The Psychology of Beauty | Page 6

being moved by it," we are indeed
willing to hear, for we desire to justify the faith that is in us.
If, then, the office of the judge be an essential part of the critical
function, the appreciative critic, whatever his other merits,--and we

shall examine them later,--fails at least of perfection. His scheme is not
the ideal one; and we may turn back, in our search for it, to a closer
view of those which his was to supersede. Impressionism, however, is
at once out of the running; it has always vigorously repudiated the
notion of the standard, and we know, therefore, that no more than
appreciation can it choose its material and stand alone. But scientific
criticism professes, at least, the true faith M. Brunetiere holds that his
own method is the only one by which an impersonal and stable
judgment can be rendered.
The doctrine of the evolution of literary species is more or less
explained in naming it. Literary species, M. Brunetiere maintains, do
exist. They develop and are transformed into others in a way more or
less analogous to the evolution of natural types. It remains to see on
what basis an objective judgment can be given. Although M. Brunetiere
seems to make classification the disposal of a work in the hierarchy of
species, and judgment the disposal of it in relation to others of its own
species, he has never sharply distinguished between them; so that we
shall not be wrong in taking his three principles of classification,
scientific, moral, and aesthetic, as three principles by which he
estimates the excellence of a work. His own examples, indeed, prove
that to him a thing is already judged in being classified. The work of art
is judged, then, by its relation to the type. Is this position tenable? I
hold that, on the contrary, it precludes the possibility of a critical
judgment; for the judgment of anything always means judgment with
reference to the end for which is exists. A bad king is not the less a bad
king for being a good father; and if his kingship is his essential function,
he must be judged with reference to that alone. Now a piece of
literature is, with reference to its end, first of all a work of art. It
represents life and it enjoins morality, but it is only as a work of art that
it attains consideration; that, in the words of M. Lemaitre, it "exists" for
us at all. Its aim is beauty, and beauty is its excuse for being.
The type belongs to natural history. The one principle at the basis of
scientific criticism is, as we have seen, the conception of literary
history as a process, and of the work of art as a product. The work of
art is, then, a moment in a necessary succession, governed by laws of

change and adaptation like those of natural evolution. But how can the
conception of values enter here? Excellence can be attributed only to
that which attains an ideal end; and a necessary succession has no end
in itself. The "type," in this sense, is perfectly hollow. To say that the
modern chrysanthemum is better than that of our forbears because it is
more chrysanthemum-like is true only if we make the latter form the
arbitrary standard of the chrysanthemum. If the horse of the Eocene age
is inferior to the horse of to-day, it is because, on M. Brunetiere's
principle, he is less horse-like. But who shall decide which is more like
a horse, the original or the latter development? No species which is
constituted by its own history can be said to have an end in itself, and
can, therefore, have an excellence to which it shall attain. In short, good
and bad can be applied to the moments in a necessary evolution only by
imputing a fictitious superiority to the last term; and so one type cannot
logically be preferred to another. As for the individual specimens, since
the conception of the type does not admit the principle of excellence,
conformity thereto means nothing.
The work of art, on the other hand, as a thing of beauty, is an
attainment of an ideal, not a product, and, from this point of view, is
related not at all to the other terms of a succession, its causes and its
effects, but only to the abstract principles of that beauty at which it
aims. Strangely enough, the whole principle of this contention has been
admitted by M. Brunetiere in a casual sentence, of which he does not
appear to recognize the full significance. "We acknowledge, of course,"
he says, "that there is in criticism a certain difference from natural
history, since we cannot eliminate the subjective element if the capacity
works