I shall not quote the definitions of beauty attributed to the ancients,—Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc., down to Plotinus,—because, in reality, the ancients had not that conception of beauty separated from goodness which forms the basis and aim of æsthetics in our time. By referring the judgments of the ancients on beauty to our conception of it, as is usually done in æsthetics, we give the words of the ancients a meaning which is not theirs.[9] Footnote 4: Only two, or at most three, senses are generally held worthy to supply matter for artistic treatment, but I think this opinion is only conditionally correct. I will not lay too much stress on the fact that our common speech recognises many other arts, as, for instance, the art of cookery. Footnote 5: And yet it is certainly an æsthetic achievement when the art of cooking succeeds in making of an animal’s corpse an object in all respects tasteful. The principle of the Art of Taste (which goes beyond the so-called Art of Cookery) is therefore this: All that is eatable should be treated as the symbol of some Idea, and always in harmony with the Idea to be expressed. Footnote 6: If the sense of touch lacks colour, it gives us, on the other hand, a notion which the eye alone cannot afford, and one of considerable æsthetic value, namely, that of _softness_, _silkiness_, _polish_. The beauty of velvet is characterised not less by its softness to the touch than by its lustre. In the idea we form of a woman’s beauty, the softness of her skin enters as an essential element. Each of us probably, with a little attention, can recall pleasures of taste which have been real æsthetic pleasures. Footnote 7: M. Schasler, _Kritische Geschichte der Aesthetik_, 1872, vol. i. p. 13. Footnote 8: There is no science which more than æsthetics has been handed over to the reveries of the metaphysicians. From Plato down to the received doctrines of our day, people have made of art a strange amalgam of quintessential fancies and transcendental mysteries, which find their supreme expression in the conception of an absolute ideal Beauty, immutable and divine prototype of actual things. Footnote 9: See on this matter Benard’s admirable book, _L’esthétique d’Aristote_, also Walter’s _Geschichte der Aesthetik im Altertum_. CHAPTER III I begin with the founder of æsthetics, Baumgarten (1714-1762). According to Baumgarten,[10] the object of logical knowledge is Truth, the object of æsthetic (_i.e._ sensuous) knowledge is Beauty. Beauty is the Perfect (the Absolute), recognised through the senses; Truth is the Perfect perceived through reason; Goodness is the Perfect reached by moral will.