, 104, 114; sublimity applied to, by a subreption, 106 ; as might,
dynamically sublime, 109 ; self-preservation that cannot be assailed by, 111;
in its totality, thought as a presentation of something supersensible, 119 ;
phenomenal, a presentation of a nature in itself, 119; imitation of, by art,
161; language of, 161 ; art distinguished from, 162 ; beauty of, distinguished
from that of art, 172; beauty of, and of art, requisites for estimating each,

v2

324 Analytical Index

172; 173; in the individual, genius as, 212; in the individual, as the
supersensible substrate, 212; ideality of finality of, 215; beautiful forms
in organic, suggest realism of finality, 216; mechanism of, 217; free
formations of, 218; what constitutes the beauty of, to be ascribed to
natural laws, 220; does not instruct us as to what is beautiful, 220;
finality of, a property that cannot be ascribed to it as its end, 20 ; names
given to beautiful objects of, implying analogy to morally good, 225;
examples of beauty of, 72, 217, 219. : ‘

Necessity. Of the reference of the beautiful to delight, nature of, 81 ;
exemplary, 81 ; subjective, attributed to judgement of taste, is conditioned,
82; the condition being the idea of a common sense, 82; of universal
assent, subjective but represented as objective, 84; deduction only
necessary where judgement claims, 135 ; of judgements of taste, 136.

Newton. Works of, genius not necessary for, 180.

Noumenon, Idea of, as substrate, 103.

Objective. Subjective necessity represented as, 84.

Obscurity. Palmed off as depth and originality, 172.

Opera. Constituents of, T9o.

Opinion. Difference of, not tolerated when object described as
beautiful, 84.

Oratorio, 190.

Originality. Throwing off all restraint of rules is not, 171 ; of genius,
168, 171.

Ought. Judgement containing an, 82, 84.

Pain, 197.

Painting. Design the essential in, 67; contrasted with plastic art,
186; as a formative art, 187; aesthetic, 187; superiority of, among
formative arts, 196.

Parsimony. Law of, 21.

Peace. Prolonged, degrading effects of, 113.

Peculiarity. Of the judgement of taste, first, 136 ; second, 139, cf.
207.

Perfection. Concept of, judgement of taste independent of, 69, 207,
216; defined as internal objective finality, 69 ; held by many to be con-
vertible with beauty, 69 ; if thought in a confused way, 69; qualitative
and quantitative, contrasted, 70 ; requires representation of an end, 70;
of object, beauty involves no thought of, 70; dependent beauty involves,
72; does not gain by beauty or vice versa, 74 ; definition of, 173 ; must be
considered in judging of beautiful in art, 173 ; antinomy of taste irresolvable
if beauty grounded upon, 209, and also otiose, 215.

Phenomena. Legislative authority of understanding confined to, 12,
13, 17; and things in themselves, contrasted, 13 ; supersensible substrate
of Objects as, 214.

Philosophy. Defined, 8; realm of, 11; of nature and morals, con-
trasted, 8; divided into theoretical and practical, 8-11, 12; division
justified, 15, cf. 17 ; can prove but not demonstrate, 211 ; co-extensive with
applicability of a prior’ concepts, 11; divisions in, trichotomous, 39.

Plastic arts. Contrasted with painting, 186 ; division of, 186.

Play. Of cognitive faculties, 39, 58, 88, 107 ; final, 88; of figures or

Analytical Index 325

sensations, 67 ; as agreeable on its own account, 164 ; art as, 164; free,
a source of gratification, 197 ; free, of chance, tone and thought, 197.

Pleasure. (See Feeling.) Feeling associated with concept of finality,
26; the subjective quality incapable of becoming a cognition, 29; when
judged to be combined necessarily with representation, 31 ; only connected
with representation by means of reflective judgement, 31; in judgement
of taste, dependent on empirical representation, 32 ; relative priority of,
and estimate of object in judgement of taste, 57; what denoted by, 61 ;
causal connexion with representation not determinable a priort, 63;
mental state identical with, where, 63 ; in aesthetic judgements, contem-
plative, 64 ; consciousness of formal finality is, 64 ; non-practical, 64.

Poem. Didactic, 190.

Poet. Youthful, not dissuaded from his convictions, 137.

Poetry. Imagination enjoys free play in, 86; prosody and measure
required in, 164; faculty of aesthetic ideas displays itself to best advan-
tage in, 177; contrasted with rhetoric, 184, 192; combined with music in
song, 190; compared with other arts, ror.

Polycletus. Doryphorus of, 79.

Practical. Philosophy, contrasted with theoretical, 8-11 ; misuse of
word, 9, 10; precepts, 10, Ir ; morally, compared with technically, 9,
cf. 13; sphere, reason can only prescribe laws in, 12; function, distin-
guished from theoretical, 12; reality, of ideas, 14 ; finality, 21; faculty,
art as, 163; point of view, broadening of mind from, 103.

Prayers. For avoiding inevitable evils, superstition at basis of, 16,n.

Predicate. Pleasure united to concept of object as if it were a pre-
dicate, 32.

Prejudice, 152.

Presentation. When the function of judgement, 34; of ideas, 119,
176, cf. 209-212, 221, 222.

Principle. Constitutive, 3, 38, 39 ; regulative, 3, 39; transcendental
or metaphysical, 20; independent, of judgement, 4; of judgement,
reference to pleasure the riddle of, 6; of cognition, distinct, importance
of, 9; practical, 8; technically or morally practical, 9; of finality of
nature, 19, 21.

Progress. Of art, limit to, 170; of culture, 183.

Proof. Grounds of, judgement of taste does not admit of determina-
tion by, 139; fine art does not appeal to, 165.

Propaedeutic. To fine art, culture the, 226; to taste, the develop-
ment of moral ideas, 227 ; to all philosophy, 36.

Prosody. Required in poetry, 164.

Prudence. Rules of, are mere corollaries to theoretical philosophy,
9, 10.

Psychology. Empirical, modality of aesthetic judgements lifts them
out of the sphere of, 117; critique of taste as an art deals with psycho-
logical rules, 142.

Pyramids. Sublimity of the, 99.

Quality. Of space, 29; delight in the beautiful associated with
representation of, 91; of delight in our estimate of the sublime, 105 ; of
feeling of the sublime, a displeasure, 108. 2 : :

Quantity. Delight in the sublime associated with representation
of, 91.

326 Analytical Index

Rationalism, Of Critique of taste, confuses the good and the beau-
tiful, 215.

Realism. Of principle of taste, 216. :

Reality. Practical, of ideas, 14 ; objective, of a concept, Deduction
has not to justify, 147 ; objective, of ideas, reason interested in, 159, 160 ;
of our concepts, intuitions required to verify, 221 ; objective, of rational
concepts, cannot be verified, 221 ; objective, of ideas, semblance of, 176.

Realm. Of philosophy, defined, ıı ; of our faculty of cognition, 12;
of concept of freedom, meant to influence realm of concept of nature, 14.

Reason. Pure, defined, 3; pure, critique of, 3; contains constitutive
a priori principles solely in respect of faculty of desire, 4, 17; practical,
critique of, 4; can only prescribe laws in practical sphere, 12; and under-
standing, legislations of, 12, 13,17, 36; interest of, 64; union of taste
with, rules for, 74; ideas of, effort to attain to, a law for us, 105; inter-
vention of, to make representations of sense adequate to ideas, 119; the
seat, both of rational and aesthetic ideas, 212.

Refinement. Connected with communication of feeling, 156.

Religion. When sublime, 113, 126; how and why favoured by
governments, 128; example better than precept in matters of, 138; how
distinguished from superstition, 114.

Respect. Defined, 105; feeling of, aroused by moral good, 123;
inclination, favour and, 49; feeling of, 63 ; joined with representation of
object as great without qualification, 96.

Rhetoric. Defined and described, 192; contrasted with poetry, 184;
in a drama, 1go.

Rousseau, 43.

Rule. Aesthetic judgement a special faculty for estimating according
to a, 36; general and universal, 53; rules for establishing union of taste
with reason, 74 ; objective, none for determining what is beautiful, 75 ;
normal idea as a source of possibility of, 78; of taste, question of taste
not to be settled by appeal to, 140; furnished to art, how, 168, 169, 180,
181, 212; Doryphorus of Polycletus called the, 79 ; for every one, 84; a
Priori, to the feeling of pleasure, 4; technically or morally practical, 9,
Io, 11, 13; concept of judgement to be employed only asa, 5; emancipa-
tion from all constraint of, 171, cf. 164; in fine art, cannot be set down
in a formula, but must be gathered from the performance, 171.

Sacrifice. In representation of sublime, 123; by imagination, 120.

Sadness. Insipid, contrasted with interesting, 130.

Sassure, 115 ; reference by, to insipid sadness, 130.

Savary. His account of Egypt, 99.

Scepticism, 84.

Schema. For ideas, straining of imagination to use nature as, 115;
contrasted with examples, 221 ; contrasted with symbols, 222,

Schematism. Of judgement, rer; imagination schematizes without
a concept, objective, in Critique of Pure Reason, 59.

School. Origin of a, 181; leaders of a newer, 164, cf. 168, 172,
182, 201.

Science, Art distinguished from, 163; genius does not prescribe rule
to, but to art, 169; discoverers in, differ only in degree from laborious
imitators, 176 ; and art, relative merits of, 170 ; contrasted with art, 174.

Sculpture. Design the essential in, 67; may only represent unpleas-

Analytical Index 327

ing things indirectly, 174 ; described and contrasted with architecture,
186.

Segner. His use of the inscription over the Temple of Isis, 179.

Sensation. Subjective, but belongs to the cognition of things, 29 ;
double meaning of, 44 ; communicability of, 148; as the real in percep-
tion, 148 ; difference in, of different persons, 148; passivity of subject in,
149 ; through which we are conscious of reciprocal activity of cognitive
powers, 60.

Sense. A name given to judgement, when, 150; used to include
feeling of pleasure, 153 ; imagination, understanding and, functions of, 83.

Sensus communis. (See Common sense.) Reason for supposing a,
83; condition of modality of judgement of taste, 84 ; taste as a kind of,
150; a name given to common human understanding, 151; to be under-
stood as a public sense, 151, cf. 153.

Sentimentality. Tendency to indulge in tender emotions is, 125.

Simplicity. The style adopted by nature in the sublime, 128.

Sociability. Judgement in reference to, 53 ; of mankind, properties
constituting, 226.

Society. Sublime not introduced in a mere conventional way into,
116; universal communicability, a source of interest in, 128; isolation
from, regarded as sublime, 129 ; empirical interest in beautiful only exists
in, 155.

Soldier. Reverence for, 112.

Solitude. Attractions of, 129.

Song. Ofbirds, 89, 162 ; poetry combined with music in, 190.

Soul. Theanimating principle of the mind, 175; faculty of presenting
aesthetic ideas, 175, 180.

Space, Quality of, subjective, but constituent of knowledge of things,
29 ; measurement of, 107.

Speech. Arts of, division of, 184.

Spirit. See Soul.

Spontaneity. In play ofthe cognitive faculties, 39.

St, Peter’s. In Rome, aesthetic effect of, 100.

Statesman. Compared with general, 112.

Sturm und Drang Movement. See School, leaders of newer.

Subject. Aesthetic judgement refers representation solely to the, 71.

Subjective. Finality, contrasted with objective, 33 ; necessity, repre-
sented as objective, 84; finality, necessary if anything is to please
disinterestedly, ror.

Sublime. “And beautiful, how division arises, 33 ; and beautiful, points
of agreement and difference between, 90, 91, 93, 104, 107, 115, 118; con-
trasted with the good, go, 118; delight in the, combined with representa-
tion of quantity, 91; the, the presentation of an indeterminate concept of
reason, 91; charms repugnant to, 91; a negative pleasure, 91 ; finality
of the, 92 ; object of nature not, 91, 96,97, 104, 113, 134 ; concerns ideas
of reason, 92; theory of the, a mere appendage to the aesthetical
estimating of nature, 93 ; the, concerns nature in its chaos, 92 ; division
into mathematically and dynamically, 94, moments of judgement on, 93;
mental movement combined with, 94; definition of the, 94,97, 98; the
mathematically, 94 ; produces feeling of respect, 96 ; reference of, to the
supersensible faculty within us, 97; the mathematically, estimation of
magnitude requisite for, 98; not to be sought in works of art if judgement

328 Analytical Index

to be pure, 100, cf. 190; not based on finality of the form of the object,
101; the mathematically, examples of, 104; quality of delight in our
estimate of, 105, 106; applied to object bya subreption, 106; a feeling of
displeasure and a pleasure, 106 ; mind moved in representation of the,
107 ; finality in case of, one for ideas of reason, 109; the dynamically,
defined, 109; the dynamically, examples, 109; we must see ourselves
safe to estimate the, 112; sublimity of war, 113; of a religion, 113; of
humility, 114; culture requisite for appreciation of, 115; modality of
judgement upon, 93, 116 ; defined, 118, 119; finality of the, in connexion
with moral feeling, 119; feeling for the, requires moral disposition, 120;
cultivates a liberality in our mental attitude, 120; delight in the, is
negative, 120; represented as a might to overcome hindrances, 123;
abstractions in presentation of, 127; simplicity the style adopted by
nature in the, 128; freedom from affection, represented as, 124 ; isolation
from society regarded as, 129; deduction of judgements upon, not
necessary, 133, as exposition sufficed for deduction, 134; nature only
supplies the occasion for the judgement upon the, 134; brought into
union with beauty in a tragedy, 190.

Subsumption. Logical and aesthetic, contrasted, 147; mistake in,
148.

Sumatra. Marsden’s description of, 88.

Supersensible. Reference of natural thing to unknowable, 6;
how made cognizable, 11; introduction of idea of, 13; field of, no
territory in, 13; must be occupied with ideas, 13; practical reality of
concept of freedom brings us no nearer theoretical knowledge of, 14;
great gulf fixed between, and sensible, 14, 36; ground of unity of, at
basis of nature, with what freedom contains in a practical way, 14, cf.
37, 38; in the Subject, 36, 37; substrate of nature, 37, n.; how affected by
understanding, judgement, and reason respectively, 38 ; freedom, super-
sensible attribute of subject, 63; reference of sublime to supersensible
faculty within us, 97; estate, our, 106; rational idea of, 107 ; faculty,
ability to think given infinite evidences, 103; nature thought as a
presentation of the, 119; idea of, as substrate of nature, as principle of
subjective finality, and as principle of the ends of freedom, 215 ; nature
employed as schema for, 192.

Superstition, 152 ; religion distinguished from, 114.

Symbol. Of morality, beauty the, 221; contrasted with schema,
222.

Symbolic. All our knowledge of God is, 223.

Symbolism. Nature of, 222.

Symmetry, 87.

Sympathy. Sense of, implied by word humanity, 226.

Taste. (See Judgement of taste.) Culture of, 6; impossible to
determine a priori what object willaccord with, 32; defined, 31, 41, 153,
154; estimates natural beauty, 34 ; shown by meaning I can give toa
representation, 43 ; explanation of, from first moment, 50; principle that
every one has his own, considered, 52, 205 ; demanded as something one
ought to have, 52; in social entertainments, 53 ; of sense and of reflection,
54 ; gains by combination of intellectual delight with aesthetic, 73 ; union
of, with reason, rules prescribed for, 73 ; disputes about, how frequently
settled, 74; in respect of models, shown by person only as a critic of the

Analytical Index 329

models, 75 ; archetype of, 75 ; whether an original faculty, 85 ; as a free
conformity to law on the part of the imagination, 86; not required for
what, 87; English, in gardens, 88 ; for what borders on grotesque, 88;
stiffregularity repugnant to, 88; want of, contrasted with want of feeling,
116; reason for name, 140; no objective principle of, possible, 141 ; the
principle of, the subjective principle of judgement in general, 142-150;
contains principle of subsumption of faculty of, intuitions under faculty of
concepts, 143, cf. 30, 42, 90, 133; pleasure in, contrasted with that in
mora] feeling, 146, 159; as asensus communis, 150; regarded as a faculty
of communicating feeling, 155; as affording a transition from the agreeable
to the good, 156; relation of, to genius, 172; production of works of art
according to, does not require genius, 174 ; an estimating nota producing
faculty, 174; genius and, how combined in products of fine art, 182; the
discipline of genius, 183 ; commonplaces, every one has his own, 205 ; no
disputing about, 205 ; there may be a quarrel about, 205 ; principle of, 215;
source of pleasure declared universally valid by, 224 ; makes possible the
transition from the charm of sense to habitual moral interest, 225 ; critique
of, division of, into elementology and methodology, inapplicable, 225 ; can
only assume a definite unchangeable form when sensibility is brought into
harmony with moral ideas, 227 ; a faculty of estimating the rendering of
moral ideas in terms of sense, 227. ;

Technic. Of nature, 34; of nature, image underlying, normal idea,
77; nature, self-subsisting natural beauty reveals, 92; art differs from
science as, from theory, 163.

Technically practical. See Practical.

Teleological judgement. Contrasted with aesthetic, 34, 36; not a
special faculty, 36.

Teleology. Assumption of nature as complex of objects of taste
involves a teleological problem, 148.

Territory. Of concepts, defined, 12; none in field of supersen-
sible, 13.

Theoretical. (See Practical.) Cognition, 8.

Thoughts. All our, associated with bodily movements, 201.

Tone. Art of, described, 193, cf. 52; charm of, 66; when to be re-
garded as beautiful, 66.

Totality. Required by reason, ro2.

Tragedy. Sublime and beautiful united in, rgo.

Transcendent. Concepts, function of, 3.

Transcendental. Principle, defined, 20; critique, concerned with
what, 142; philosophy, general problem of, 145 ; principle of judgement,
19; aesthetic, only deals with pure judgements, 121. ler

Transition. From mode of thought according to theoretical principles,
14, 22, cf.17; critique a means of combining the two parts of philosophy
into a whole, 14; judgement connects legislation of understanding and
reason, 36 ; concept of finality affords, 38 ; judgement effects, 38; none
from concepts to feeling of pleasure, 51 ; intellectual interest in the beau-
tiful discovers a, from the enjoyment of sense to the moral feeling, 156;
from the agreeable to the good, empirical interest in the beautiful could
only discover a doubtful, 156; from charm of sense to habitual moral
interest, taste makes possible, 225.

Ugliness. Capacity of art for dealing with, 173.

330 Analytical Index

Understanding. (See Imagination.) Officious pretensions of, restrained
by critique, 4; and reason, functions of, compared, 36; legislation by,
confined to phenomena, 12, 13, 17 ; supplies constitutive principles for
faculty of cognition, 3; pure, concepts of, only touch possibility of nature,
18 ; imagination projects forms in harmony with, 86.

Universal validity. Deduction only necessary where judgement
claims, 135; of judgements of taste, 31, 142; in judgement of taste,
nature of, 136; of pleasure, 146.

Universality. Of delight in judgement of taste only subjective, 53 ;
when aesthetic, 54; dialectic only arises where judgements lay claim
to, 204.

Utility. Defined as objective external finality, 69; delight in beau-
tiful object cannot rest on, 69.

Validity. 4 priori, synthesis of pleasure with representation, unable
to announce, 31; universal, see that title ; exemplary, 84.

Views. Of nature, 89, cf. 187, 2.

Virtuosi. Moral character of, 157.

Voltaire. His remarks on hope and sleep, 201.

War. Sublimity of, and effect upon character, 112, 113.
Wieland. Homer and, contrasted with scientists, 170.
Will, Asa cause, 9; defined, 61 ; respect, as a determination of,
derived from the idea of the moral law as a cause, 63.
orth. An absolute, how given to the existence of a person, 48;
object of fine art must have a certain intrinsic, 203.

INDEX
TO ESSAYS AND NOTES—NAMES ONLY

Addison (Pleasure of the Imagina-
tion; Spectator, Nos. 411 to 421,
1712), 236, 258, 260, 291, 303,

06.

306.

Akenside, 236, 310.

Alison (Essays on the Nature and
Principles of Taste, 1790; Ger-
man trans., 1792), xii, 236, 237,
239, 241, 250, 254, 258, 273, 274,
286, 288, 290, 300, 301, 310.

Aquinas, liii.

Aristotle, XXXIV, lvi, 265, 285,

289.

Avison (An Essay on Musical Ex
pression, 1751 ; Ger. trans., 1775),
239.

Bacon, 248, 252, 256, 278.

Balfour, The Rt. Hon. A. J., cvii,
232, 248, 249.

Balguy (Tract on the foundation of
Moral Goodness, 1728), 241.

Basch, xciii.

Baumgarten, xxxvii, li, 251.

Beattie, James (Essays, 1776), 251,
290, 291, 292, 298, 300.

Berkeley (Alciphron, 1732; Ger.
trans., 1737), 248, 249, 254.

Blair (Lectures on Rhetoric, 1783 ;
Ger. trans., 1785), 250, 256, 264,
276, 284.

Boileau, 285.

Bosanquet, 231, 238.

Brown, John (4 Dissertation on the
Rise, Union, and Power, &c. of
Poetry and Music, 1764; Ger.
trans., 1769), 301.

Burke (Essay on the Sublime and
Beautiful, 1756; Ger. trans.,
1773), Ixxxi, 237, 238, 242,

244, 250, 251, 260, 262, 263, 264,
268, 285, 286, 290, 292, 308.

Caird, xxix, xxxviii, Ixi, Ixxxvi, cv,
evi, Cxxvi, 234.

Campbell (Philosophy of Rhetoric,
1776), 306.

Cecil, Hon. Mrs, Evelyn, 258.

Cohen, xiii.

Copernicus, li.

Cowper, xcvii.

Cronin, 238.

Donaldson, John (The Elements of
Beauty, Reflections on the har-
mony of Sensibility and Reason,
1780), 237, 238, 242, 289, 310.

Duff, Wm. (An Essay on Onginal
Genius, 1167), 237, 256, 274; 277,
279, 280, 281, 284, 289, 290, 293,
294, 295, 306.

Erdmann, 228, 243.

FitzOsborne, Sir Thomas (Letters
on Several Subjects, 1749; Ger.
trans., 1754), 240, 276, 284, 308.

Gerard, Alex. (Essay on Taste,
1759; 3rd. ed., 1780. Essay on
„Genius, 1774 ; Ger. trans., 1776),
244, 263, 268, 277, 278, 279, 280,
281, 282, 283, 288, 290, 291, 293,
295, 306, 308.
Grotius, 272.

Hamilton, Sir W., 244.

Harris, James (Tveattise concerning
Art; Treatise on Music, Painting
and Poetry, 1744; Ger. trans.,

332

1756. Philological Inquiries, 1781;
Ger. trans., 1789), 277, 290, 300,

gol.

Hartley, David (Odservations on
Man, his frame, his duty and
his expectations, 1749; Ger.
trans., 1772-3), 239, 251, 255;
261, 272, 291, 298, 303, 305, 306.

Hegel, xxviii-xxxv, cxxvii, 231,
236, 262.

Hobbes, 304, 305.

Hogarth (The Analysis of Beauty,
1753 ; Ger. trans., 1754), 250, 257,
289.

Home, Henry (Lord Kaimes)
(Elements of Criticism, 1762;
Ger. trans., 1763-6), cxlvili, 244,
245, 250, 252, 254, 256, 257, 258,
260, 262, 264, 265, 267, 268, 272,
286, 287, 290, 308, 309.

Hume, cxlviii, 239, 244, 254, 263,
265, 266, 268, 269, 271, 272, 282,
298, 307, 308, gır.

Hurd (Discourse concerning poetical
Inutation, 1751; Ger. trans.,
1772. The Idea of Universal
Poetry, 1751), 293, 297.

Hutcheson (Inguiry into the original
of our ideas of Beauty and Virtue,
1725; Ger. trans., 1762. Reflec-
tions upon Laughter, 1750), liv-
Ivi, 231, 238, 239, 241, 243, 244,
250, 25T, 252, 257, 258, 268, 304,
305, 306, 309.

James, xxvii.
Keats, clxiv.

Lavater, 256.
Leighton, cxxxvii.
Lessing, 286, 300.
Locke, 276, 281, 300.

Marsden, 258.

McTaggart, xxix-xxxi, 231.
Mendelssohn, liv.
Michelangelo, 248.

Mill, clxvi.

Milton, xxxvii.

Napoleon, clxvii.

Index to Essays and Notes

Nettleton (Treatise on Virtue and
Happiness, 1729), lv.

O’Sullivan, 263.

Pater, Walter, xxii.
Plato, xxii, 310.
Pope, xxxvi, 250, 258, 277, 283,

294.

ace, Richard (Review of the Prin-
cipal Questions of Morals, 1758;
Ger. trans., 1758), 241.

Pufendorf, 272.

Puttenham (The Art of English
Poesie, 1589), 298.

Reid, Thos. (An Inquiry into the
Human Mind on the principles of
common sense, 1764 ; Ger. trans.,
1782. Essays on the Intellectual
Powers of Man, 1785), 243, 251,
262, 263, 269 274, 281, 282, 284,
288, 290, 297, 301, 308, 3Io.

Reynolds (Discourses, 1769-90 ;
Ger. trans. (in part), 1781), 254,
255, 275, 278, 279, 280, 282, 288,
291, 292, 293, 294, 297, 298,
300, 308.

Rousseau, civ, 272.

Savary, 262.

Schiller, 260.

Schlapp, Dr. O., xiii, xlv n.

Shaftesbury (Sersus Communis, An
Essay on the Freedom of Wit and
Humour, 1709; Soliloguy, or
Advice to an Author, 1710; Ger,
trans., 1738; The Moralists, 1709 ;
Characteristics, 1711 ; The Judg-
ment of Hercules, 1713; Miscel-
lanies, 1714. All the foregoing
are contained in the later
editions of the Characteristics.
Ger. trans., 1745 and 1747 (in
part) ; 1776-7 (wholly)), 229,231,
238, 241, 244, 248, 249, 250, 257,
258, 265, 267, 272, 275,283, 289,
299, 300, 306, 310, 311.

Shakespeare, cxvii, cxxxviii, clxvii,
267, 277.

Sharpe, Wm. (A Dissertation upon
Genius, 1755), 276, 277, 282.

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