The Psychology of Beauty
- Pages
- about 235
- Category
- Philosophy
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 4.3 h at 250 wpm
From the opening
THE human being who thrills to the experience of beauty in
nature and in art does not forever rest with that experience
unquestioned. The day comes when he yearns to pierce the
secret of his emotion, to discover what it is, and why, that
has so stung him--to defend and to justify his transport to
himself and to others. He seeks a reason for the faith that
is in him. And so have arisen the speculative theories of
the nature of beauty, on the one hand, and the studies of
concrete beauty and our feelings about it, on the other.
Speculative theory has taken its own way, however, as a
part of philosophy, in relating the Beautiful to the other
great concepts of the True and the Good; building up an
architectonic of abstract ideas, far from the immediate
facts and problems of the enjoyment of beauty. There has
grown up, on the other hand, in the last years, a great
literature of special studies in the facts of aesthetic
production and enjoyment. Experiments with the aesthetic
elements; investigations into the physiological psychology
of aesthetic reactions; studies in the genesis and development
of art forms, have multiplied apace. But these are still
mere groups of facts for psychology; they have not been taken
up into a single authoritative principle. Psychology cannot
do justice to the imperative of beauty, by virtue of which,
when we say "this is beautiful," we have a right to imply
that the universe must agree with us. A synthesis of these
tendencies in the study of beauty is needed, in which the
results of modern psychology shall help to make intelligible
a philosophical theory of beauty. The chief purpose of this
book is to seek to effect such a union.
A way of defining Beauty which grounds it in general principles,
while allowing it to reach the concrete case, is set forth in
the essay on the Nature of Beauty.
A short sample. Read the whole book
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