made possible by the form of the object is not enough. Only as
FAVORABLY stimulating, that is, only as calling up ideal
reproductions, or physical imitations, of movements which in
themselves were suited to the functions of the organs involved,
can forms be found positively aesthetic, that is, beautiful.

Moreover, we have to note here, and to emphasize, that the
organs involved are more than the eye, as has already been made
plain. We cannot separate eye innvervations from bodily
innervations in general. And therefore "the demands of the eye"
can never alone decide the question of the beauty of visual
form. If it were not so, the favorable stimulation combined
with repose of the eye would alone make the conditions of
beauty. The "demands of the eye" must be interpreted as the
demands of the eye plus the demands of the motor system,--the
whole psychophysical personality, in short.

It is in these two principles,--"bodily resonance," and favorable
as opposed to energetic functioning,--and these alone, that we
have a complete refutation of the claim made by many artists
to-day, that the phrase "demands of the eye" embodies a complete
aesthetic theory. The sculptor Adolph Hildebrand, in his
"Problem of Form in the Plastic Art" first set it forth as the
task of the artist "to find a form which appears to have arisen
only from the demands of the eye;"<1> and this doctrine is
to-day so widely held, that it must here be considered at some
length.

<1> _Das Proablem der form in d. bildenden Kunst_, 1897.