and, second, its purpose is to provide a common medium of expression
for the experience of all men. If interpretation remains a purely
individual affair, both its relation to the artist and the possibility
of a common aesthetic experience through it are destroyed. For this
reason we should, I believe, deliberately seek to make our appreciations
historically sound and definite. And in the social and historical
appreciation resulting, we shall find our own lives--not so different
from the artist's and our fellows'--abundantly and sufficiently
expressed.




CHAPTER V

THE ANALYSIS OF THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE: THE STRUCTURE OF THE
EXPERIENCE


In our discussion of first principles, we set down a high degree of
unity as one of the distinguishing characteristics of works of art.
In this we followed close upon ancient tradition; for the markedly
structural character of beauty was noticed by the earliest observers.
Plato, the first philosopher of art, identified beauty with simplicity,
harmony, and proportion, and Aristotle held the same view. They were
so impressed with aesthetic unity that they compared it with the other
most highly unified type of thing they knew, the organism; and ever
afterwards it has been called "organic unity." With the backing of
such authority, unity in variety was long thought to be the same as
beauty; and, although this view is obviously one-sided, no one has