Point of view of this History of Æsthetic--Mistaken tendencies, and attempts towards an Æsthetic, in Græco-Roman antiquity--Origin of the æsthetic problem in Greece--Plato's rigoristic negation--Æsthetic hedonism and moralism--Mystical æsthetic in antiquity--Investigations as to the Beautiful--Distinction between the theory of Art and the theory of the Beautiful--Fusion of the two by Plotinus--The scientific tendency: Aristotle--The concepts of imitation and of imagination after Aristotle: Philostratus--Speculations on language II ÆSTHETIC IDEAS IN THE MIDDLE AGES AND RENAISSANCE Middle Ages. Mysticism: Ideas on the Beautiful--The pedagogic theory of art in the Middle Ages--Hints of an Æsthetic in scholastic philosophy--Renaissance: Philography and philosophical and empirical inquiries concerning the Beautiful--The pedagogic theory of art and the Poetics of Aristotle--The "Poetics of the Renaissance"--Dispute concerning the universal and the probable in art--G. Fracastoro--L. Castelvetro--Piccolomini and Pinciano--Fr. Patrizzi (Patricius) III FERMENTS OF THOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY New words and new observations in the seventeenth century--Wit--Taste--Various meanings of the word taste--Fancy or imagination--Feeling--Tendency to unite these terms--Difficulties and contradictions in their definition--Wit and intellect--Taste and intellectual judgement--The "_je ne sais quoi_"--Imagination and sensationalism: the corrective of imagination--Feeling and sensationalism IV ÆSTHETIC IDEAS OF THE CARTESIAN AND LEIBNITIAN SCHOOLS, AND THE "ÆSTHETIC" OF BAUMGARTEN Cartesianism and imagination--Crousaz and André--The English: Locke, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and the Scottish School--Leibniz: "_petites perceptions_" and confused knowledge--Intellectualism of Leibniz--Speculations on language--J. C. Wolff--Demand for an organon of inferior knowledge--Alexander Baumgarten: his "Æsthetic"--Æsthetic as science of sensory consciousness--Criticism of judgements passed on Baumgarten--Intellectualism of Baumgarten--New names and old meanings V GIAMBATTISTA VICO Vico as inventor of æsthetic science--Poetry and philosophy: imagination and intellect--Poetry and history--Poetry and language--Inductive and formalistic logic--Vico opposed to all former theories of poetry--Vico's judgements of the grammarians and linguists who preceded him--Influence of seventeenth-century writers on Vico--Æsthetic in the _Scienza Nuova_--Vico's mistakes--Progress still to be achieved VI MINOR ÆSTHETIC DOCTRINES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The influence of Vico--Italian writers: A. Conti--Quadrio and Zanotti--M. Cesarotti--Bettinelli and Pagano--German disciples of Baumgarten: G. F. Meier--Confusions of Meier--M. Mendelssohn and other followers of Baumgarten--Vogue of Æsthetic--Eberhard and Eschenburg--J. G. Sulzer--K. H. Heydenreich--J. G. Herder--Philosophy of language VII OTHER ÆSTHETIC DOCTRINES OF THE SAME PERIOD