The problem of the origin and nature of Æsthetic feeling is a definite psychological problem to be solved only by introspection careful and prolonged. We must take simple cases and closely scrutinize them to discover the distinctive quality, we must seek the cognitive, feeling, will elements, we must note its kinship to other psychoses, we must endeavour to analyse and determine whether it be simple or complex. Analysis, indeed, as chemical analysis, e.g., is a reducing the manifold to a comparatively few elements, from which by composition an indefinite number of substances are formed. But in psychological study we must proceed without any bias from physical investigation. We cannot reduce mind to the mechanical development of a few simples as we survey the development of matter chemically. If mind be essentially self-activity, will effort, then conjunction of psychoses is due to a conjoining activity, and is not mere aggregation. So in case of fear we found a great complexity of conditions, yet fear in itself seems an unanalyzable emotion wave. In taking up Æsthetic psychosis we attempt an unbiassed introspective study.

The Æsthetic psychosis has been by many evolutionists connected with sexual appetite and emotion. The evidence for this is that among animals the brilliant-hued, and, as we term them, beautiful mates are chosen in pairing time. Also graceful movements and melodious tones are then employed. In mankind the Æsthetic feeling, as every one may recall in his own case, arose, and became prominent when near or in the teens. The rude boy and the hoyden girl then dress and adorn themselves, and a glamour of beauty is thrown about one who was once an entirely indifferent object. All the surroundings, artificial and natural, of the beloved object are looked upon and thought about in a new way of feeling, an air of attractiveness and beauty envelops all. The period of life of strongest sexuality, from twenty to forty, is also the period of strongest Æsthetic emotion. Further, sexuality is notedly strong among those who professionally cultivate the Æsthetic psychosis, as artists, musicians, and poets: indeed, many of the very greatest of these have been so carried away by the tender passion as to transgress the conventions and laws on sexual matters. In cases of precocious sexuality a feeling for the beautiful makes itself apparent; while with those who slowly mature, the Æsthetic feeling is similarly delayed. But does not the infant who holds out a rose to you and cries “pretty,” have a feeling for beauty? And it is surely unaffected by sexuality. What may be in the mind of a child speaking thus is hard to make out, but the activity is probably largely mimetic merely, and the term “pretty” is probably used substantively rather than qualitatively; it is the name of thing rather than quality. We certainly cannot assert of a child that because it uses certain words it attaches to those words the proper meanings. This is evident from the fact that a child taught to say “pretty” will bring you any and every object and use the word, or if it learns to take merely a class of objects, as rose, it does this at dictation. The child is, however, obviously attracted by some objects rather than others, but it would be hasty to say that it perceives their beauty, when it is quite sufficient to regard them as conspicuous only, and striking. But we have to touch on sensing later; and we only add to the evidence of connection of feeling for beauty with sexual feeling, that with the old and with eunuchs the Æsthetic sense is but slight or tends to vanish. Thus positively and negatively there seems to be evidence that feeling for beauty originates in connection with sexual passion, either that the object of the passion is always regarded as beautiful, or that a feeling for beauty excites the passion. A girl adorns herself to attract lovers, knowing that to admire beauty is the first step to love. This close connection is recognised in common consciousness in that “lovely” is synonymous with beautiful, thus a “lovely” landscape or picture is a beautiful one.

That there is a close association of sexual with Æsthetic psychosis is then obvious in the case of the human being, but yet it would be quite hasty to conclude that a sweet note or a pure colour may not be Æsthetically appreciated by children before they have the first stirring toward sexuality, but still it is very easy—as I have before noted in the case of the child who cries “pretty!”—to mistake the quality of their interest.

But when we come to interpret the psychoses of the lower animals in connection with sexuality we may still more easily slip into a doubtful automorphism. Thus to say with Darwin, “When we behold a male bird elaborately displaying ... before the female, ... it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner” (Descent of Man, p. 92), or more strongly still with Grant Allen, “Every crow must think its own mate beautiful” (Mind, v. 448), we too easily take for granted that these birds would feel like ourselves in corresponding circumstances. We can find a more simple explanation. That crows often maltreat those who are off colour, e.g., white, plainly does not require us to suppose that they regard white as ugly, black as beautiful, any more than we should judge that students in some Society who wear a black badge would be Æsthetically moved when they look with disfavour upon students who may wear a white badge. Animals are clannish, and as a rule, suffer none but those who have the customary marks to associate with them, and especially to propagate. Hence when the peacock displays himself to his mate he simply shows to her that he has most conspicuously the proper marks, and she sees that he is the proper mate. These are signs of a tempting mate, just as here is tempting food, a very red ripe berry, but the coloration no more in the one case than the other awakens feeling for beauty. The hen bird probably appreciates a red feather as a red berry merely as being signs of the completely satisfying. Sexual selection, like nutriment selection, is a discrimination according to certain characters as prompted by appetite. The expanded and vari-coloured tail of a peacock is then a mere sexual characteristic which does not imply feeling for beauty in its appreciation as significant of sex. A small foot, long hair, and other sexual characters in woman, which are attractive to men, in like manner arouse emotion which is far from Æsthetic. We may take a perfectly unsexual Æsthetic pleasure in long raven tresses just as we do in an ebony table, but this is obviously rather late achievement.

In fact are not Æsthetic and sexual feelings mutually exclusive? So far as nude art is “suggestive,” so far is the feeling of its beauty lost, hence sculpture is not tinted. And so in the presence of the nude model the artist can have merely Æsthetic emotion, whereas his visitor is apt to have emotions of another sort. We do, indeed, say that the lover dwells upon his mistress’ “beauties,” but beauties here mean attractions, and to the devoted lover all parts are attractive, even moles and freckles which to the Æsthetic eye are ugly.

From the evidence in hand we judge then that it is certainly not necessary to call in the feeling of the beautiful as the motive in the origin and development of sexual characters in animals and plants. Just as there is a cry of fear or a tone of anger there is a vocal expression of sexual feeling and emotion which has its use and is recognised as such, but whose Æsthetic quality is no more a matter of immediate apprehension than in other utilities. At least the safest interpretation that we can now make for all the lower grades of sexuality is that sex characters are not primarily determined by the feeling for beauty, but are simply immediate signs of sex to awaken the sexual response and secure the best mate. How is it that sexuality is so prominent in expression among some species and so little among others?—compare peacocks and blue jays—is a question on which we have no light. We are also in ignorance how the particular sexual character was evolved and not some other, for example, why is not the peacock’s tail red? Grant Allen’s suggestion that food selection has influenced sex selection may be true, but it would require a very wide and thorough investigation. Do brilliant-hued birds prefer brilliant-hued foods? How is the coloration of the scarlet tanager related to the coloration of its food? However, if the colouring of foods and mates were the same, it would in some cases lead to disadvantageous confusion, and on general principles we should expect such distinct elements as nutrition and sex to develop on very different lines. The cue for colour may be learned first with reference to food, but it may be carried on as sexually significant on very distinct lines. Still to distinguish a food or a mate by colour is equally non-Æsthetic in itself. At least we think it improbable that Æsthetic psychosis arises as incentive to or reflex of sexuality in any of the lower psychic stages.

A theory of the origin of Æsthetic psychosis which has been pressed by some, as by Herbert Spencer, is that it arises as reflex from spontaneous outflow of energy, or more particularly in connection with play impulse. A horse turned loose in pasture may gambol, running, sniffing, looking around, all which denoting a free outflow of energy through lines of least resistance, the customary channels of activity. But we cannot seriously think that in this sensing and muscular activity there is implied any real Æsthetic psychosis, and indeed it seems quite emotionless. The emotion of fear or similar feelings aroused the original activities, but this present galloping, etc., is automatic, and such immediate pleasure as may result from this free activity is scarcely of the Æsthetic order. The whole is of a distinctly lower order than the original activity and much below Æsthetic quality. If we recall our own state of mind in youthful “letting off steam” and in plays, we do not find Æsthetic pleasure. There is, however, a pleasure of relief and also positively a pleasure from such spontaneous outflow; but the outburst of pent-up energy automatically spent along lines of race action is a mere echo, dies out at once, and as degenerate form is not a starting point for origin of any new psychosis. Play as simulation of feeling and action is also removed from Æsthetic activity, as in a dog playing at fear and running, or at anger and chasing. He gets a more or less modified fear or anger, but there does not seem to be any tendency to Æsthetic psychosis. Mere imitation is more or less exact and skilful, but emotion therein and thereat is plainly not the glow of Æsthetic emotion, but is reflex of sense of power and intelligence as qualities. Mimicry as mere outlet of energy as with monkeys is plainly not aesthetic; here is merely an automatic outflow of force into suggested activity. When a savage as mimetic achievement carves the figure of man as handle to a knife, he accomplishes art, but not fine art. He has no more Æsthetic feeling than a boy or man whittling out a ship, it being merely an exact and skilful counterfeit of a real thing. Imitation for the sake of imitation or to deceive is a teleologic pleasure distinct from Æsthetic. Successful imitation is often said, indeed, to be “beautifully done,” but this means no more than well done. Even a well-baked cake is popularly spoken of as beautifully done.

We observe that superfluous energy rushes out along customary or habitual lines of activity, and so with perfect ease and economy. Activity which is easy and free is in itself pleasant, and this pleasantness in sensing and derived psychosis is Æsthetic feeling. Where sensing is mere escape valve of force, though facility is absolute, there is, as just pointed out, no Æsthetic quality, the whole tending to the merely mechanical. Owing to the fact that in nature curved lines predominate and so ocular adjustment is to them, my eye follows a curved line easier than a straight one, hence when spontaneous energy outflows in sensing activity of least resistance it will be toward curves. But spontaneous activity of this kind is, as we have explained, not Æsthetic. The law of economy in a vent is, greatest force, least effect, the contrary of the usual formula for economy which is, least force, greatest effect. Where energy is expensive the latter rule is to be applied. Thus in directed and effortful sensing activity economy means the ratio of efficiency, the ratio of the amount of painful effort to desired result. But this is merely a saving of pain and not a real pleasure psychosis. When I, in using a microscope see clearly with less and less effort the objects of my study, I may take pleasure in the economical and facile accomplishment, but this pleasure is one of satisfaction in power and skill, and so not at all Æsthetic. Again, a dyer has great skill and easy appreciation with respect to colour, but the Æsthetic side of colour is not thereby specially felt by him. Mere habitual and easy colour sensitiveness is not then thereby Æsthetic. We must, indeed, sense a colour before we can feel its beauty, but the feeling of beauty is not directly involved in any stage of the sensing evolution from the earliest and most painful effort with bare appreciation to the spontaneous and effortless sensing at the moment of great surplus of sensing energy.

Another way of accounting for Æsthetic psychosis is by association. Pleasant sights, for instance, are those with which we associate pleasure, and “pleasant” means to many, beautiful. But a traveller, thirsty in a desert land, declares that he saw no more pleasant sight than a mud hole, but this pleasure, as he himself would aver, was far from Æsthetic. Whatever we have associated pleasure with, we regard with pleasure, but only as we have associated Æsthetic pleasure with it do we regard it with Æsthetic pleasure. Thus mere association or revival no more gives us the derivation of Æsthetic than any other emotion. Any pleasure or pain may be associated with any sensation or perception, and thereby re-occur with these, but the mere revival obviously does not alter the nature of the psychosis or give any new psychosis. It is not what is recalled, but how we feel about it that constitutes Æsthetic emotion. So also when the beautiful is defined by H. R. Marshall as “the permanently pleasurable in revival,” we get no insight into the origin, nature, and development of the Æsthetic psychosis; this purely objective description gives no psychological analysis. But we may question the accuracy of the description. A thing of beauty is not a joy for ever when we mean thereby the object which excites the Æsthetic psychosis, for much that has seemed beautiful to one people and age does not remain so for all peoples and times, and even with the individual, taste varies. We must also note that the permanently pleasurable in revival may not be Æsthetic, as the lover’s remembrance of a trysting place. On the whole, I do not find that Æsthetic pleasure is in any case to be ascribed to association, though it comes under the general laws of association like any other feeling. A lily excites various modes of Æsthetic impression by its form, colour, odour, poetical character, etc., all which may re-awaken together upon any presentation or suggestion of the lily. However, for the aboriginal lotus-eater the lily was also a pleasant sight—but not Æsthetic—from the associated pleasures of its pleasant taste and as satisfying hunger.

We have implied throughout—and common introspection approves this—that Æsthetic pleasure and emotion is a distinct psychosis which somehow arises with reference to objects. It is not some previous psychosis as modified by association, habit, economy, play-impulse, or sexuality; but it is a sui generis mode which develops on the basis of a past evolution. The simplest and earliest Æsthetic mode is plainly the sensuous. Very commonly when looking on the delicate solid-tinted glow of early dawn I have Æsthetic pleasure, my eye dwells on it with pleasure and drinks in the pleasant light. It is obvious here that the sensing activity is carried on, not to discriminate food or mate nor yet as mere vent to energy; but the sensing here acts for the pleasure in the activity itself. How and why mere cognitive act, which originates as guide to life, acquires a direct pleasure value and so is carried on apart from the ends of life, and initiates an Æsthetic world of its own, cannot on the face of it be explained by natural selection; it is entirely apart from this order of things. But we know that sensing often carries pleasure with it as significant of life value, thus the thing tasting good was originally the good thing to eat, digest and assimilate; so also for smell, etc. But under natural selection this pleasure sanction and index was never cultivated for its own sake.

Now is there any real difference in the pleasure in, for instance, smelling, for the pure pleasure of smelling, as a perfume of fresh apples, and the pleasure from smelling the apples as detecting them when you are hungry? “How pleasant those apples smell! I do not care to eat them, but I just enjoy smelling them”; is the pleasure thus indicated the same in quality with that of the man who says, “Those apples smell so nice I would like to try one”? Again, if hungry, we say, “The bread tastes so good,” but we notice this pleasantness rapidly decreases as appetite is satisfied. However, if there be fresh grass butter, you may continue to eat long after appetite is satisfied, for the pure pleasure of the taste. Obviously, the latter pleasure is not a mere continuance of the former. Relish and taste pleasure seem distinct. Again, a red apple is a pleasant sight to a hungry man and to an artist in different ways. If our pleasure in looking at a picture of an apple is such that the mouth waters, we know at once that the pleasure is unÆsthetic. He who is very fond of apples, and to whom they are always a pleasant sight, is so far barred from Æsthetic pleasure in them; while he who has no appreciation of their edibility is thereby prepared for Æsthetically sensing them. So also sour grapes are as pretty as sweet. The colour sense began as discriminative of foods, and hence red became pleasurably known, but Æsthetic appreciation is certainly much later and quite diverse. If it be asked how and when did red, already noticeable, become dwelt upon Æsthetically, all we can hazard in reply is that at some leisure moment when unmoved by appetite a surplus of energy set up an habitual sensing activity, as noticing reds, and at a certain stage when some directing is exercised, there comes a unique pleasure from the mere sensing, and the red is therefore dwelt upon. Æsthetic colour-pleasure in the simplest case arises then in every one’s experience.

Sense-pleasure is thus distinctly of two kinds, first, as arising in direct connection with general organic demands and satisfactions—the part as serving the whole; second, as arising immediately from the sense-activity—the whole as serving the part. A monkey may find an apple a pleasant sight, but loses all interest when the apple is seen to be an imitation: the monkey has the first pleasure, but not the second. The sensuous Æsthetic problem is merely to introspect the quality of the sensing-for-itself-pleasure as distinct from pleasantness coming from the service of life. A sense which develops its own pleasurableness is on a new line, which we term the Æsthetic. Æsthetic activity is distinct from mere vent activity of superfluous energy by reason of being carried on self-directed by the felt pleasure of activity; it implies a measure of self-direction and self-consciousness. Æsthetic activity may then be generally described as primarily a sensing carried on, not as means, but for its own sake in pleasure immediately resulting. And we find that in this very general meaning all senses have their Æsthetic activity. The temperature sense is carried on, as in basking, for the pure pleasure of warmth. A cat behind a stove is a connoisseur in Æsthetic warmth sensations, and enjoys warmth for its own sake, so far as often to injure the organism as a whole. To lie in the sun and experience the thrills of pleasurable warmth and to keep up this sensing merely for the sensation pleasure is a frequent experience even with man. Again, the muscular and pressure senses often have a sphere of Æsthetic activity with athletes and lovers of exercise. When in prime condition, a man will toss weights about solely for the pleasure involved in the sense of pressure and of muscular activity. Touch also is plainly Æsthetic when one handles silk for the pleasure involved in its smoothness. Smell is obviously an Æsthetic activity in smelling perfumes for the pleasure of the smell. It is probable that the Æsthetic activity of this sense is far wider in some of the lower animals where the sense is much more acute, as the dog. The dog is plainly having a very different psychosis when he is smelling with pleasure a piece of meat which he is about to eat, and when he sniffs carrion and perfumes himself therewith. He gets thus a certain pleasant but gross stimulation quite akin to the pleasure some men take in musk, an enjoyment of which is distinctly an animal trait. Again, the epicure who sips his rare wine is tasting for the pure pleasure of the taste, and exercises this sense Æsthetically. The Æsthetic of all these senses may be called the lower Æsthetic, in contradistinction to the higher Æsthetic of sight and hearing; but Æsthetic activity is throughout its whole range practically identical in nature and in the quality of its pleasure. When I lie in the sun and get warmth, not because I am cold, but for the mere pleasure of the warmth thrills, and when I keep looking at a delicate tint in the evening sky for the mere pleasure of the sensation, I have, as far as my introspection assures me, activities whose method and pleasure tone is identical.

Simple sensuous Æsthetic is no doubt the beginning of Æsthetic activity, but there speedily enters much complication. It often happens that single elements which separately do not excite us Æsthetically will produce a marked effect in conjunction, as complementary colours, for instance. Indeed, relation plays so large a place in our Æsthetic experience that such principles as variety and contrast, or, on the other hand, unity, order, proportion, and harmony, have been made fundamental to the Æsthetic feeling. Æsthetic effect certainly here becomes a complex of two or more reinforcing sensations or perceptions. Where the sensuous elements of a perception are in themselves pleasing we may expect the unison in perception to be doubly pleasing. However, we may also conceive that Æsthetic pleasure arises as a reflex of perceptive activity in and for itself as a co-ordinating of impressions.

Fechner has made some experiments on what combinations are pleasing; but experiment in this direction is extremely difficult because so few people are willing to speak frankly of their Æsthetic feelings, being very sensitive about compromising themselves on matters of taste. There is also the great difficulty of isolation, of making sure that association does not creep in and add unforeseen elements. If Fechner expected to get any judgments of value on such a matter as the golden section rectangle, he should have consulted only trained artists who are used to taking up the Æsthetic activity with reference to any material and expressing themselves with freedom. If this rectangle has the Æsthetic quality Fechner’s experiments suggest, it seems strange it was not adopted by the symmetry-loving Greeks in their temples, like the Parthenon.

To the spheres of simple and relational sense beauty we have to add a third—representative beauty. A colour, or two or more in combination which give Æsthetic satisfaction, will also please in hallucinatory vision and in representation proper where the revival is recognised in its unreality and representative nature, and also in recollection where the memory is willed. The mere imaging these colours without any definite time relation also gives Æsthetic pleasure. It is, indeed, a pleonasm to say that Æsthetic revivals are Æsthetic. However, imagination is productive as well as reproductive, hence the ideal achieves a fuller beauty than the real. Where the mind, prompted by Æsthetic desire, determines its own object, this object can more fully satisfy it than reality, which is always imperfect. Thus art surpasses nature, or more strictly is a higher nature. Idealism then is a mode of realism, and realism is but the ideal of actuality. But the imaging activity may, like the perceptive, be considered as in itself a source of Æsthetic pleasure. Imaging is primarily used in the service of life, as when walking in a forest I hear a peculiar cry, imagine a wolf, and flee. When imaging has been largely developed thus, it may often act as a mere vent to energy; but this kind of activity has here, no more than elsewhere, real Æsthetic quality. At the animistic stage children imagine in this way long before they Æsthetically image. When we consciously and with some self-direction enjoy imaging for its own sake, we attain the Æsthetic sphere. The Æsthetic pleasures which are suggested by such a phrase as—

are not merely the sum of the original sense pleasures, but perceptive and imaginative pleasure per se is added, the image is more beautiful than the real vision, and this perception than some sense element, as the light sensation implied in “placid.”

Æsthetic pleasure, even in sense, and much more in perceiving and imagining, is a delight, that is, Æsthetic quality is an emotion quality, it is not a mere feeling from an object, but a feeling about it. Now emotion may be enacted for emotion’s sake and so an Æsthetic pleasure wave be generated. This is the pleasure we take in the pathetic—pity, the sublime, fear as awe, the tragic-horror. These emotions are realized for themselves as a mode of pleasurable activity. Æsthetic emotion is also very largely emotion at emotion, as a feeling for the expressive, still here the emotion is for its own sake.

Æsthetic activity may then be described as an independent self-activity of some sense, or of perception, or imagination, or emotion as impelled by a pleasure, this pleasure being a distinct and new form we term Æsthetic. It is probable this pleasure first arose in connection with the exercise of the sense as a vent for spontaneous energy, and pleasure once somehow being taken in a mere activity per se, it is thenceforth conducted therefor. This is the plainest path of conjecture thus far. If the first Æsthetic pleasure were taken in some quiet moment of venting energy in sensing red, then red will continue to be sensed, impelled by the pleasure involved in the act. Granted such an origin, the development of Æsthetic psychosis can be traced in the way we have noted.

Æsthetic psychosis is commonly regarded as passive, and it is indeed true that the first moment of the pleasure comes as result of an activity impelled by other motives. New psychoses are not consciously formed but are rather hit upon in natural development; but once a new pleasure is felt its conditions will be attained and kept to by conscious effort, and the pleasure itself will receive its development only through effortful activity. It is by supreme effort the great artist attains the vision of beauty, it is by supreme effort he expresses this vision, it is by supreme effort the critic appreciates this expression. He who has no appreciation of sculpture may by patiently and earnestly observing statuary reach at length some Æsthetic pleasure. Thus the Æsthetic, like all mental modes, so far as progressive, is effortful; and it seems certain that the Æsthetic pleasures that come to us so easily are race acquirements, a heritage of culture. From its first germ onwards Æsthetic, like intellectual, like moral, like all mental activity, is the achievement of intense struggle.

With the rise of beauty we have a new utility. Here is a new pleasure which once experienced is sought and sought again, is developed, and with some natures becomes absorbing passion, the life. Objects fitted to give this pleasure are desired, are bought and sold. The beautiful is used to effect all kinds of ends. The lover adorns himself to make himself attractive, the advertiser distributes his bills in artistic shape, the real estate dealer ornaments his houses and grounds. Whatever will afford Æsthetic pleasure we are willing to pay for and pay high. In fact, in the person of a Patti the Æsthetic thrill becomes the most expensive taste which humanity can indulge. Art then is a utility—a something which satisfies desire—and as such it is not free or shareable. But one at a time can observe a picture from the best point of view. Rich men buy the most sightly spots in nature, the places of magnificent vistas and open to beautiful sunsets. Beautiful things are then desirables just like edible things or warm things, and as such they are not shareable. The feeling for beauty, just because it is self-contained, is far from being disinterested. It is essentially selfish.