of beauty seems the more likely to prove to be satisfactory, when we consider that pleasure is universally acknowledged to be the contradictory opposite of pain; and that we have in ugliness, which is always unpleasant, a contradictory opposite of beauty.[1]
Clearly, then, it behooves the psychologist to give to the æsthetician an account of the nature of pleasure which shall be compatible with the pleasurable nature of the sense of beauty; and which shall either explain the nature of this sense of beauty in terms of pleasure, or explain the nature of pleasure in a manner which shall throw light upon the nature of this sense of beauty to which pleasure is so indissolubly attached.
The æsthetician thus demands urgently of the psychologist an analysis of the nature of pleasure; and an analysis of this so-called 'feeling,' which shall show the relation between the two experiences. Concerning the latter problem I hope some day to have something to say. Those of you who happen to be familiar with my published works will realize that my efforts in this field in the past have been given largely to the study of the former problem. My own view may be succinctly stated thus.
While all æsthetic experiences are pleasant, very evidently much that we call pleasant is not æsthetic. We must look then for some special differentiation of æsthetic pleasure, and this I find in its relative permanency.
This view is led up to by a preliminary study of the psychological nature of pleasure. Pleasure I find to be one phase of a general quality, pleasure-pain, which, under proper conditions, may inhere in any emphasis within the field of attention; or, to use more common language, may belong to any element of attention.
Now pleasure, as we have said, is notably evanescent; but this does not preclude the existence of pleasurable states of attention which are relatively permanent. This permanency may be given by the shifting of attention from one pleasurable element to another, by the summation of very moderate pleasures, etc.
- ↑ It is of course agreed that beauty and ugliness may be held together in a complex impression, but in such cases the beauty and the ugliness are inherent in diverse elements of the complex.
