The
first has the advantage of the perspicuity which comes from simplicity,
similar for our purposes to the value of the rudimentary forms of life
for the biologist. But this advantage of early art may be overestimated;
for the nature of beauty is better revealed in its maturer
manifestations, even as the purposes of an individual are more fully,
if not more clearly, embodied in maturity than in youth or childhood.
Yet a purely objective method will not suffice to give us an adequate
idea of beauty. For beautiful things are created by men, not passively
discovered, and are made, like other things which men make, in order
to realize a purpose. Just as a saw is a good saw only when it fulfills
the purpose of cutting wood, so works of art are beautiful only because
they embody a certain purpose. The beautiful things which we study by
the objective method are selected by us from among countless other
objects and called beautiful because they have a value for us, without
a feeling for which we should not know them to be beautiful at all.
They are not, like sun and moon, independent of mind and will and
capable of being understood in complete isolation from man. No world
of beauty exists apart from a purpose that finds realization there.
We are, to be sure, not always aware of the existence of this purpose
when we enjoy a picture or a poem or a bit of landscape; yet it is
present none the less. The child is equally unaware of the purpose of
the food which pleases him, yet the purpose is the ground of his
pleasure; and we can understand his hunger only through a knowledge
of it.
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