been sacrificed to some
other interest, we see the stifled fire bursting out in various
directions. One is religious devotion, another is zealous
philanthropy, a third is the fondling of pet animals, but not the least
fortunate is the love of nature, and of art; for nature also is often a
second mistress that consoles us for the loss of a first. Passion then
overflows and visibly floods those neighbouring regions which it
had always secretly watered. For the same nervous organization
which sex involves, with its necessarily wide branchings and
associations in the brain, must be partially stimulated by other
objects than its specific or ultimate one especially in man, who,
unlike some of the lower animals, has not his instincts clearly
distinct and intermittent, but always partially active, and never
active in isolation. We may say, then, that for man all nature is a
secondary object of sexual passion, and that to this fact the beauty
of nature is largely due.

_Social instincts and their aesthetic influence._

Sec. 14. The function of reproduction carries with it not only direct
modifications of the body and mind, but a whole set of social
institutions, for the existence of which social instincts and habits
are necessary in man. These social feelings, the parental, the
patriotic, or the merely gregarious, are not of much direct value for
aesthetics, although, as is seen in the case of fashions, they are
important in determining the duration and prevalence of a taste
once formed. Indirectly they are of vast importance and play a
great role in arts like poetry, where the effect depends on what is
signified more than on what is offered to sense. Any appeal to a
human interest rebounds in favour of a work of art in which it is
successfully made. That interest, unaesthetic in itself, helps to fix
the attention and to furnish subject-matter and momentum to arts
and modes of appreciation which are aesthetic. Thus comprehension
of the passion of love is necessary to the appreciation of
numberless songs, plays, and novels, and not a few works of
musical and plastic art.

The treatment of these matters must be postponed until we are
prepared to deal with expression -- the most complex element of
effect. It will suffice here to point out why social and gregarious
impulses, in the satisfaction of which happiness mainly resides, are
those in which beauty finds least support. This may help us to
understand better the relations