rnish it. Not able, because the need for practical decisions hurries
us into that rapid inference from a minimum of perception to a
minimum of associated experience which we call "recognising
things," and thus out of the presence of the perfunctorily dealt with
shapes. Not willing, because our nervous condition may be unable
for the strain of shape perception; and our emotional bias (what we
call our _interest)_ may be favourable to some incompatible kind of
activity. Until quite recently (and despite Fechner's famous
introductory experiments) aesthetics have been little more than a
branch of metaphysical speculation, and it is only nowadays that the
bare fact of aesthetic responsiveness is beginning to be studied. So
far as I have myself succeeded in doing so, I think I can assure the
Reader that if he will note down, day by day, the amount of pleasure
he has been able to take in works of art, he will soon recognise the
existence of aesthetic responsiveness and its highly variable nature.
Should the same Reader develop an interest in such (often
humiliating) examination into his own aesthetic experience, he will
discover varieties of it which will illustrate some of the chief
principles contained in this little book. His diary will report days
when aesthetic appreciation has begun with the instant of entering a
collection of pictures or statues, indeed sometimes pre-existed as he
went through the streets noticing the unwonted charm of familiar
objects; other days when enjoyment has come only after an effort of
attention; others when, to paraphrase Coleridge, _he saw, not felt,
how beautiful things are;_ and finally, through other varieties of
aesthetic experience, days upon which only shortcomings and
absurdities have laid hold of his attention. In the course of such
aesthetical self-examination and confession, the Reader might also
become acquainted with days whose experience confirmed my never
sufficiently repeated distinction between _contemplating Shapes and
thinking about Things_; or, in ordinary aesthetic terminology
between _form_ and _subject._ For there are days when pictures or
statues will indeed afford pleasurable interest, but interest in the
things _represented,_ not in the _shapes;_ a picture appealing even
forcibly to our dramatic or religious or romantic side; or
contrariwise, to our scientific one. There are days when he may be
deeply moved by a Guido Reni martyrdom, or absorbed in the
"Marriage a la