observations of ancient writers upon art, would be to do again what has been done many times and sometimes very well. Further, those ideas, propositions and theories have passed into the common patrimony of knowledge, together with what else remains of the classical world. It is therefore more advisable here than in any other part of this history merely to indicate the general lines of development. the aesthetic problem in Art, the artistic faculty, only became a philosophical Origin of problem in Greece after the sophistical movement and as a consequence of the Socratic dialectic. The historians Greece. of literature generally point to the origins of Greek Esthetic in the first appearance of criticism and reflection upon poetical works, painting and sculpture; in the judgements pronounced on the occasion of poetical competitions, in the observations that were made as to the methods of the different artists, in the analogies between painting and poetry as expressed in the sayings attributed to Simonides and Sophocles; or, finally, in the appearance of that word which served to group together the various arts and to indicate in a certain way their relationship-the word mimesis or mimetic (uíuñois)— which oscillates between the meaning of "imitation " and that of "representation." Others make the origin of Esthetic go back to the polemics which were conducted by the first naturalistic and moralistic philosophers against the tales, fantasies and morals of poets, and to the interpretations of the hidden meaning (úróvoia), or, as the moderns call it, allegory, employed to defend the good name of Homer and of the other poets; finally, to the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, as Plato was afterwards to call it. But, to tell the truth, none of these reflections, observations and arguments implied a true and proper philosophical discussion of the nature of art. Nor was the sophistical movement favourable to its appearance. For although attention was at that time certainly given to internal psychical facts, yet these were conceived as mere phenomena of opinion 1 Republic, x. 607. and feeling, of pleasure and pain, of illusion, whim or Plato's rigoristic negation. repr dat Is art, mimesis, a rational or an irrational fact? The answer that he gave is well known. Mimetic does to but reproduces natural or artificial things, which are pale shadows of them; it is a diminution of a diminution, a third-hand work. Art, then, does not belong to the loftyand rational region of the soul (τοῦ λογιστικοῦ ἐν ψυχῇ) but to the sensual; it is not a strengthening but a corruption of the mind (λώβη τῆς διάνοιας); it can serve only sensual pleasure, which troubles and obscures. For this reason, mimetic, poetry and poets, must be excluded from the perfect Republic. Plato is the most consistent example of those who do not succeed in discovering any other form of knowledge but the intellectual. It was correctly observed by him that imitation stops at natural things, at the image (Tò þávτaoμa), and does not reach the concept, logical truth (ảλýleιa), of which poets and painters are altogether ignorant. But his error consisted in believing that there is no other form of truth below the intellectual; that there is nothing but sensuality and passionality outside or prior to the intellect, that which discovers the ideas. Certainly, the fine æsthetic sense of Plato did not echo that depreciatory judgement of art; he himself declared that he would have been very glad to have been shown how to justify art and to place it among the forms of the spirit. But since none was able to give him this assistance, and since art with its appearance that yet lacks reality was repugnant to his ethical consciousness, and reason compelled him (ó λóyos pe) to banish it and place it with its peers, he resolutely obeyed his conscience and his reason.1 Others were not troubled with these scruples, and Esthetic although art was always looked upon as a mere thing of pleasure among the later hedonistic schools of various sorts, among rhetoricians and worldly people the duty of combating or of abolishing it was not felt. Nevertheless, this opposite extreme was also not calculated to meet with the endorsement of public opinion, for the latter, if tender towards art, is no less tender towards rationality and morality. For this reason both rationalists and moralists, compelled to recognize the force of 1 Republic, x. hedonism and moralism. such a condemnation as Plato's, sought for a compromise, Even before Plato's peremptory negation had directed thought to this way of issue, the literary criticism of Aristophanes was already full of the pedagogic idea: "What schoolmasters are to children, poets are to young men " (roîs ßwσw de Toinтaí), he says in a celebrated verse.1 But we can find traces of it in Plato himself (in the dialogues in which he seems to withdraw from the too rigid conclusions of the Republic) and in 1 Frogs, l. 1055. Aristotle, both in the Politics, where he determines the use of music in education, and perhaps in the Poetics, where he speaks obscurely of a tragical catharsis; although as regards this latter, it is not to be altogether denied that he may have had a sort of glimpse of the modern idea of the liberating power of art.1 Later on, the pedagogic theory takes a form that was much affected by the Stoics. Strabo develops and defends this at great length, in the introduction to his geographical work, where he combats Eratosthenes, who has made poetry consist in mere pleasure without any notion of teaching. Strabo, on the contrary, maintained the opinion of the ancients, that it was a_ first philosophy (φιλοσοφίαν Tivà Tρúτηy), which educated young men for life, and created customs, affections and actions, by means of pleasure." Therefore, he said, poetry has always been a part of education; one cannot be a good poet unless one is a good man (ävdpa ảyalóv). Legislators and founders of cities were the first to employ fables to admonish and to terrify: then this duty, which must be performed for women and children and even for adults, passed to the poets. We caress and dominate the multitude with fiction and with falsehood." "The poets tell many lies” (πολλὰ ψεύδονται ἀοιδοί) is a hemistich recorded by Plutarch, who describes minutely in one of his lesser works how the poets should be read to youths.3. For him too poetry is a preparation for philosophy; it is a disguised philosophy, and therefore delights us in the same way as do fish and meat at feasts, so prepared as not to seem to be fish and meat; it is philosophy softened with fables, like the vine that grows close to the mandragora, and produces a wine that is the giver of sweet slumbers. It is not possible to pass from dense darkness to sunlight; one should first accustom the eyes to moderate light. Philosophers, in order to exhort and instruct, take their examples from true things; poets 1 Plato, Laws, bk. ii.; Aristotle, Poet. ch. 14; Polit. bk. viii. 2 Strabo, Geographica, i. ch. 2, §§ 3-9. Texts collected in E. Müller, Gesch. d. Th. d. K. i. pp. 57-85. M |