<1> Th. A. Meyer, "Das Formprinzip des Schouen," _Archiv. f.
Phil._, Bd. x.

Hildebrand, to return to the more famous theorist, was writing
primarily of sculpture, and would naturally confine himself to
consideration of the plastic, which is an additional reason
against making this interesting brochure, as some have done,
the foundation of an aesthetics. It is rather the foundation
of the sculptor's, perhaps even of the painter's technique,
with reference to plastic elements alone. What it contains
of universal significance, the demand for space-unity, based
on the state of the eye in a union of rest and action, ignores
all but one of the possible sources of rest and action for
the eye, that of accommodation, and all the allied activities
completely.

On the basis of the favorable stimulations of all these
activities taken together, must we judge as pleasing the so-
called quality of line. But it is clear that we cannot really
separate the question of quality of line from that of form,
figure, and arrangement in space. The motor innervations
enter with the first, and the moment we have form at all, we
have space-composition also. But space-composition means
unity, and unity is the objective quality which must be
translated, in our investigations, into aesthetic repose. It
is thus with the study of composition that we pass from the
study of the elements as favorably stimulating, to the study
of the beauty of visual form.