The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological AestheticsLee, Vernon
Philosophy
The Beautiful: An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics
Lee, Vernon
Aesthetics; Form (Aesthetics); Psychology, Applied
"I am _not_ a painter, and I'm _not_ a writer"--exclaimed the third
traveller, "and I thank Heaven I'm not! For if I were I might be
trying to engineer a picture or to match adjectives, instead of merely
enjoying all this beauty. Not but that I should like to have a sketch
or a few words of description for when I've turned my back upon it.
And Heaven help me, I really believe that when we are all back in
London I may be quite glad to hear you two talking about your
tramway-funicular company and your volcanic and glacial action,
because your talk will evoke in my mind the remembrance of this
place and moment which you have done your best to spoil for me--"
"That's what it is to be aesthetic"--said the two almost in the same
breath.
"And that, I suppose"--answered the third with some animosity--"is
what you mean by being practical or scientific."
Now the attitude of mind of the practical man and of the man of
science, though differing so obviously from one another (the first
bent upon producing new and advantageous _results,_ the second
examining, without thought of advantage, into possible _causes),_
both differed in the same way from the attitude of the man who was
merely contemplating what he called the beauty of the scene. They
were, as he complained, thinking of _what might be done_ and of
_how it had all come about._ That is to say they were both thinking
_away_ from that landscape. The scientific man actually turned his
back to it in examining first one rock, then another. The practical
man must have looked both at the plain in front and at the hill he
was on, since he judged that there was pasture and water-power, and
that the steepness required supplementing the tramway by a
funicular. But besides the different items of landscape, and the same
items under different angles, which were thus offered to these two
men's bodily eyes, there was a far greater variety, and rapider
succession of items and perspectives presented to the eyes of their
spirit: the practical man's mental eye seeing not only the hills, plain,
and town with details not co-existing in perspective or even in time,
but tram-lines and funiculars in various stages of progress,
dairy-products, pasture, houses, dynamos, waterfalls, offices,
advertisements, cheques, etc., etc., and the scientific man's inner
vision glancing with equal speed from volcanoes to ice-caps and
seas in various stages of geological existence, besides minerals
under the microscope, inhabitants in prehistoric or classic garb, let
alone probably pages of books and interiors of libraries. Moreover,
most, if not all these mental images (blocking out from attention the
really existing landscape) could be called images only by courtesy,
swished over by the mental eye as by an express train, only just
enough seen to know what it was, or perhaps nothing seen at all,
mere words filling up gaps in the chain of thought. So that what
satisfaction there might be in the case was not due to these rapidly
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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