EMOTION AND BELIEF.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2000, 6 March 1914, Page 8

EMOTION AND BELIEF.

THIRD GIFFORD LECTURE. MR. BALFOUR ON AESTHETIC VALUES; THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE. The following report of Mr. Balfour's third Gifl'ord lecture, which was delivered at Glasgow oft January 16, is thnt supplied to the London "Mail" by its special correspondent :— Even a Glasgow fog had no appreciable effect upon the numbers wire waited in. the cold corridors outside the Bute Hall to listen to Mr. Baifmy's third Giffyrd lecture. They were rewarded by an address which excited an enthusiasm with which philesopMeal disquisitions are. rarely received, and the cheers which during the previous leeture emanated from youthful ansiety' to find a joke, came on tjijs occasion in moro suppressed- volume from eager listeners glad to discover that a Gjffbrtt lecturer could defend what they them* selves had the wish to believe.

i Mr. Balfour stated that in. aesthetics, emotion ab-swbs almost tjis whole of the belief, for the sense of beauty is an emotion ftiid its- value lies, not in the but in the emotions associated with tie judgments. In ethics judgnients'are of fundamental importance, yet tho emotions or moral sentiments must hp tMvf also. In science emotion, is the vanishing quantjty: there is an emotional element, but it is of little value,

Origin of Aesffcetlb Emotion, . What, lie proceeded to ask. are aesthetic emotions?- And lie described thorn as always existing ill conteftijylatiou and never leading to action. He admitted, of course,.- that beautiful things might be used for practical ends, that the creative effort which produced' the beautiful thing was not included in his definition, and ihe very act' of contemplation itself requires teuci effort and preparation. But when a great artist had put a great effort of concentrated will into a, greatosorklol art, and when tho observer had put himself into harmony with it, tfio fesult Was not action but contemplation, lis had been said that the essence of tragedy is that it "purifies by terror and piiv." "Tho pity," said Mr. BalfOTr, "does not suggest assistance; the terror does not prompt to fight. Kobody nrahes' to rescue lJ<i\V did these aesthetic beliefs, afid the oftlitemplativo emotions associated with them, como into existence? Are they due to any process of natural selection ? iHe believed, with regard to ethics and knowledge, up to a certain ■ point the beliefs and the emotions coriffljeted with them are <lue, or may be plausibly attributed, to.the general process $i organic evolution.' But he coiild find tip such pedigree -for, tho aesthetic emotions: t Thoy cannot be'shown, to have in any effective sense their root' in, the attributes bred into the race iy the struggle for existence,'■ ffobert "Sfsencwhad tried to contribate ito tlie explanation of how we of the nkoteehitt and twentieth century feel in tho presence of a great work of art by saying that our ape-like ancestors howled in moments of emotion. The aadieneo laughed, arid Mr. Balfottr told tJiein tte to ridicule Mr. Spencer Was not his 6b.lect. If Mr., Spencer -eodd Jiavo sliemti in tho anthropoid npo an el&ment of musical appreciation, and traced its development into our elaborate appreciation of a symphony of Beethoven, he would have produced a, eausal connexion between the two. As it was, ho had mistaken an historic account- of origins for a theory of genesis, and'th-e .two were in this instance irhdoiinectci I'roin the naturalistie standpoint, Mr, Balfour insisted,' tlie whole complex of aesthetic emotions and- beliefs is a chance- hy:-fWo.duct, a happy accident or evoluFion; and the geniuses themselves who produce works of art are equally accidental products,, for noef; and-artists did not greatly contribute to the destruction of Wbal enemies and the survival of tho fittest. This view ho held, really destroyed the valuesof aesthetic beliefs. Ho did flat refer to the minor manifestations of the aesthetic emotions, arid lie admitted that -iwkinematograph can -be- enjoyed , without refereneo to cosmieal theories.

_ The Spiritual itiluitiort. It is the aesthetre emotion' in its Inchest manifestations., that- has ■> most to loso from-a purely naturalistic oriffb The poet or the artist is genetdlly sttpposed to have an insish* into reality. Ine men who are mosi alive to tlio iiiglier aesthetic emotfenS feel 'fhat thort 1 emotions open up sometKng that contains an intuition.greater than-know-'™Be- Thero fs always in a work ei art. the v sense of commtffliEalian. from its creator. • Behind the poem, the pic ture, and the symphony ore the poet, the painter, and the composer,- and works of art must be communications trom cue spirit to a)iot%er'Spirit Tbe most perfect kaleidoscope eoHld nwer be a work of art or convoy aesthetio emotion. Could they, lie. asfed, accept this_view for works of art and deny "it tor tho manifestations of natural ieaiity. before which, he thought,, the greatest works of art faded into insigniifcahee? Wero there two principles of aesthetic? JJcauty moves upon t&a surface, bnly whatappears-is beautiful tf,, We m W perceivo the aether and tho scattered electrons which are the. real j'acts, sueii insight would merely excite curiosity and wondor. ■ We must regard thobeai ties ot nature as signs, as symbols, as a language, just as we cfe oiwrds and colours. Tlie entire value of the glories o[ Mturo is lost unless we caaeen-e behind nature one who has designed it • Art, he pointed out, clings obstinatelv to personification, in spite of tho teachings of science. We live sni mot& a «d have our being in available energy, tot wtt cannot write an ode to it. Poetry clings to personification, not hy the staying power of long tradition, fioi bv a feigned literary conceit, but because the naturalistic explanation is felt -fo b ? intolerable, in that it destroys aesthetic values It is, of course, possible for a reader of- Words worth to accent conventionally the notion ef a God of nature, while he is reading Worfsworth just as a man who does not beliovo in ghosts may read a ghost story with a conventional belief suflteient for his. artisTic purposes. But ft is not Mssijote ™ enjoy best of • Wardswdrth as it sJiould be enjoyed unless yo* take thesame general view of the universe as SVordaworth did.

Mr., Balfour had now feaelj.ed the cut* mihat'ing point of Tits sargii«e.nt,sargii«e.nt, and ho drove it home in some eloquent sentences. Ho argued that what is i tm of Wordsworth is true also uatteal beaiiTEy, and he invited Ills ij.ea.rcr3 te recall tho moments,' too rii-re. in anv life, when tho sight of some irtaenift. cent spectacle seems to drive out not merely all the smaller ,cares and anxiet* ies of lifo, but all the sjftaller BKoVeHpations of art itself. Af sueli moments it is truo that a man has ssffiiethin.' bettor to do than to think of cednwvT ony. But, just as no pain is so severe but that it leaves a man some corner of consciousness in wMeh. to astt iiaw long it will kst, so there is m {veatrty however, overpowering, but allows of iSo thought that ft means s.ome.tltin<. and is not simply a matter of aether and electrons and brain and risttal nerves. To persuade a wan te attrilmte no such sipnificanco Is'lo it-oaken fata.% tlioso aesthetic values wJitch can only exist if, behind that gcosrt apporiratisii is a reality, and if it contains a message from spirit to s.pMt. If we desire to preserve those values, to argue to dosign from value, we can say that, unless men are willing to satvrileo the aesthetic emotion in its highest- development and in its greatest, examples, w"e must bolievo in a ureat Spirit whoso manifestations these tiifoss ar*.