Such
collections of precepts abound in all literatures. And since it soon
becomes impossible to say what is useful and what useless to know, books
of this sort become very often a sort of encyclopaedias or catalogues of
desiderata. Vitruvius, in his treatise on Architecture, claims for the
architect a knowledge of letters, of drawing, of geometry, of
arithmetic, of optic, of history, of natural and moral philosophy, of
jurisprudence, of medicine, of astrology, of music, and so on.
Everything is worth knowing: learn the art and lay it aside.
It should be evident that such empirical collections are not reducible
to a science. They are composed of notions, taken from various sciences
and teachings, and their philosophical and scientific principles are to
be found in them. To undertake the construction of a scientific theory
of the different arts, would be to wish to reduce to the single and
homogeneous what is by nature multiple and heterogeneous; to wish to
destroy the existence as a collection of what was put together precisely
to form a collection. Were we to give a scientific form to the manuals
of the architect, the painter, or the musician, it is clear that nothing
would remain in our hands but the general principles of Mechanic, Optic,
or Acoustic. Or if the especially artistic observations disseminated
through it be extracted and isolated, and a science be made of them,
then the sphere of the individual art is deserted and that of Aesthetic
entered upon, for Aesthetic is always general Aesthetic, or better, it
cannot be divided into general and special.
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