Ontology or the Theory of Being Part 10

(2) BONUM ALTERI.-Even, however, if it were granted that the actual existence of some beings is not good for _themselves_, might it not nevertheless be good for _other beings_, and in relation to the general scheme of things? Is there not an intelligible sense in which _every_ actual being is _bonum alteri_, good for other things? Here again the same experience of actual reality, which teaches us that each individual being has a nature whereby it tends to its own good as a particular end, also teaches us that in the general scheme of reality things are helpful to one another, nay, are intended by their interaction and co-operation with one another to subserve the wider end which is the good of the whole system of reality. There is little use in puzzling, as people sometimes do, over the _raison d'etre_ of individual things or cla.s.ses of things in human experience, over the good or the evil of the existence of these things, over the question whether or not it would be better that these things should never have existed, until we have consulted not any isolated portion of human experience but _this experience as a whole_. In this we can find sufficient evidence for the prevalence of a beneficent purpose everywhere. Not that we can read this purpose in every detail of reality.

Even when we have convinced ourselves that all creation is the work of a Supreme Being who is Infinite Goodness Itself, we cannot gain that full insight into the secret designs of His Providence, which would be needed in order to "justify His ways" in all things. But when we have convinced ourselves that the created universe exists because G.o.d wills it, we can understand that every actual reality in it must be "good," as being an object or term of the Divine Will. Every created reality is thus _bonum alteri_ inasmuch as it is good for G.o.d, not, of course, in the impossible sense of perfecting Him, but as an imitation and expression of the Goodness of the Divine Nature Itself. The experience which enables us to reach a knowledge of the existence and nature of G.o.d, the Creator, Conserver, and Providence of the actual universe, also teaches us that this universe can have no other ultimate end or good than G.o.d Himself, _i.e._ G.o.d's will to manifest His goodness by the extrinsic glory which consists in the knowledge and love of Him by His rational creatures. The omnipotence of the Creator, His freedom in creating, and our knowledge of the universe He has actually chosen to create from among indefinite possible worlds, all alike convince us that the actual world is neither the best possible nor the worst possible, _absolutely_ speaking. But our knowledge of His wisdom and power also convinces us that for the purpose of manifesting His glory in the measure and degree in which He has actually chosen to manifest it by creating the existing universe, and _relatively_ to the attainment of this specific purpose, the existing universe is the best possible.

51. OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM.-Those few outlines of the philosophy of theism-theses established in Natural Theology-will reveal to us the place of theism in relation to "optimist" and "pessimist" systems of philosophy.

Pessimism, as an outcome of philosophical speculation, is the proclamation in some form or other of the conviction that human existence, nay, existence in general, is a failure, an evil. It is the a.n.a.logue, in relation to will, of what scepticism is in relation to intellect; and it is no less self-contradictory than the latter. While the latter points to total paralysis of thought, the former involves a like paralysis of all will, all effort, all purpose in existence-a philosophy of despair, despondency, gloom. Both are equally erroneous, equally indicative of philosophical failure, equally repugnant to the normal, healthy mind.

Optimism on the other hand is expressive of the conviction that good predominates in all existence: _melius est esse quam non esse_; that at the root of all reality there is a beneficent purpose which is ever being realized; that there is in things not merely a truth that can be known but a goodness that can be loved. Existence is not an evil, life is not a failure. This is a philosophy of hope, buoyancy, effort and attainment.

But is it true, or is it an empty illusion? Well, to maintain that the actual universe is the best absolutely, would, of course, be absurd. If Leibniz's "Principle of Sufficient Reason" obliged him to contend, in face of the painfully palpable facts of physical and moral evil in the universe, that this universe is the best absolutely possible, the best that G.o.d could create, we can only say: so much the worse for his "Principle". The true optimism is that of the theist who, admitting the prevalence of evil in the universe, in the sense to be explained presently, at the same time holds that throughout creation the good predominates, that G.o.d's beneficent purpose in regard to individuals does in the main prevail, and that His glory is manifested in giving to rational creatures the perfection and felicity of knowing and loving Himself. For the theist, then, the problem of the existence of evil in the universe a.s.sumes the general form of reconciling the fact of evil in G.o.d's creation with the fact of G.o.d's infinite power and goodness. This is a problem for Natural Theology. Here we have merely to indicate some general principles arising from the consideration of evil as the correlative and ant.i.thesis of goodness.

52. EVIL: ITS NATURE AND CAUSES. MANICHEISM.-Admitting the existence of evil in the universe, the scholastic apparently withdraws the admission forthwith by denying the reality of evil. The paradox explains itself by comparing the notions of good and evil, and thus trying to arrive at a proper conception of the latter.

If ontological goodness is really identical with actual being, if being is good in so far as it is actual, then it would appear that ontological evil must be identical with non-being, nothingness. And so it is, in the sense that no evil is a positive, actual reality, that all evil is an absence of reality. But just as the good, though really identical with the actual, is nevertheless logically distinct from the latter, so is evil logically distinct from nothingness, or the absence of reality. As we have seen, the good is that which perfects a nature, that which is due to a nature as the realization of the end of the latter. So, too, is evil the _privation_ of any perfection due to a nature, the absence of something positive and something which ought to be present. Evil, therefore, is not a mere negation or absence of being; it is the absence of a good, or in other words the absence of a reality that should be present. All privation is negation, but not _vice versa_; for privation is the negation of something _due_: the absence of virtue is a mere negation in an animal, in man it is a privation. Hence the commonly accepted definition of evil: _Malum est privatio boni debiti_: _Evil is the privation of the goodness due to a thing_.(187) Evil is always, therefore, a defect, a deficiency. The notion of evil is a relative, not an absolute notion. As goodness is the right relation of a nature to its proper end, so is evil a failure, a defect in this relation: _Malum est privatio ordinis ad finem debitum_.(188)

The very finiteness of a finite being is the absence of further reality in this being; but as this further reality is not due to such a being, its absence, which has sometimes been improperly described as "metaphysical evil," is not rightly regarded as evil at all: except, indeed, we were to conceive it as happening to the Infinite Being Himself, which would be a contradiction in thought.

Evil, then, in its formal concept is nothing positive; it is essentially negative, or rather privative. For this very reason, when we consider evil in the concrete, _i.e._ as affecting actual things, as occurring in the actual universe-we can scarcely speak of it with propriety as "existing,"-we see that it essentially involves some positive, real subject which it affects, some nature which, by affecting, it renders so far evil. Cancer in the stomach is a real evil of the stomach, a defect, a deficiency, a failure, in the adaptation of the stomach to its proper end.

It is not itself a positive, absolute, _evil ent.i.ty_. In so far as it is itself a positive, physical reality, a growth of living cells, it has its own nature, its natural tendency, its development towards an end in accordance with biological laws: in all of which it verifies the definition of ontological goodness. But the existence of such a growth in the stomach is pathological, _i.e._ a disease of the stomach, a prevention of the natural, normal function of the stomach, a _failure of the latter's adaptation to its end_, and hence an _evil for the stomach_. Lying, too, is an evil, a moral evil of man as a moral subject. But this does not mean that the whole physical process of thinking, judging, speaking, whereby a man lies, is itself a positive evil ent.i.ty. The thinking is itself good as a physical act. So is the speaking in itself good as a physical act.

Whatever of positive reality there is in the whole process is good, ontologically good. But there is a _want of conformity_ of the language with the thought, entailing a _privation_ or _failure of adaptation_ of the man as a moral subject with his end, with his real good; and in this failure of adaptation, this privation of goodness, lies the moral evil of lying.

Evil, then, has a _material_ or subjective cause, _viz._ some positive, actual reality, which is good in so far forth as it is actual, but which is evil, or wanting in something due to it, in so far as the privation which we have called evil affects it.

But evil has no _formal_ cause: formally it is not a reality but a privation: "evil has no formal cause, but is rather the privation of a form".(189)

Nor has evil any _final_ cause, for it consists precisely in the failure of a being's natural tendency towards its end, in the want of adaptation of a nature to its end: "nor has evil a final cause, but is rather the privation of a being's due relation to its natural end".(190) Evil cannot be the natural result of a being's tendency towards its end, or a means to the attainment of this end. For that which is really an end must be good, and a means derives its goodness from the end to which it is a means. The good, because it is an end, or a means to an end, is desirable; and so, too, might evil be defined _a posteriori_ as that which is the object of no natural tendency or desire, that from which all things are averse: _malum est quod nullum ens appet.i.t, vel a quo omnia aversantur_. Nor can evil be itself an end, or be as such desired or desirable. Real evil is no doubt often sought and desired by conscious beings, sometimes physical evil, sometimes moral evil. But it is always desired and embraced as a good, _sub specie boni_, _i.e._ when apprehended as here and now good in the sense of gratifying, pleasure-giving, _bonum delectabile_. This is possible because _pleasure_, especially organic, sensible pleasure, as distinct from the state of real well-being which characterizes true _happiness_, is not the exclusive concomitant of seeking and possessing a _real_ good: it often accompanies the seeking and possessing of a merely apparent good: and in such cases it is itself a merely apparent good, and in reality evil. The unfortunate man who commits suicide does not embrace evil as such. He wrongly judges death to be good, as being in his view a lesser evil than the miseries of his existence, and under this aspect of goodness he embraces death.

Finally we have to inquire whether evil has an _efficient_ cause. Seeing that it is not merely a logical figment, seeing that it really affects actual things, that it really occurs in the actual universe, it must have a real source among the efficient causes of these actual things that make up the universe. It is undoubtedly due to the action of efficient causes, _i.e._ to the _failure_, the _defective_ action, of efficient causes. But being itself something negative, a privation, it cannot properly be said to have an "efficient" cause; for the influence of an efficient cause is positive action, which in turn must have for its term something positive, something real, and therefore good. Hence St. Augustine very properly says that evil should be described as having a "_deficient_" cause rather than an "efficient" cause.(191) In other words, evil is not the direct, natural or normal result of the activity of efficient causes; for this result is always good. It must therefore be always an indirect, abnormal, accidental consequence of their activity. Let us see how this can be-firstly in regard to physical evil, then in regard to moral evil.

In the action of physical causes we may distinguish between the operative agencies themselves and the subjects in which the effects of these operations are produced. Sometimes the effect is wanting in due perfection, or is in other words imperfect, physically evil, because of some defect in the agencies: the statue may be defective because the sculptor is unskilled, or his instruments bad; offspring may be weak or malformed owing to some congenital or accidental weakness or unfitness in the parents. Sometimes the evil in the effect is traceable not to the agents but to the materials on which they have to work: the sculptor and his instruments may be perfect, but if there be a flaw in the marble the statue will be a failure; the educator may be efficient, but if the pupil be wanting in apt.i.tude or application the results cannot be "good".

All this, however, does not carry us very far, for we must still inquire _why_ are the agencies, or the materials, themselves defective. Moreover, physical evil sometimes occurs without any defect either in the agencies or in the materials. The effect produced may be incompatible with some minor perfection already in the subject; it can then be produced only at the sacrifice of this minor perfection: which sacrifice is for the subject _pro tanto_ an evil. It is in the natural order of things that the production of a new "form" or perfection excludes the actuality of a pre-existing form or perfection. All nature is subject to change, and we have seen that all change is ruled by the law: _Generatio unius est corruptio alterius_. It might perhaps be said that this privation or supplanting of perfections in things by the actualization in these things of incompatible perfections, is inherent in the nature of things and essential to their finiteness-at least, if we regard the things not individually but as parts of a whole, as members of a system, as subserving a general scheme;-and that therefore such privation should not be regarded as physical evil proper, but rather as "metaphysical" evil, improperly so called. However we regard it, it can have no other first source than the Will of the Creator decreeing the actual order of the existing universe. And the same must be said of the physical evils proper that are incident to the actual order of things. These evils are "accidental" when considered in relation to the individual natures of the created agencies and materials. They are defects or failures of natural tendencies: were these natural tendencies always realized there would be no such evils. But they are not realized; and their "failure" or "evil" is not "accidental" in regard to G.o.d; for G.o.d has willed and created these agencies with natural tendencies which He has destined to be fulfilled not always and in every detail, but in such measure as will secure the actual order of the universe and show forth His perfections in the finite degree in which He has freely chosen to manifest these perfections. The world He has chosen to create is not the best absolutely possible: there are physical evils in it; but it is the best for the exact purpose for which He created it.

There is also moral evil in the universe. In comparison with moral evil, the physical defects in G.o.d's creation-physical pain and suffering, material privations and hardships, decay and death of living things-are not properly evils at all. At least they are not evils in the same profound sense as the deliberate turning away of the moral agent from G.o.d, his Last End and Ultimate Good, is an evil. For the physical evils incident to individual beings in the universe can be not only foreseen by G.o.d but accepted and approved, so to speak, by His Will, as subserving the realization of the total physical good which He wills in the universe; and as subordinate to, and instrumental in the realization of, the moral good of mankind: for it is obvious that in the all-wise designs of Providence physical evils such as pain, suffering, poverty, hunger, etc., may be the means of realizing moral goodness. But moral evil, on the contrary, or, in the language of Christian ethics, _Sin_-the conscious and deliberate rejection, by the free agent, of G.o.d who is his true good-though necessarily foreseen by G.o.d in the universe He has actually chosen to create, and therefore necessarily permitted by the Will of G.o.d consequently on this foresight, cannot have been and cannot be intended or approved by Him. Having created man an intelligent and free being, G.o.d could not will or decree the revolt of the latter from Himself. He loves essentially His own Infinite Goodness: were He to identify His Will with that of the sinning creature He would at the same time be turning away from His Goodness: which is a contradiction in terms. G.o.d, therefore, does not will moral evil. Nevertheless He permits it: otherwise it would not occur, for nothing can happen "against His will". He has permitted it by freely choosing to create this actual universe of rational and free creatures, foreseeing that they would sin. He could have created instead a universe of such beings, in which there would be no moral evil: for He is omnipotent. Into the secrets of His election it is not given to finite minds to penetrate. Acknowledging His Infinite Power, Wisdom and Goodness, realizing at the same time the finiteness of our faculties, we see how rational it is to bow down our minds with St. Paul and to exclaim in admiration: "O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of G.o.d! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!"(192)

If it be objected that G.o.d's permission of moral evil in the universe is really the cause of this evil, and makes G.o.d Himself responsible for sin and its consequences, a satisfactory answer is not far to seek. It is absolutely incompatible with G.o.d's Infinite Sanct.i.ty that He be responsible for sin and its consequences. For these the free will of the creature is _alone_ responsible. The creation of intelligent beings, endowed with the power _freely_ to love, honour and serve G.o.d, is the most marvellous of all G.o.d's works. Free will is the n.o.blest endowment of a creature of G.o.d, as it is also the most mysterious. Man, who by his intelligence has the power to know G.o.d as his Supreme Good, has by his will the power _freely_ to tend towards G.o.d and attain to the possession of G.o.d as his Last End. In so far as man sins, _i.e._ knowingly, deliberately, and freely violates the tendency of his nature towards G.o.d by turning away from Him, he and he alone is responsible for the consequences, because he has the power to accomplish what he knows to be G.o.d's design in his regard, and to be his true destiny and path to happiness-_viz._ that he tend towards union with G.o.d and the possession of G.o.d-and he deliberately fails to make use of this power. Such failure and its consequences are, therefore, his own; they leave absolutely untouched and una.s.sailed the Infinite Goodness and Benevolence of G.o.d's eternal design in his regard.

In scholastic form, the objection is proposed and answered in this way: "The cause of a cause is the cause of the latter's effects; but G.o.d is the cause of man, and sin is the latter's effect; therefore G.o.d is the cause of sin". "That the cause of a _non-free_ cause is the cause of the latter's effects, we admit. That the cause of a _free_ cause is the cause of the latter's effects, at least in the sense of permitting, without intending and being thereby responsible for them, we also admit; always in the sense of intending and being responsible for them, we deny. The _positive effects_ of a created free cause, those which the latter by nature is intended to produce, are attributable to the first cause or creator of the free cause, and the first cause is responsible for them.

The _failures_ of the created free cause to produce its natural and intended effects, are not due to the first cause; they are not intended by, nor attributable to, the first cause; nor is the latter responsible for them: they are failures of the free cause, and of him alone; though they are of course foreseen and permitted by the first cause or creator of the latter. The minor premiss of the objection we may admit-noting, however, that sin is not properly called an effect, but rather, like all evil, a _failure_ of some cause to produce its connatural effect: it is a defect, a deficiency, a privation of some effect, of some positive perfection, which the cause ought naturally to have produced. The conclusion of the objection we distinguish, according to our a.n.a.lysis of the major premiss: G.o.d is the cause of sin in the proper sense of intending it, willing it, and producing it positively, and being thereby responsible for it, we deny; G.o.d is the cause of sin in the improper sense of merely foreseeing and permitting it as incidental to the universe He has actually willed and decreed to create, as occurring in this universe by the deliberate failure of free creatures to conform themselves to His primary benevolent intention in their regard, we may grant. And this Divine permission of moral evil cannot be shown to be incompatible with any attribute of the Divinity."

In the preceding paragraphs we have barely outlined the principles on which the philosophy of theism meets the problem of evil in the universe.

We have made a.s.sumptions which it is the proper province of Natural Theology to establish, and to that department also we must refer the student for a fuller treatment of the whole problem.

It has been sometimes said that the fact of evil in the universe is one of the greatest difficulties against the philosophy of Theism. If this be taken as an insinuation that the fact of evil can be better explained-or even as well explained-on the a.s.sumptions of Pantheism, Monism, Manicheism, or any other philosophy besides Theism, it is false. If it means simply that in accounting for evil-whether on principles of Theism or of any other philosophy-we are forced to raise some ultimate questions in the face of which we must admit that we have come upon depths of mystery which the plummet of our finite intellects cannot hope to fathom, in this sense indeed the a.s.sertion may be admitted. As we have already hinted, even with the light of the Christian Revelation to aid the natural light of reason, there are questions about the existence and causes of evil which we may indeed ask, but which we cannot adequately answer. And obviously this is no reflection on Theism; while in the latter system we have a more intelligible and more satisfactory a.n.a.lysis of the problem than in any other philosophy.

Among the ancient Greek philosophers we find "matter" (???) identified with "vacuum" or "empty s.p.a.ce" (t? ?e???) and this again with "nothingness" or non-being (t? ? ??). Now the concept of evil is the concept of something negative-a privation of goodness, of being or reality. Thus the notion of evil came to be a.s.sociated with the notion of matter. But the latter notion is not really negative: it is that of a formless, chaotic, disorderly material. When, therefore, the Manicheans attributed a positive reality to evil-conceiving it as the principle of all disorder, strife, discord-they naturally regarded all matter as the expression of the Evil Principle, in opposition to soul or spirit as the expression of the Good Principle. The Manichean philosophy of Evil, a product of the early Christian centuries, has been perhaps the most notable alternative or rival system encountered by the theistic philosophy of Evil; for, notwithstanding the fantastic character of its conceptions Manicheism has reappeared and rea.s.serted itself repeatedly in after ages, notably in the Middle Ages. Its prevalence has probably been due partly to the concreteness of its conceptions and partly to a certain a.n.a.logy which they bear towards the conception of Satan and the fallen angels in Christian theology. In both cases there is the idea of conflict, strife, active and irreconcilable opposition, between the powers of good and the powers of evil. But there the a.n.a.logy ends. While in Christian theology the powers of evil are presented as essentially subject to the Divine Omnipotence, in Manicheism the _Evil Principle_, the _Summum Malum_, is presented as a supreme, self-existent principle, essentially independent of, as well as antagonistic to, the Divine Being, the _Summum Bonum_.

Since there is evil in the world, and since good cannot be the cause of evil-so the Manicheans argue-there must be an essentially Evil First Principle which is the primary source of all the evil in the universe, just as there is an essentially Good First Principle which is the source of all its good. Everything in the world-and especially man himself, composed of matter and spirit-is the expression and the theatre of the essential conflict which is being ever waged between the Good and the Evil Principle. Everywhere throughout the universe we find this dualism: between spirit and matter, light and darkness, order and disorder, etc.

From all that has been said in the preceding paragraphs regarding the nature and causes of good and evil the errors of the Manichean system will be apparent. Its fundamental error is the conception of evil as a positive ent.i.ty. Evil is not a positive ent.i.ty but a privation. And this being so, its occurrence does not demand a positive efficient cause. It can be explained and accounted for by deficiency or failure in causes that are good in so far forth as they are operative, but which have not all the goodness their nature demands. And we have seen how this failure of created causes is permitted by the First Cause, and is not incompatible with His Infinite Goodness.

Besides, the Manichean conception of an intrinsically evil cause, a cause that could produce only evil, is a contradiction in terms. The operation of an efficient cause must have a positive term: in so far as the term is positive it is good: and therefore its cause cannot have been totally evil, but must have been in some degree good. The crucial point in the whole debate is this, that we cannot conceive evil as a positive ent.i.ty.

By doing so we render reality unintelligible; we destroy the fundamental ground of any possible distinction between good and evil, thus rendering both alike inconceivable. Each is correlative to the other; we cannot understand the one without the other. If, therefore, goodness is an aspect of real being, and identical with reality, evil must be a negation of reality, and cannot be made intelligible otherwise.

Finally, the Manichean conception of two Supreme, Self-Existent, Independent First Principles is obviously self-contradictory. As is shown in Natural Theology, Being that is absolutely Supreme, Self-Existent and Necessary, must by Its very nature be unique: there could not be two such Beings.

CHAPTER VII. REALITY AND THE BEAUTIFUL.

53. THE CONCEPT OF THE BEAUTIFUL FROM THE STANDPOINT OF EXPERIENCE.-Truth and Goodness characterize reality as related to intellect and to will.

Intimately connected with these notions is that of _the beautiful_,(193) which we must now briefly a.n.a.lyse. The fine arts have for their common object the expression of the beautiful; and the department of philosophy which studies these, the philosophy of the beautiful, is generally described as _Esthetics_.(194)

Like the terms "true" and "good," the term "beautiful" (?a???; _pulchrum_, _beau_, _schon_, etc.) is familiar to all. To reach a definition of it let us question experience. What do men commonly mean when, face to face with some object or event, they say "That is _beautiful_"? They give expression to this sentiment in the presence of a natural object such as a landscape revealing mountain and valley, lake and river and plain and woodland, glowing in the golden glow of the setting sun; or in contemplating some work of art-painting, sculpture, architecture, music: the _Sistine Madonna_, the _Moses_ of Michael Angelo, the Cathedral of _Notre Dame_, a symphony of Beethoven; or some literary masterpiece: Shakespeare's _Macbeth_, or Dante's _Divina Commedia_, or Newman's _Apologia_, or Kickham's _Knocknagow_. There are other things the sight of which arouses no such sentiment, but leaves us indifferent; and others again, the sight of which arouses a contrary sentiment, to which we give expression by designating them as "commonplace," "vulgar," "ugly". The sentiment in question is one of _pleasure_ and _approval_, or of _displeasure_ and _disapproval_.

Hence the first fact to note is that _the beautiful pleases us_, _affects us agreeably_, while the commonplace or the ugly leaves us indifferent or _displeases us_, _affects us disagreeably_.

But the _good_ pleases us and affects us agreeably. Is the beautiful, then, identical with the good? No; the really beautiful is indeed always good; but not everything that is good is beautiful; nor is the pleasure aroused by the good identical with that aroused by the beautiful. Whatever gratifies the lower sense appet.i.tes and causes organic pleasure is good-_bonum delectabile_-but is not deemed beautiful. Eating and drinking, resting and sleeping, indulging the senses of touch, taste and smell, are indeed pleasure-giving, but they have no a.s.sociation with the beautiful.

Again, the deformed child may be the object of the mother's special love.

But the pleasure thus derived from the good, as the object of appet.i.te, desire, delight, is not esthetic pleasure. If we examine the latter, the pleasure caused by the beautiful, we shall find that it is invariably a pleasure peculiar to _knowledge_, to apprehension, perception, imagination, contemplation. Hence in the domain of the senses we designate as "beautiful" only what can be apprehended by the two higher senses, seeing and hearing, which approximate most closely to intellect, and which, through the imagination, furnish data for _contemplation_ to the intellect.(195) This brings us to St. Thomas's definition: _Pulchra sunt quae visa placent_: those things are beautiful whose vision pleases us,-where vision is to be understood in the wide sense of apprehension, contemplation.(196) The owner of a beautiful demesne, or of an art treasure, may derive pleasure from his sense of proprietorship; but this is distinct from the esthetic pleasure that may be derived by others, no less than by himself, from the mere contemplation of those objects.

Esthetic pleasure is disinterested: it springs from the mere _contemplation_ of an object as beautiful; whereas the pleasure that springs from the object as good is an interested pleasure, a pleasure of _possession_. No doubt the beautiful is really identical with the good, though logically distinct from the latter.(197) The _orderliness_ which we shall see to be the chief objective factor of beauty, is itself a perfection of the object, and as such is good and desirable. Hence the beautiful can be an object of interested desire, but only under the aspect of goodness. Under the aspect of beauty the object can excite only the disinterested esthetic pleasure of contemplation.

But if esthetic pleasure is derived from contemplation, is not this identifying the beautiful with the true, and supplanting art by science?

Again the consequence is inadmissible; for not every pleasure peculiar to knowledge is esthetic. There is a pleasure in seeking and discovering truth, the pleasure which gratifies the scholar and the scientist: the pleasure of the philologist in tracing roots and paradigms, of the chemist in a.n.a.lysing unsavoury materials, of the anatomist in exploring the structure of organisms _post mortem_. But these things are not "beautiful". The really beautiful is indeed always true, but it cannot well be maintained that all truths are beautiful. That two and two are four is a truth, but in what intelligible sense could it be said to be beautiful?

But besides the scientific pleasure of seeking and discovering truth, there is the pleasure which comes from contemplating the object known. The aim of the scientist or scholar is _to discover truth_; that of the artist is, through knowledge to derive complacency from _contemplating the thing known_. The scientist or scholar may be also an artist, or _vice versa_; but the scientist's pleasure proper lies exclusively in discovering truth, whereas that of the artist lies in contemplating something apprehended, imagined, conceived. The artist is not concerned as to whether what he apprehends is real or imaginary, certain or conjectural, but only as to whether or how far the contemplation of it will arouse emotions of pleasure, admiration, enthusiasm; while the scientist's supreme concern is to know things, to see them as they are. The beautiful, then, is always true, either as actual or as ideal; but the true is beautiful only when it so reveals itself as to arouse in us the desire to see or hear it, to consider it, to dwell and rest in the contemplation of it.

Let us accept, then, the _a posteriori_ definition of the beautiful as _that which it is pleasing to contemplate_; and before inquiring what precisely is it, on the side of the object, that makes the latter agreeable to contemplate, let us examine the subjective factors and conditions of esthetic experience.

54. THE ESTHETIC SENTIMENT. APPREHENSION OF THE BEAUTIFUL.-We have seen that both the appet.i.tive and the cognitive faculties are involved in the experience of the beautiful. Contemplation implies cognition; while the feeling of pleasure, complacency, satisfaction, delight, indicates the operation of appet.i.te or will. Now the notion of the beautiful, like all our notions, has its origin in sense experience; but it is itself suprasensible for it is reached by abstraction, and this is above the power of sense faculties. While the senses and imagination apprehend beautiful objects the intellect attains to that which makes these objects beautiful, to the _ratio pulchri_ that is in them. No doubt, the perception or imagination of beautiful things, in nature or in art, produces as its natural concomitant, a feeling of sensible pleasure. To hear sweet music, to gaze on the brilliant variety of colours in a gorgeous pageant, to inhale delicious perfumes, to taste savoury dishes-all such experiences gratify the senses. But the feeling of such sensible pleasure is quite distinct from the esthetic enjoyment which accompanies the apprehension of the beautiful; though it is very often confounded with the latter. Such _sentient_ states of agreeable feeling are mainly _pa.s.sive_, organic, physiological; while esthetic enjoyment, the appreciation of the beautiful, is eminently _active_. It implies the operation of a suprasensible faculty, the _intelligence_; it accompanies the reaction of the latter faculty to some appropriate objective stimulus of the suprasensible, intelligible order, to some "idea" embodied in the object of sense.(198)

The error of confounding esthetic enjoyment with mere organic sense pleasure is characteristic of all sensist and materialist philosophies. A feeling of sensible gratification always, no doubt, accompanies our apprehension and enjoyment of the beautiful; for just as man is not a merely sentient being so neither is he a pure intelligence. Beauty reaches him through the senses; in order that an object be beautiful for him, in order that the contemplation of it may please him, it must be in harmony with his whole _human_ nature, which is both sentient and intelligent; it must, therefore, be agreeable to the senses and imagination as well as to the intellect. "There is no painting," writes M. Brunetiere,(199) "but should be above all a joy to the eye! no music but should be a delight for the ear!" Otherwise we shall not apprehend in it the order, perfection, harmony, adaptation to human nature, whereby we p.r.o.nounce an object beautiful and rejoice in the contemplation of it. And it is this intellectual activity that is properly esthetic. "What makes us consider a colour beautiful," writes Bossuet,(200) is the secret judgment we p.r.o.nounce upon its adaptation to the eye which it pleases. Beautiful sounds, songs, cadences, have a similar adaptation to the ear. To apprehend this adaptation promptly and accurately is what is described as having a good ear, though properly speaking this judgment should be attributed to the intellect.

According to some the esthetic sentiment, the appreciation and enjoyment of the beautiful, is an exclusively subjective experience, an emotional state which has all its sources within the conscious subject, and which has no real, extramental correlative in things. According to others beauty is already in the extramental reality independently of any subjective conditions, and has no mental factors in its const.i.tution as an object of experience. Both of these extreme views are erroneous. Esthetic pleasure, like all pleasure, is the natural concomitant of the full, orderly, normal exercise of the subject's conscious activities. These activities are called forth by, and exercised upon, some _object_. For esthetic pleasure there must be in the object something the contemplation of which will elicit such harmonious exercise of the faculties. Esthetic pleasure, therefore, cannot be purely subjective: there must be an objective factor in its realization. But on the other hand this objective factor cannot provoke esthetic enjoyment independently of the dispositions of the subject. It must be in harmony with those dispositions-cognitive, appet.i.tive, affective, emotional, temperamental-in order to evoke such a mental view of the object that the contemplation of the latter will cause esthetic pleasure. And it is precisely because these dispositions, which are so variable from one individual to another, tinge and colour the mental view, while this in turn determines the quality of the esthetic judgment and feeling, that people disagree and dispute interminably about questions of beauty in art and nature. Herein beauty differs from truth.

No doubt people dispute about the latter also; but at all events they recognize its objective character and the propriety of an appeal to the independent, impersonal standard of evidence. Not so, however, in regard to beauty: _De gustibus non est disputandum_: there is no disputing about tastes. The perception of beauty, the judgment that something is or is not beautiful, is the product of an act of _taste_, _i.e._ of the individual's intelligence affected by numerous concrete personal dispositions both of the sentient and of the spiritual order, not only cognitive and appet.i.tive but temperamental and emotional. Moreover, besides this variety in subjective dispositions, we have to bear in mind the effects of artistic culture, of educating the taste. The eye and the ear, which are the two main channels of data for the intellect, can be made by training more delicate and exacting, so that the same level of esthetic appreciation can be maintained only by a constantly increasing measure of artistic stimulation. Finally, apart from all that a beautiful object _directly conveys_ to us for contemplation, there is something more which it may _indirectly suggest_: it arouses a distinct activity of the imagination whereby we fill up, in our own individual degree and according to our own interpretation, what has not been actually supplied in it by nature or art.

All those influences account sufficiently for the subjectivity and variability of the esthetic sentiment, for diversity of artistic tastes among individuals, for the transitions of fashion in art from epoch to epoch and from race to race. But it must not be concluded that the subjective factors in the const.i.tution of the beautiful are wholly changeable. Since human nature is fundamentally the same in all men there ought to be a fund of esthetic judgments and pleasures common to all; there ought to be in nature and in art some things which are recognized and enjoyed as beautiful by all. And there are such. In matters _of detail_ the maxim holds: _De gustibus non disputandum_. But there are fundamental esthetic judgments for which it does not hold. Since men have a common nature, and since, as we shall see presently, there are recognizable and stable objective factors to determine esthetic judgments, there is a legitimate foundation on which to discuss and establish some esthetic canons of universal validity.

55. OBJECTIVE FACTORS IN THE CONSt.i.tUTION OF THE BEAUTIFUL.-"Ask the artist," writes St. Augustine,(201) "whether beautiful things are beautiful because they please us, or rather please us because they are beautiful, and he will reply unhesitatingly that they please us because they are beautiful." What, then is it that makes them beautiful, and so causes the esthetic pleasure we experience in contemplating them? In order that an object produce pleasure of any sort in a conscious being it must evoke the exercise of this being's faculties; for the conscious condition which we describe as pleasure is always a reflex of conscious activity.

Furthermore, this activity must be _full_ and _intense_ and _well-ordered_: if it be excessive or defective, if it be ill-regulated, wrongly distributed among the faculties, it will not have pleasure for its reflex, but either indifference or pain.

Hence the object which evokes the esthetic pleasure of contemplation must in the _first_ place be _complete_ or _perfect_ of its kind (46). The truncated statue, the stunted oak, the deformed animal, the crippled human being, are not beautiful. They are wanting in the integrity due to their nature.

But this is not enough. To be beautiful, the object must in the _second_ place have a certain _largeness_ or amplitude, a certain greatness or power, whereby it can act _energetically_ on our cognitive faculties and stimulate them to _vigorous_ action. The little, the trifling, the commonplace, the insignificant, evokes no feeling of admiration. The sight of a small pasture-field leaves us indifferent; but the vision of vast expanses of meadow and cornfield and woodland exhilarates us. A collection of petty hillocks is uninteresting, while the towering snow-clad Alps are magnificent. The multiplication table elicits no emotion; but the triumphant discovery and proof of some new truth in science, some far-reaching theorem that opens up new vistas of research or sheds a new light on long familiar facts, may fill the mind with ecstasies of pure esthetic enjoyment.(202) There is no moral beauty in helping up a child that has stumbled and fallen in the mud, but there is in risking one's life to save the child from burning or drowning. There must, then, be in the object a certain largeness which will secure energy of appeal to our cognitive faculties; but this energy must not be excessive, it must not dazzle, it must be in proportion to the capacity of our faculties.(203)

A _third_ requisite for beauty is that the object be in itself _duly proportioned_, _orderly_, _well arranged_. _Order_ generally may be defined as right or proper arrangement. We can see in things a twofold order, _dynamic_, or that of _subordination_, and _static_, or that of _co-ordination_: the right arrangement of means towards ends, and the right arrangement of parts in a whole, or members in a system. The former indicates the influence of _final_ causes and expresses primarily the _goodness_ of things. The latter is determined by the _formal_ causes of things and expresses primarily their _beauty_. The order essential to beauty consists in this, that the manifold and distinct things or acts which contribute to it must form one whole. Hence order has been defined as _unity in variety_: _unitas in varietate_; variety being the material cause, and unity the formal cause, of order. But we can apprehend unity in a variety of things only on condition that they are _arranged_, _i.e._ that they show forth clearly to the mind a set of mutual relations which can be easily grasped. Why is it that things mutually related to one another in one way make up what we declare to be a chaotic jumble, while if related in another way we declare them to be orderly? Because unless these relations present themselves in a certain way they will fail to unify the manifold for us. We have an intellectual intuition of the numerical series; and of _proportion_, which is equality of numerical relations. In the domains of magnitude and mult.i.tude the mind naturally seeks to detect these proportions. So also in the domains of sensible qualities, such as sounds and colours, we have an a.n.a.logous intuition of a qualitative series, and we naturally try to detect _harmony_, which is the gradation of qualitative relations in this series. The detection of _proportion_ and _harmony_ in a _variety_ of things pleases us, because we are thus enabled to grasp the manifold as exhibiting _unity_; while the absence of these elements leaves us with the dissatisfied feeling of something wanting. Whether this be because order in things is the expression of an intelligent will, of purpose and design, and therefore calls forth our intelligent and volitional activity, with its consequent and connatural feeling of satisfaction, we do not inquire here. But certain it is that order is essential to beauty, that esthetic pleasure springs only from the contemplation of proportion and harmony, which give unity to variety.(204) And the explanation of this is not far to seek. For the full and vigorous exercise of contemplative activity we need objective variety. Whatever lacks variety, and stimulates us in one uniform manner, becomes monotonous and causes _ennui_. While on the other hand mere multiplicity distracts the mind, disperses and weakens attention, and begets fatigue. We must, therefore, have variety, but variety combined with the unity that will concentrate and sustain attention, and thus call forth the highest and keenest energy of intellectual activity. Hence the function of rhythm in music, poetry and oratory; of composition and perspective in painting; of design in architecture.

The more perfect the relations are which const.i.tute order, the more _clearly_ will the unity of the object _shine forth_; hence the more fully and easily will it be grasped, and the more intense the esthetic pleasure of contemplating it.

St. Thomas thus sums up the objective conditions of the beautiful: _integrity_ or _perfection_, _proportion_ or _harmony_, and _clarity_ or _splendour_.(205)