The satisfaction which we combine with the representation of the
existence of an object is called interest. Such satisfaction always
has reference to the faculty of desire, either as its determining
ground or as necessarily connected with its determining ground. Now
when the question is if a thing is beautiful, we do not want to know
whether anything depends or can depend on the existence of the thing
either for myself or for any one else, but how we judge it by mere
observation (intuition or reflection). If any one asks me if I find
that palace beautiful which I see before me, I may answer: I do not
like things of that kind which are made merely to be stared at. Or I
can answer like that Iroquois _sachem_ who was pleased in Paris by
nothing more than by the cook-shops. Or again after the manner of
_Rousseau_ I may rebuke the vanity of the great who waste the sweat of
the people on such superfluous things. In fine I could easily convince
myself that if I found myself on an uninhabited island without the
hope of ever again coming among men, and could conjure up just such
a splendid building by my mere wish, I should not even give myself
the trouble if I had a sufficiently comfortable hut. This may all be
admitted and approved; but we are not now talking of this. We wish
only to know if this mere representation of the object is accompanied
in me with satisfaction, however indifferent I may be as regards the
existence of the object of this representation. We easily see that
in saying it is _beautiful_ and in showing that I have taste, I am
concerned, not with that in which I depend on the existence of the
object, but with that which I make out of this representation in
myself. Every one must admit that a judgement about beauty, in which
the least interest mingles, is very partial and is not a pure judgement
of taste. We must not be in the least prejudiced in favour of the
existence of the things, but be quite indifferent in this respect, in
order to play the judge in things of taste.
We cannot, however, better elucidate this proposition, which is of
capital importance, than by contrasting the pure disinterested[13]
satisfaction in judgements of taste, with that which is bound up with
an interest, especially if we can at the same time be certain that
there are no other kinds of interest than those which are now to be
specified.
§ 3. _The satisfaction in the_ PLEASANT _is bound up with interest_
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