Excerpt from Physiological AEsthetics Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colours and not from others, says Professor Ruskin, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar and dislike wormwood. The questions thus summarily dismissed by our great living authority on Esthetics are exactly the ones which this little book asks, and, I hope, answers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Beauty Ugliness: And Other Studies in Psychological AEsthetics Dealing with my previous volume, Laura; nobilij, the most intelligent of my critics complained that I took our aesthetic preferences for granted, Without explaining their nature or even proving their exist ence. If that rash reviewer really thirsts for psychological aesthetics, he may find some temporary refreshment in the present volume, Which contains as much of the How and W by of Beauty and Ugliness as I have been able to squeeze out of some rather dry books and out of fifteen years of my own and my fellow-worker's observations. If he, or any other inquisitive person, should then remain With unslaked curiosity about asthetics, he must go to the Psycho logical Laboratories of Germany and America, Where he may, in return for further knowledge, be used up as an experimental subject. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 edition. Excerpt: ... ESTHETIC EMPATHY AND ITS ORGANIC ACCOMPANIMENTS Translated by R. L. Shields from the original French of Vernon Lee in the Revue Pbilosophique, vol. briv (1907) I As already pointed out in the foregoing introductory essay, Professor Lipps laid the foundation of a new and real philosophy of beauty and art when he formulated his hypothesis of Empathy (Einfiihlung): an hypothesis which may be compared to that of natural selection in its originality and its far-reaching importance. To apply the idea of Empathy will be the principal method whereby the aesthetician of the future may solve the problems of morphology and artistic evolution: to analyse, verify, and refer the phenomenon of Empathy to more elementary phenomena of mind will be the main future task of psychology as applied to aesthetic activities. A new Darwin (and not without his Wallaces), Professor Lipps has given us the hypothesis of Einfiihlung; let us examine what he has done with his discovery and what it behoves us to do with it. II To begin with, let me remind the readers of my other studies on Professor Lipps, and let me explain to those who are unfamiliar with them, what is hidden beneath this very German and seemingly fantastic formula: Einfiihlung, or, as Professor Titchener has translated it, Empathy. This word, made up of fuhlen, to feel, and ein {herein, hinein), in, into, conjugated (sich einfiihlen) with the pronoun denoting the reflective mode--this word Einfiihlung has existed in German aesthetics ever since Vischer and Lotze; * and furthermore it has existed in literary phraseology at least since Novalis and the Romanticists. We shall see later on at the price of what ambiguity and deviation from his own thought Professor Lipps has bought the dangerous advantage...

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. THE INTERVENTION OF THE INTELLECT. 1. General Emotional Phenomena of the Intellect. The pleasures and pains which we have hitherto considered are those aroused by normal or excessive function in the peripheral end-organs of nerves, or in the fibres and central endorgans immediately connected with them. But there is a higher class of nervous structures in the human system, whose business it is to correlate and co-ordinate the energies so received, and, where necessary, to liberate--immediately or ultimately--in accordance with the intelligence conveyed by these impressions, new energies which re-act upon the external world in the manner demanded by the circumstances of the case. The functions of such higher co-ordinating structures are known on their subjective side by the name of Intellect. Like all other portions of the sentient system the organs of the Intellect are liable to normal and moderate exercise, subjectively cognized as pleasurable, or to abnormal and excessive exercise, subjectively cognized as painful. It was necessary in the last chapter to touch slightly upon a few of these phenomena, because the central and peripheral organ3 of sight are more closely connected with intelligence, genetically and actually, than any others. But we shall have to enter a little more fully here into the pleasures and pains of the Intellect, regarded as a separate element of iEsthetic Feeling. And first, in accordance with our Usual plan, we will glance briefly at those emotional phenomena of Intellect which do not attain the aesthetic level. Acutely painful feelings of intellectual exercise are rare or o unknown, as might indeed be expected from the peculiarly secluded position of the organs concerned, which almost pre-...