this last difficulty, and at the same time better to provide for
the complexity of human interests, metaphysical idealism finally assumes
the _aesthetic_ form. The absolute world, the all-real-and-all-good, is
boldly construed in terms of the historical process itself, with all its
concreteness and immediacy. Endless detail, contrast, and even
contradiction may be brought under the form of aesthetic value. The very
flux of experience, the very struggles and defeats of life, are not
without their picturesqueness and dramatic quality. Upon this romantic
love of tumult and privation is founded the last of all metaphysical
idealisms.[16] A strange sequel to the doctrine of despair with which
our brief survey began!

I can only recapitulate most briefly the characteristic limitations of an
aesthetic idealism. First, in spite of the fact that aesthetic value may
be extraordinarily comprehensive in its content, as a value it is none
the less narrow and exclusive. For in order that experience may have
aesthetic value, an aesthetic interest must be taken in it. And even
were all experience to satisfy some such interest, this would in no wise
provide for the endless variety of non-aesthetic interests that are also
taken in it. Thus, were it to be proved that life on the whole is
picturesque, this {247} would in no way affect the fact that it is also
painful, stultifying, and otherwise abounding in evil.

But, even if it were to be granted that aesthetic value embraces and
subordinates all other values, this higher value would still exist only
where such an aesthetic interest was actually fulfilled. If it were
assumed that the totality of the world is pleasing in the sight of God,
this would in no way affect the fact that it is otherwise in the eyes of
men. Those who furnish a spectacle which has dramatic value for an
observer do not necessarily themselves share in that value. It is an
incontrovertible fact that the aesthetic interests of men are actually
defeated; and this whether or no some other aesthetic interest--that, for
example, of a divine onlooker--is fulfilled.

But the radical defect of this aesthetic philosophy of religion lies in
its absolute discrediting of moral distinctions. Optimism has so far
overreached itself as to sacrifice the very meaning of goodness. In
order that the ideal may possess the world, it has been reduced to the
world. God is no more than a name for the unmitigated reality. Like