That they are truths--that personal affections and aesthetic enjoyments
include _all_ the greatest, and _by far_ the greatest, goods we can
imagine, will, I hope, appear more plainly in the course of that
analysis of them, to which I shall now proceed. All the things, which I
have meant to include under the above descriptions, are highly complex
_organic unities_; and in discussing the consequences, which follow
from this fact, and the elements of which they are composed, I may hope
at the same time both to confirm and to define my position.
=114.= I. I propose to begin by examining what I have called aesthetic
enjoyments, since the case of personal affections presents some
additional complications. It is, I think, universally admitted that the
proper appreciation of a beautiful object is a good thing in itself;
and my question is: What are the main elements included in such an
appreciation?
(1) It is plain that in those instances of aesthetic appreciation,
which we think most valuable, there is included, not merely a bare
cognition of what is beautiful in the object, but also some kind of
feeling or emotion. It is not sufficient that a man should merely see
the beautiful qualities in a picture and know that they are beautiful,
in order that we may give his state of mind the highest praise. We
require that he should also _appreciate_ the beauty of that which he
sees and which he knows to be beautiful--that he should feel and see
_its beauty_. And by these expressions we certainly mean that he should
have an appropriate emotion towards the beautiful qualities which he
cognises. It is perhaps the case that all aesthetic emotions have some
common quality; but it is certain that differences in the emotion seem
to be appropriate to differences in the kind of beauty perceived: and
by saying that different emotions are _appropriate_ to different kinds
of beauty, we mean that the whole which is formed by the consciousness
of that kind of beauty _together with_ the emotion appropriate to it,
is better than if any other emotion had been felt in contemplating that
particular beautiful object. Accordingly we have a large variety of
different emotions, each of which is a necessary constituent in some
state of consciousness which we judge to be good. All of these emotions
are essential elements in great positive goods; they are _parts_ of
organic wholes, which have great intrinsic value. But it is important
to observe that these wholes are organic, and that, hence, it does not
follow that the emotion, _by itself_, would have any value whatsoever,
nor yet that, if it were directed to a different object, the whole thus
formed might not be positively bad. And, in fact, it seems to be the
case that if we distinguish the emotional element, in any aesthetic
appreciation, from the cognitive element, which accompanies it and
is, in fact, commonly thought of as a part of the emotion; and if
we consider what value this emotional element would have, _existing
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