The sthetic Ideal Author(s): Fr. Roussel-Despierres Source: The Art World, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Mar., 1917), pp.

429-432 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25587824 . Accessed: 19/11/2013 08:34

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March 1917

THE ART WORLD

429

in the number of the street, ground glass appears that can be seen from sidewalk and clear print the street-car. Besides being intensely practical, and uniformity of these lights add soft brilliancy to the beauty of the city. very greatly New York needs all the help it can get along this is heard on line, and the demand for improvement should every hand. Without delay the City Fathers

consider three fundamental reforms: the renumber

and business-like on a consistent ing of buildings so they of these numbers basis, the exploitation can be seen at a glance at any hour, and the uniform lamps, in of street and designation illumination sections of the city where this has not already been

done. Clemens Moffett

THE AESTHETIC
Translated from

IDEAL

By FR. ROUSSEL-DESPIERRES the French

BOOK

11-Introduction
such theories that this contemporary doctrine was born, according to which, beauty is entirely within us and has no reality whatever in the objects ex ternal to us. But if we go to the bottom of thi,ngs, this doctrine is not true, except so far as a very superficial truth may go. In fact it is less exact the than the theories which it combats. Certainly beautiful has no common measuring rod; each one of us sees in things only the kind and sum of beauty he is capable of recognizing, and all his being-sense in that discovery. Feeling and intelligence-unites this object or that for beauty is quite personal; in rouses it in one person and leaves it unmoved be another. Education creates infinite differences this in respect to aesthetics; but, tween beings of the exception made, the doctrine of the relativity is a false doctrine. beautiful because we We are led astray by our conceptions are overrefined. Individual taste, too much culti thence came doctrinal vated, has become exclusive; of skepticism. There has been no other means the opposing tastes of the over accommodating refined than to declare beauty unreal and entirely But seek out the reason for an esthetic subjective. feeling among primitive beings, children, peasants: neither one nor the other discusses the beautiful an occasion to its and yet they respond on many In children the beautiful results especially attraction. from physiological shimmer of colors and emotions, beauty with prosper lights. The peasant associates vintages. ity; he talks of beautiful wheat, beautiful the Beauty in the eyes of a lover decks itself with it not Stendhal who hope of enjoyment; beauty-was a promise of happiness. Thus the es said it?-is a physical thetic sense is by turns or altogether or intellectual a sentimental sensation, excitement, a desire idealized by the imagination. The imagination loves to surpass reality. Without it creates the unreal, and often that unreal ceasing realizes itself. But it also has its logic; it does not the philosophy and that is why of like monsters, bygone days was not so far wrong when it summed and in order of proportion. up beauty Proportion are not the sources of esthetic feel order certainly to pleasure essential ing, but they are the conditions The mind and especially the senses in the beautiful. The conscience admit nothing but the logical. is a coherent world where nothing incoherent perfectly itself. The same objects in the same can maintain in the same conditions feeling provoke the esthetic

REALLY universal, the asthetic ideal dominates morality, education, practical life and even politics, the first law of which is to avoid placing obstacles in the way of the reign of the Ideal. Beauty radiates from the smallest corners of nature; the aesthetic sense exercises itself during the small est occasions of life. There is always some way of conducting oneself in a more handsome fashion than the common; art does not limit itself to the products of the mind. There is an art of living; there is an art of performing, of carrying oneself and of think ing. Form and ground work, existence may be all

beauty!
But what is beauty? Man can only will whatever he conceives clearly; it is necessary for him to de fine the object itself of which he forms an ideal. Still, there is not one of the great objects to which human energy can consecrate can be itself which defined with an unquestionable The just, precision. the good, duty, right-these have, according to the latitudes, the surroundings and the individuals, very different meanings. They have no fixed boundaries. And without doubt this lack of precision is a grave imperfection. The greater number of the concep tions of the mind have value only on condition of being very clear. How, for instance, live according to justice, if we do not know with certainty what is just, what is to do or not to do? The beautiful is no more definable than the just. But even if one could define it, one ought not to at tempt it. Beauty draws its worth from feeling; there is no other criterion. People pretend to give an absolute infallible formula of right or duty; beauty has no need of it. Every man has the feeling for the beautiful, and that beauty which he discovers in things escapes all discussion. Nothing so doubt ful as the right! On the contrary the reality of the beautiful is complete as soon as it is reflected in the individual conscience. Reason hesitates to determine the just or the true. Before beauty man can not doubt of the feeling which he senses, and this senti ment procures a rival. for him certainty without If beauty is undefinable, is it at the same time subject to laws? and for the governance of the aes thetic life ought we to recognize these laws at once? and these laws, can they indeed be recognized? The absurdity of theories define of msthetics which beauty by order, proportion, harmony or any other in advance, any new condition seems to confound, attempt of the kind. It is from reaction against

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430

THE ART WORLD

March 1917

being. So there exists in things a faculty of awak ing the idea and emotion of beauty. Innumerable are the causes and conditions of that idea and that emotion. Still, we may be able to group them into

four categories:

sensible and logical conditions

the object, physiological and intellectual conditions in the subject. Thus in the production of the aes thetic pleasure there is necessary collaboration of the subject and object-which perhaps is not found again at an equal pitch in any other intellectual

sphere.
The artist needs to recognize what causes, what as well in the eternal conditions, reality as in the human soul, produce the most frequent and intense vesthetic emotions. But-and this is a very import ant point-it is needful that art shall include the entire domain of beauty. The part it has to play and its means supply it with only a small portion of this immense domain. All that is beautiful does not appertain to art. Is it necessary to add, in return,

that art does not stop at the boundaries of the beau tiful ? What any how, import, definitions, and rational delimitations? Always will feeling free itself from them. The grand practical superiority of the idea of the beautiful over the other directing ideas of the human mind consists in this: it has no need of definition or of limits. Beauty is a fact which has a value without its equal in the active life because it belongs to the order of feeling. The more intense the feeling, the more fruitful also is the practical energy in it. ideal, therefore, draws all its force from .2sthetic passion. A philosophical aesthetic, in fine, sums itself up in the art of exalting and utilizing It passion. is for this reason that it pre-supposes the moral autonomy of the individual. Morality-education-esthetic life! those are the I propose three aspects under which to pursue the of our Ideal. description

CHAPTER

THE AESTHETIC
morality, a revolutionary the esthetic morality itself from tra separate and does it deliberately That is the question which ought ditional morality? to be made and should be very clearly solved. What For a long time now then is traditional morality? reduced it into two very analysis has philosophical interest of the species and interest simple elements, of the individual.20 religion and spirit in which the disguises Under is an morality it, traditional ualism have clothed one, and I dare and practical entirely materialistic it at to disdain, when a morality add: somewhat sanction or supraterrestrial taches an immediate of con in the great number But to our actions. sciences the idea of sanction has become effaced and specific; thus the moral feeling has been profoundly respect of nec habits or the enlightened hereditary the to maintain suffice thereafter essary conventions One must make no mis prescriptions. traditional unfortunate prejudices may take in this: whatever it is not very it-and with perchance be mingled is really old morality these-the difficult to eliminate identifying itself While and venerable. respectable it has pre interest of humanity, with the eternal served life; perhaps we do not owe it anything more; the or increased if it has defended it is doubtful owes to its of beings; but if humanity happiness then there the fact of being preserved, authority it would be which lies a singular debt of gratitude It is possible, it is probable to deny. puerile to render the same may continue that this morality But the human mind to future humanity. services to a superior it aspires exacting, becomes more one, and that is and a much more fruitful morality does not satisfy. a need which actual morality take it all in all, into This may be decomposed, one of which is superimposed two moral systems, it is the system of The first-and on the other. a in a way, elementary obligations-constitutes, it is at work in the duties of justice moral negative; for family ties, for human life, respect -respect IS

MORALITY

respect for the rights guar respect for propriety, the anteed by the civil law. The second system, the active obliga embraces loftier and more moral, in are formulated tions which at the last analysis the duty of charity. A twofold system, very coher it ent, which would be sufficient at all points-if con finds powerful Its solidity were practised! evolution in this fact, that the historical firmation and social ideas has scarcely grazed of institutions say that it is very difficult to it; and one might does not rest upon this which imagine a morality not to do-and obligations absolute double base: less formal, to perform. duties, very much is at the same time irre If traditional morality logical in its conceptions in its principle, proachable good is there, one and universally accepted, what oneself with a new moral may say, in preoccupying or the religious because with answer: ity? We ideal it has lost its hold, and is at the spiritualistic be and clever dialectian; of any audacious mercy will not be able humanity cause a new ideal-and of a new longer the adoption to delay very much a new morality. ideal-implies differ essentially Does then the aesthetic morality morality? No, not if one from the spiritualistic of habits, social con only that ensemble considers which form it ;-yes, ventions and legal prescriptions a by introducing it breaks with traditional morality of of the Ideal into the directions new conception also by substituting the principle human life;-yes, of of conduct and the sovereignity of independence in the place of the old method feeling and passion NOTE 20.-That hypocritical morality of interest in which

a conception rests upon societies the law of modern consists, and of the species in truth, of the good rudimentary very a morality of happiness It is not of the individual. that a kind to the litnited of empirical or love, but hygiene, to what creates for us the reasons As of life. preservation

for existence, love, happiness, beauty, it does not guarantee

or protect postulate It does not raise itself to them. and in no wise that life is a means the level a goal. of the

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March 1917

THE ART WORLD

431

We need not add finally of rule and constraint. feeling that it rejects as incompatible with moral or eternal sanction.2' any idea of terrestrial

Thus esthetic morality, preserving the external

of hereditary moral forms and even the groundwork ity, will merely animate man with a new spirit, and, one can assure him, this asthetic breath will be the one is in which society, breath of life. Modern so long as one has as honest and moral considered brutally obligations conventional not transgressed is in a in others, so as to rouse certain prejudices pole of morality. way turned toward the negative faces toward the esthetic morality On the contrary, in the primordial It only maintains positive pole. in order the rights of others, to respect hibition toward a loftier and purer to raise the conscience the sphere, that of action for the good, in which its own law itself becomes will free, enthusiastic by the hopes it its responsibility and, measuring to itself an infinite mis attributes has conceived, theory thus sion of concord and love. The esthetic or, more sim the principle of morality, transforms But the motive. ply stated, if you ask, it modifies the secret of the success or im is not the method potence of systems? poses, as its first duty, justice. The old morality

too, not only because, while liberating ourselves from in society the social laws, we introduce or aggravate because but particularly of anarchy, a principle as to re does not admit any preoccupation morality If for mutual advantages. sults, any bargaining the there does not exist a positive contract between individual who reaps a benefit from the social life and society of itself, (since we are born into a so ciety and can not escape from that society save to of a the evidence nevertheless fall into another) social duty is perfect. We can not put in question the their own to respect in one's fellowmen obligation will to live in society, and we can not conceive .that should authorize the conscience a system of morality to revolt against that will. The anarchism of Tolstoi, to the laws by which resistance which prescribes is offended, borders on immorality. the conscience forced to suffer a law The first duty of conscience is to submit to it, the second which it disapproves all one's efforts to obtain its aboli is, to consecrate

tion.
to to the citizen than it is permitted No more to violate the law is it proper for the magistrate the harm is the same. allow it to fall into desuetude; far are equipped with societies modern Certainly too many laws, and it would be a great benefit if to purge legislations undertook liberal legislators indispensable and reduce them to the prescriptions so existence. But, and to national to orderliness long as laws exist, to deny them is to violate social in the in law-suits A judge gives judgment duty. name of the law; he does not judge the law. upon the impose themselves Do social conventions not, because by like the law? Assuredly conscience denying them we do not upset the social order. The is that very one invaded by convention domain action of the individual can where the independent a general tradi exert itself the best. Undoubtedly a kind of contract which, giving tion constitutes men united in society strong reason to expect it will those who in some measure be respected, compromise do not If social conventions of them. disapprove it is evident that he who breaks suit the conscience, aloud before them ought to declare himself with hand; that is a question of loyalty. it is a noble act to revolt This reservation made, one has which against habits or social prejudices in one's conscience. judged and condemned In the same way, through a pure motive of loyalty, to respect the relations of reciprocal it is necessary for parents toward social life establishes aid which for the State children, for children toward parents, toward the individual and different social organisms for toward them. Respect and for the individual the name of duty. these relations merits is the One's country is a duty. Thus patriotism form, and at the same time the limited, tangible
sanc or religious, social every penal, NOTE 21.-Whether to agree that it is necessary immoral. tion is clearly Still, not allow of a acts which does one of our is not there of them are accompanied The purest by a feeling sanction. in turn the motive becomes which or pride, of joy, esteem or religious It would interest like material hope. of action to cease in order to be man should that man be necessary the idea of a recompense from his actions possible, abstract morality, the regime of esthetic But, under or a punishment.

Individualistic philosophy makes

justice oftenest

by socialism, On the contrary, in liberty. consist itself to the right to live and the right making of justice, confounds principles enjoy the essential duties of justice and charity, the two traditional 1Es and at bottom admits only an active morality, has need of liberty; while searching thetic morality for it in a purer form than the really materialist duty to an absolute it establishes form of right, respect it in others. The respect for liberty is only one of the funda ZEsthetic of right. mental principles of the morality like cycle of rights, a certain includes morality but it does not forget that the traditional morality, and reduces activity paralyzes idea of obligation of social de the number of duties to the minimum It is in free and active virtue that it seeks mand. posi superimposed Christian morality realization. tive upon negative duties, the latter very strict ones, so vague that, in truth, the notion of the former ]Esthetic good in it has remained greatly changed. establishes obligations, above imperative doctrine, in which moves the free and true morality-that all filled with activity the sphere of a voluntary love; in which morality, enthusiasm, aspirations, as also to every hope of alien to every anguish than the is inspired by no other motive sanction, the world round about it, and, joy of embellishing in itself, its own thought. consist it prescribes The absolute duties which the the social law; then in observing in obeying with men connect which reciprocity of relations their family, their nation and other men and in re and ideals the conscience sincerity specting with of others. to the We should understand well what obedience against It includes a formal inhibition law means. the rights of the State or those of ever violating other persons, even if our rights are misunderstood.

Obligation to respect these rights in others is su perior to every external condition, every circum stance of fact. It imposes itself on the conscience with all the rigor of theKantian imperative, and that

man will be noble and beautiful; seeking the unique sanction for his acts within himself, without fearing or hoping for anything from gods and men; he will then be perfectly moral.

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432

THE ART WORLD

and individuals than to separate country of their heart.22
NOTE no right 22.-We either can to not affirm divine, or we can that

March 1917
them
scarcely the means

It is sentimental and moral form, of human society. also the living law. It is the soul and body of each one of us. We are molded from the life of our an cestors and from the soil, the spirit, the maternal tenderness of our country. Like feminism, anti patriotism is a form of suicide. But here conscience meets a delicate difficulty: the limitation of patriot ism. Patriots in all times have thought that love of country consists in desiring the glory of con quests and universal supremacy, the humiliation of the rightful pride of alien nations. This conception gives place little by little to a more exact notion of the rights of one's country. Every man has a coun and his national conscience is one try, a nationality, of the most respectable elements of his personality. is the grand duty of human Respect for nationalities ideal is the grand ity, as respect for the individual What is it, then, that con duty of the individual. It is not the historical stitutes a nationality? bond, almost always imposed by the tyranny of victory. is only the consequence It is not language, which It is the will of the citizen. of the historical bond. of peoples There is no viler attack on the conscience

from

the

conjecture of com

the forms under which human society will develop. We have

deny

munication which modify the material existence and the ideas and feelings of peoples so profoundly, the rapidity and facility of which must increase prodigiously, will not,
at a more interests est or less advanced to such a degree love day, time, have mixed the races and that a new bond must be substi

tuted for the territorial bond. Space disappears, local inter

is effaced, Some for the corner of one's natal soil vanishes. if the will of the peoples impose a general

disarmament upon governments,

if, brought close together

assurance, by professional interest, by mutual by community of beliefs, international by a similar ideal, certain groupings shall be constituted with proper and laws, a distinct personal real body of statutes-what will remain of the venerable idea of country which has kept itself pure across of thousands to our own days? down years, No the name of longer will evoke of our leading "country" the horizon A new nations. one of interest, but of the ideal, let us hope feeling-not in a new city, a country, invite all hearts will with wider . . . But, frontiers. with to this regard ideal country, will remain that which it is toward individual the duty ancient national So that anti-patriotism country. deceives

itself when it proclaims and tries to precipitate tion of nationalities.

the dissolu

To be continued.

FROM

""THE HOUSE
By WILLIAm

OF

THE

SPHINX''

GRIFFITH

They say the house is haunted by a ghost! Or is it but some wizard Host at the door? Who watches As though the score

At times the shuttles thunder and the loom Spins darkness and appalling gloom
That ravel out again In mist and rain.

Had ever been ignored by any chance! glance the searching escapes Nothing With which He levies toll On every soul.

So when

the summons

comes

for one

to stray

Beyond this residence of clay,

Since mortals From door must explore to door,

obscure reports and messages Divine a secret signature Bearing in the grass Are written For those who pass.

On some soft evening may a gradual Bid waif and wanderer rejoice In the green fire... and call For each and all.

voice

and and memories And rare desires And dreams as radiant as tears in the frieze Are woven

fears

By

And tapestries.

of dream the wandering the dim ways from the seas Shall bring glad tidings from the rose And secrets That may disclose

breeze

must The vast infinitude wherein Once more a hazy memory

be

Of glimmering chambers trod Alone with God.

From The Bang, Feb. 12th.

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