AESTHETICS

(Gr. dicdriTtKos, having the power of perception by means 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, which 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 satis factorily deduced. As an illustration 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 difficult 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 si-i 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 prin ciples of taste in all the arts depend on the laws of gravitation, and their balances, equipoise and counterpoise j the nece ary resultants whereof are symmetry 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 othei [s. 32]