But Herbart
explicitly states that no true beauty is sensible, although sensation
may and does often precede and follow the intuition of beauty. There is
a profound distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable or
pleasant: the latter does not require a representation, while the former
consists in representations of relations, which are immediately followed
by a judgment expressing unconditioned approval. Thus the merely
pleasurable becomes more and more indifferent, but the beautiful appears
always as of more and more permanent value. The judgment of taste is
universal, eternal, immutable. The complete representation of the same
relations always carries with it the same judgment. For Herbart,
aesthetic judgments are the general class containing the sub-class of
ethical judgments. The five ethical ideas, of internal liberty, of
perfection, of benevolence, of equity, and of justice, are five
aesthetic ideas; or better, they are aesthetic concepts applied to the
will in its relations.
Herbart looked upon art as a complex fact, composed of an external
element possessing logical or psychological value, the content, and of a
true aesthetic element, which is the form. Entertainment, instruction,
and pleasure of all sorts are mingled with the beautiful, in order to
obtain favour for the work in question. The aesthetic judgment, calm and
serene in itself, may be accompanied by all sorts of psychic emotions,
foreign to it.
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