AESTHETICS

(Gr. cuffOvj-rizo;, having the power oj perception hymeans of the senses.) In the fine arts, that science which derives the first principles in all the arts from the effect which certain combinations have on the mind, as connected with nature and right reason. It is intimately related to sentiment, which links together with feeling the different parts of a composition. All art, considered as imitation of nature, is affected by the same relations, and subject to the same laws,whicli govern nature herself; and if it could be satisfactorily proved that those rules of art which are the result of reason were nece arily connected with sensation, it might be po ible to lay down laws from which the principles of art might be satisfactorily deduced. As an lUus tration of this, in architecture we might take the rule which forbids the position of a heavy ma over a void, when it may appear to have no ostensible and immediate support; in which case it might almost seem po ible to connect the unpleasant sensation produced on the mind with the rules of reason; but in architecture it is diflScult to conceive how this could be effected, without recurring to primitive types, and on them pursuing the reasoning into all its details. In the other arts it might not, perhaps, be so difficult to establish a set of rules, inasmuch as the immediate type is nature herself. The Germans have written much on the doctrine of aesthetics; it would, however, seem, that the fundamental principles of taste in all the arts depend on the laws of gravitation, and their balances, equipoise and counterpoise; the nece ary resultants whereof are sjTnmetry and proportion. We shall here lay before the reader a synoptical view of this science: to do more would occupy a space much more than would fill this volume; for, under other names, it is a subject which has much engaged the attention of writers on the philosophy of the arts. The e ence of the polite arts lies in expre ion, or the power of representation, whether by lines, words, or other media, and that expre ion arises from an exercise of the inventive faculty; their end being the production of pleasurable sensations; thus being distinguished from the end sought in the sciences, whose object is to produce instruction and utility. And here we are to observe, that though [s. 31]