Though artists judge with confused perceptions, which
are clear but not distinct, these may yet be corrected and proved true
by intellective knowledge. The intellect clearly and distinctly knows
the thing which the imagination knows confusedly but clearly. This view
of Leibnitz amounts to saying that the realization of a work of art can
be perfected by intellectually determining its concept. Thus Leibnitz
held that there was only one true form of knowledge, and that all other
forms could only reach perfection in that. His "clarity" is not a
specific difference; it is merely a partial anticipation of his
intellective "distinction." To have posited this grade is an important
achievement, but the view of Leibnitz is not fundamentally different
from that of the creators of the words and intuitions already studied.
All contributed to attract attention to the peculiarity of aesthetic
facts.
Speculation on language at this period revealed an equally determined
intellectualist attitude. Grammar was held to be an exact science, and
grammatical variations to be explainable by the ellipse, by
abbreviation, and by failure to grasp the typical logical form. In
France, with Arnauld (1660), we have the rigorous Cartesian
intellectualism; Leibnitz and Locke both, speculated upon this subject,
and the former all his life nourished the thought of a universal
language.
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