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two the intuition and the concept-Art, and Science or Philosophy. With these are to be included History, which is, as it were, the product of intuition placed in contact with the concept, that is, of art receiving in itself philosophic distinctions, while remaining concrete and individual. All the other forms (natural sciences and mathematics) are impure, being mingled with extraneous elements of practical origin. The intuition gives the world, the phenomenon; the concept gives the noumenon, the Spirit.

IV

HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN ÆSTHETIC

THESE relations between intuitive or æsthetic knowledge and the other fundamental or derivative forms of knowledge having been definitely established, we are now in a position to reveal the errors of a series of theories which have been, or are, presented, as theories of Esthetic.

verisimilitude

naturalism.

From the confusion between the exigencies Critique of of art in general and the particular exigencies and of of history has arisen the theory (which has lost ground to-day, but used to dominate in the past) of verisimilitude as the object of art. As is generally the case with erroneous propositions, the intention of those who employed and employ the concept of verisimilitude has no doubt often been much more reasonable than the definition given of the word. By verisimilitude used to be meant the artistic coherence of the representation, that is to say, its completeness and effectiveness. If "verisimilar" be translated by "coherent," a most

exact meaning will often be found in the discussions, examples, and judgments of the critics. An improbable personage, an improbable ending to a comedy, are really badly-drawn personages, badly - arranged endings, happenings without artistic motive. It has been said with reason that even fairies and sprites must have verisimilitude, that is to say, be really sprites and fairies, coherent artistic intuitions. Sometimes the word "possible" has been used instead of "verisimilar." As we have already remarked with in passing, this word possible is synonymous that which is imaginable or may be known intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history by the criticism of the verisimilar? For example, the fault found with the Jerusalem Delivered, based upon the history of the Crusades, or of the Homeric poems, upon that of the verisimilitude of the costume of the emperors and kings?

At other times has been imposed upon art

the duty of the æsthetic reproduction of historical reality. This is another of the erroneous significations assumed by the theory concerning the imitation of nature. Verism and naturalism have since afforded the spectacle of a confusion of the æsthetic fact with the processes of the natural sciences, by aiming at some sort of experimental drama or romance.

ideas in art,

and of the

The confusions between the methods of art Critique of and those of the philosophical sciences have been of theses in art. far more frequent. Thus it has often been held typical. to be within the competence of art to develop concepts, to unite the intelligible with the sensible, to represent ideas or universals, putting art in the place of science, that is, confusing the artistic function in general with the particular case in which it becomes æsthetico-logical.

The theory of art as supporting theses can be reduced to the same error, as can be the theory of art considered as individual representation, exemplifying scientific laws. The example, in so far as it is an example, stands for the thing exemplified, and is thus an exposition of the universal, that is to say, a form of science, more or less popular or vulgarized.

The same may be said of the æsthetic theory of the typical, when by type is understood, as it

Critique of
the symbol and

frequently is, just the abstraction or the concept,
and it is affirmed that art should make the species
shine in the individual. If by typical be here
understood the individual, here, too, we have a
merely verbal variation. To typify would signify,
in this case, to characterize; that is, to determine
and to represent the individual. Don Quixote is
a type; but of whom is he a type, if not of all
Don Quixotes? A type, that is to say, of
himself. Certainly he is not a type of abstract
concepts, such as the loss of the sense of reality,
or of the love of glory. An infinite number of
personages can be thought of under these
concepts, who are not Don Quixote. In other
words, we find Our own impressions fully
determined and verified in the expression of a
poet (for example in a poetical personage). We
call that expression typical, which we might call
simply æsthetic.
Poetical or artistic universals
have been spoken of in like manner, in order to
show that the artistic product is altogether
spiritual and ideal in itself.

Continuing to correct these errors, or to make of the allegory. clear equivoques, we will note that the symbol

has sometimes been given as essence of art. Now, if the symbol be given as inseparable from the artistic intuition, it is the synonym of the

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