And yet, since no man is content to hold an opinion
all by himself, but each tries to persuade the others of the validity
of his own judgment, it would seem as if there must be some axioms or
postulates admitted by all. Hence what Kant called the antinomy of
taste: Thesis--the judgment of taste is not based on principles, for
otherwise we would determine it by proofs; antithesis--the judgment
of taste is based on principles, for otherwise, despite our
disagreements, we should not be quarreling about it.
In accordance with this situation, two opposed theories of criticism
have always existed. On the one hand, in face of the apparent
lawlessness of beauty, some thinkers have believed that there exist
principles which can be applied to works of art to test their beauty
with a certainty equal to that of the principles of logic in their
application to inferences. Lessing, for example, in the _Hamburgische
Dramaturgic_ wrote that the laws laid down by Aristotle in the
_Poetics_ were as certain in their application to the drama as
Euclid's _Elements_ in geometry. This comparison is a forcible
statement of belief in the existence of aesthetic standards, held by
the entire classical tradition, and still held by those who are
spiritually akin to it, although of course no one to-day would
claim--and when it came to details Lessing himself did not claim--that
the judgment of Aristotle or of any one else is infallible. To-day
those who believe in the possibility of rational aesthetic criticism
think that reflection upon the purpose and methods of the arts results
in the formulation of broad principles by means of which judgments of
taste can be appraised and a community of taste achieved.
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