The comic is the
representation of an inferiority, which provokes in us the pleasurable
feeling of "superiority." Groos very wisely makes mock of the supposed
function of the Ugly, which Hartmann and Schasler had inherited and
developed from a long tradition. Lipps and Groos agree in denying
aesthetic value to the comic, but Lipps, although he gives an excellent
analysis of the comic, is nevertheless in the trammels of his moralistic
thesis, and ends by sketching out something resembling the doctrine of
the overcoming of the ugly, by means of which may be attained a higher
aesthetic and (sympathetic) value.
Labours such as those of Lipps have been of value, since they have
cleared away a number of errors that blocked the way, and restrained
speculation to the field of the internal consciousness. Similar is the
merit of E. Veron's treatise (1883) on the double form of Aesthetic, in
which he combats the academic view of the absolute beauty, and shows
that Taine confuses Art and Science, Aesthetic and Logic. He acutely
remarks that if the object of art were to reveal the essence of things,
the greatest artists would be those who best succeeded in doing this,
and the greatest works would all be _identical_; whereas we know that
the very opposite is the case. Veron was a precursor of Guyau, and we
seek for scientific system in vain in his book.
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