美的形而上学

Therein lies the difficulty, and this is just why the condition of mind necessary in artistic creation is so rare; because all our thoughts and endeavours, our powers of sight and hearing, are always naturally exerted, directly or indirectly, in the service of our numerous personal aims, great and small. It is the will that drives the intellect to the fulfilment of its function, and the intellect flags at once if the spur is withdrawn. Rendered active in this way, the intellect is perfectly sufficient for the needs of practical life, nay, even for the kind of knowledge required in professional business. For there the aim is to understand only the relations of things, not the inner reality peculiar to them; and this kind of knowledge proceeds by applying such principles of reasoning as govern the relations in which things may stand to one another. But though in the conception of a work of art the intellect is all in all, in the execution of it, where the aim is to communicate and represent what has been conceived, the will may, nay, must become active again; just because there is an aim to be carried out. Accordingly, in this sphere, the principles of reasoning which govern the relations of things again come into play. It is in conformity with these principles that the means used by Art are so contrived as to produce artistic effects. Thus we find the painter concerned with the accuracy of his drawing and the manipulation of his colours, and the poet looking first to the arrangement of his subject and then to a right use of expression and the laws of metre.