THE PRINCIPLES OF AESTHETICS

BY

DEWITT H. PARKER

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN



PREFACE

This book has grown out of lectures to students at the University of
Michigan and embodies my effort to express to them the nature and
meaning of art. In writing it, I have sought to maintain scientific
accuracy, yet at the same time to preserve freedom of style and
something of the inspiration of the subject. While intended primarily
for students, the book will appeal generally, I hope, to people who
are interested in the intelligent appreciation of art.

My obligations are extensive,--most directly to those whom I have cited
in foot-notes to the text, but also to others whose influence is too
indirect or pervasive to make citation profitable, or too obvious to
make it necessary. For the broader philosophy of art, my debt is
heaviest, I believe, to the artists and philosophers during the period
from Herder to Hegel, who gave to the study its greatest development,
and, among contemporaries, to Croce and Lipps. In addition, I have
drawn freely upon the more special investigations of recent times, but
with the caution desirable in view of the very tentative character of
some of the results. To Mrs. Robert M. Wenley I wish to express my