Alexander his Esthetic." deduce all the parts of eloquence with mathematical These discussions and experiments filled the boyhood Baumgarten and helped to form the intellect of young Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten of Berlin, a follower of the philosophy of Wolff and, at the same time, student and teacher of Latin rhetoric and poetry; these studies led him to reconsider the problem and search for some method by which the precepts of rhetoricians could be reduced to a rigorous philosophical system. On taking his doctor's degree in September 1735, when twenty-one years old, he published a thesis Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poëma pertinentibus:1 in which the word "Esthetic" appears for the first time as name of a special science.2 Baumgarten always remained much attached to his youthful discovery, and in 1742 when called to teach at the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and again in 1749, he gave by request a course of lectures on Esthetic (quaedam consilia dirigendarum facultatum inferiorum novam per acroasin exposuit). In 1750 he printed a voluminous treatise wherein the word "Esthetic " attained the honours of a title-page; 4 in 1758 he published a more slender second part illness and finally death in 1762 prevented him from completing the work. What was Esthetic to Baumgarten? Its objects are sensible facts (aioonτá), carefully distinguished by the consciousness. ancients from mental objects (vonτá); 5 hence it becomes scientia cognitionis sensitivae, theoria liberalium artium, Esthetic as science of sensory 1 Halae Magdeburgicae, 1735 (reprinted, ed. B. Croce, Naples, 1900). 3 Aesthetica, i. pref. • Aesthetica. Scripsit Alex. Gottlieb Baumgarten, Prof. Philosoph., 2 gnoseologia inferior, ars pulcre cogitandi, ars analogi rationis.1 Rhetoric and Poetry constitute two special and interdependent disciplines which are entrusted by Esthetic with the distinction between the various styles. in literature and other small differences, for the laws she herself investigates are diffused throughout all the arts like guiding-stars for these various subsidiary arts (quasi cynosura quaedam specialium) 3 and must be extracted not from isolated cases only, or from incomplete induction empirically, but from the totality of facts (falsa regula peior est quam nulla). Nor must Esthetic be confounded with Psychology, which furnishes its presuppositions only; an independent science, it gives the norm of sensitive cognition (sensitive quid cognoscendi) and deals with "perfectio cognitionis sensitivae, qua talis," which is beauty (pulcritudo), just as the opposite, imperfection, is ugliness (deformitas).5 From the beauty of sensitive cognition (pulcritudo cognitionis) we must exclude the beauty of objects and matter (pulcritudo obiectorum et materiae) with which it is often confused owing to habits of language, since it is easy to show that ugly things may be thought of in a beautiful manner and beautiful things in an ugly manner (quacum ob receptam rei significationem saepe sed male confunditur; possunt turpia pulcre cogitare ut talia, et pulcriora turpiter). Poetical representations are confused or imaginative : distinctness, that is intellect, is not poetical. The greater the determination, the greater the poetry; individuals omnimode determinata" are highly poetical; poetical also are images or phantasms as well as all that appertains to the senses. That which judges sensible or imaginary presentations is taste, or "iudicium sensuum." These, in brief, are the truths displayed by Baumgarten in his Meditationes and, with many distinctions and examples, in his Esthetic.8 • Ritter, Gesch. d. Philos. (Fr. trans., Hist. de la phil. mod. iii. p. 365); Zimmermann, Gesch. d. Aesth. p. 168; J. Schmidt, L. u. B. p. 48. Criticism of his own conception of Esthetic as the science of sensitive judgements passed on cognition Baumgarten should have evolved a species of Baumgarten, inductive Logic. But he can be cleared of this accusation : a better philosopher, perhaps, than his critics, he held that an inductive Logic must always be intellectual, since it leads to abstractions and the formation of concepts. The relation existing between "cognitio confusa and the poetical and artistic facts which belong to the realm of taste had been shown before his day, by Leibniz : neither he nor Wolff nor any other or their school ever dreamed of transforming a treatment of the cognitio confusa" or "petites perceptions" into an inductive Logic. On the other hand, as a kind of compensation, these critics attribute to Baumgarten a merit he cannot claim, at least to the extent implied by their praises. According to them, he effected a revolution by converting 1 Leibniz' differences of degree or quantitative distinctions into a specific difference, and turning confused knowledge into something no longer negative but positive 2 by attributing a "perfectio" to sensitive cognition qua talis; and by thus destroying the unity of the Leibnitian monad and breaking up the law of continuity, founded the science of Esthetic. Had he really accomplished such a giant stride, his claim to the title of "father of Esthetic " would have been placed beyond question. But, in order to win this appellation, Baumgarten ought to have been successful in unravelling all those contradictions in which he was involved no less than Leibniz and all intellectualists. It is not enough to posit a "perfectio"; even Leibniz did that when he attributed claritas to confused cognition, which, when devoid of clearness, remains obscure, that is to say, imperfect. It was imperative that this perfection qua talis" should be upheld against the "lex continui," and kept uncontaminated by any intellectualistic admixture. Otherwise he was bound to fall back into the pathless labyrinth of the "probable" which is and is not false, of the wit which is and is not intellect, of the taste 1 Danzel, Gottsched, p. 218; Meyer, L. u. B. pp. 35-38. 2 Schmidt, op. cit. p. 44. which is and is not intellectual judgement, of the imagina- Baumgarten. Now Baumgarten overcame none of the obstacles above Intellectualism mentioned. Unprejudiced and continued study of his works forces one to this conclusion. Already in his Meditationes he does not seem able to distinguish clearly between imagination and intellect, confused and distinct cognition. The law of continuity leads him to set up a scale of more and less amongst cognitions, the obscure are less poetical than the confused; the distinct are not poetical, but even those of the higher kinds (that is the distinct and intellectual) are to a certain extent poetical in proportion as they are lower in their nature; compound concepts are more poetical than simple; those of larger comprehension are " extensive clariores." In the Esthetic Baumgarten expounds his thought more fully and thereby exposes its defects. If the introduction of the book leads one to believe that he sees æsthetic truth to consist in consciousness of the individual, the belief is shattered by the explanations which follow. As a good objectivist he asserts that truth in the metaphysical sense has its counterpart in the soul, namely, subjective truth, logical truth in a wide sense, or æsthetico-logical.2 And the complete truth lies not in the genus or species, but in the individual. The genus is true, the species. more true, the individual most true.3 Formal logical truth is acquired cum iactura," by jettisoning much great material perfection: "quid enim est abstractio, si iactura non est?" So much being granted, logical truth differs from æsthetic in this metaphysical or objective truth is presented now to the intellect, when it is logical truth in a narrow sense; now to the analogy of reason 4 66 and the lower cognitive faculties, when it is æsthetic;1 Cujus habent spectatores auditoresve intra animum quum vident audiuntve, quasdam anticipationes, quod plerumque fit, quod fieri solet, quod in opinione positum est, quod habet ad haec in se quandam similitudinem, sive id falsum (logice et latissime), sive verum sit (logice et strictissime), quod non sit facile a nostris sensibus abhorrens: hoc illud est eirós et verisimile quod, Aristotele et Cicerone assentiente, sectetur aestheticus." The probable embraces that which is true and certain to the intellect and the senses, that which is certain to the senses but not to the intellect, that which is probable logically and æsthetically, or logically 1 Aesth. § 424. • Op. cit. § 483. 2 Op. cit. § 557. |