Kant Critique of Judgment 1 (Meredith, tr.)

§30. The deduction of aesthetic judgements upon objects of nature must not be directed to what we call sublime in nature, but only to the beautiful

The claim of an aesthetic judgement to universal validity for every subject, being a judgement which must rely on some a priori principle, stands in need of a deduction (i.e., a derivation of its title). Further, where the delight or aversion turns on the form of the object this has to be something over and above the exposition of the judgement. Such is the case with judgements of taste upon the beautiful in nature. For there the finality has its foundation in the object and its outward form—although it does not signify the reference of this to other objects according to concepts (for the purpose of cognitive judgements), but is merely concerned in general with the apprehension of this form so far as it proves accordant in the mind with the faculty of concepts as well as with that of their presentation (which is identical with that of apprehension). With regard to the beautiful in nature, therefore, we may start a number of questions touching the cause of this finality of their forms e.g., how we are to explain why nature has scattered beauty abroad with so lavish a hand even in the depth of the ocean where it can but seldom be reached by the eye of man—for which alone it is. final?

But the sublime in nature—if we pass upon it a pure aesthetic judgement unmixed with concepts of perfection, as objective finality, which would make the judgement teleological—may be regarded as completely wanting in form or figure, and none the less be looked upon as an object of pure delight, and indicate a subjective finality of the given representation. So, now, the question suggests itself, whether in addition to the exposition of what is thought in an aesthetic judgement of this kind, we may be called upon to give a deduction of its claim to some (subjective) a priori principle.

This we may meet with the reply that the sublime in nature is improperly so called, and that sublimity should, in strictness, be attributed merely to the attitude of thought, or, rather, to that which serves as basis for this in human nature. The apprehension of an object otherwise formless and in conflict with ends supplies the mere occasion for our coming to a consciousness of this basis; and the object is in this way put to a subjectively-final use, but it is not estimated as subjectively-final on its own account and because of its form. (It is, as it were, a species finalis accepta, non data.) Consequently the exposition we gave of judgements upon the sublime in nature was at the same time their deduction. For, in our analysis of the reflection on the part of judgement in this case, we found that in such judgements there is a final relation of the cognitive faculties, which has to be laid a priori at the basis of the faculty of ends (the will), and which is therefore itself a priori final. This, then, at once involves the deduction, i.e., the justification of the claim of such a judgement to universally-necessary validity.

Hence we may confine our search to one for the deduction of judgements of taste, i.e., of judgements upon the beauty of things of nature, and this will satisfactorily dispose of the problem for the entire aesthetic faculty of judgement.

The obligation to furnish a deduction, i.e., a guarantee of the legitimacy of judgements of a particular kind, only arises where the judgement lays claim to necessity. This is the case even where it requires subjective universality, i.e., the concurrence of every one, albeit the judgement is not a cognitive judgement, but only one of pleasure or displeasure in a given object, i.e., an assumption of a subjective finality that has a thoroughgoing validity for every one, and which, since the judgement is one of taste, is not to be grounded upon any concept of the thing.

Now, in the latter case, we are not dealing with a judgement of cognition—neither with a theoretical one based on the concept of a nature in general, supplied by understanding, nor with a (pure) practical one based on the idea of freedom, as given a priori by reason—and so we are not called upon to justify a priori the validity of a judgement which represents either what a thing is, or that there is something which I ought to do in order to produce it. Consequently, if for judgement generally we demonstrate the universal validity of a singular judgement expressing the subjective finality of an empirical representation of the form of an object, we shall do all that is needed to explain how it is possible that something can please in the mere formation of an estimate of it (without sensation or concept), and how, just as the estimate of an object for the sake of a cognition generally has universal rules, the delight of any one person may be pronounced as a rule for every other.

Now if this universal validity is not to be based on a collection of votes and interrogation of others as to what sort of sensations they experience, but is to rest, as it were, upon an, autonomy of the subject passing judgement on the feeling of pleasure (in the given representation), i.e., upon his own taste, and yet is also not to be derived from concepts; then it follows that such a judgement—and such the judgement of taste in fact is—has a double and also logical peculiarity. For, first, it has universal validity a priori, yet without having a logical universality according to concepts, but only the universality of a singular judgement. Secondly, it has a necessity (which must invariably rest upon a priori grounds), but one which depends upon no a priori proofs by the representation of which it would be competent to enforce the assent which the judgement of taste demands of every one.

The solution of these logical peculiarities, which distinguish a judgement of taste from all cognitive judgements, will of itself suffice for a deduction of this strange faculty, provided we abstract at the outset from all content of the judgement, viz., from the feeling of pleasure, and merely compare the aesthetic form with the form of objective judgements as prescribed by logic. We shall first try, with the help of examples, to illustrate and bring out these characteristic properties of taste.

The judgement of taste determines its object in respect of delight (as a thing of beauty) with a claim to the agreement of every one, just as if it were objective.

To say: this flower is beautiful is tantamount to repeating its own proper claim to the delight of everyone. The agreeableness of its smell gives it no claim at all. One man revels in it, but it gives another a headache. Now what else are we to suppose from this than that its beauty is to be taken for a property of the flower itself which does not adapt itself to the diversity of heads and the individual senses of the multitude, but to which they must adapt themselves, if they are going to pass judgement upon it. And yet this is not the way the matter stands. For the judgement of taste consists precisely in a thing being called beautiful solely in respect of that quality in which it adapts itself to our mode of taking it in.

Besides, every judgement which is to show the taste of the individual, is required to be an independent judgement of the individual himself. There must be no need of groping about among other people’s judgements and getting previous instruction from their delight in or aversion to the same object. Consequently his judgement should be given out a priori, and not as an imitation relying on the general pleasure a thing gives as a matter of fact. One would think, however, that a judgement a priori must involve a concept of the object for the cognition of which it contains the principle. But the judgement of taste is not founded on concepts, and is in no way a cognition, but only an aesthetic judgement.

Hence it is that a youthful poet refuses to allow himself to be dissuaded from the conviction that his poem is beautiful, either by the judgement of the public or of his friends. And even if he lends them an ear, he does so,—not because he has now come to a different judgement, but because, though the whole public, at least so far as his work is concerned, should have false taste, he still, in his desire for recognition, finds good reason to accommodate himself to the popular error (even against his own judgement). It is only in aftertime, when his judgement has been sharpened by exercise, that of his own free will and accord he deserts his former judgements behaving in just the same way as with those of his judgements which depend wholly upon reason. Taste lays claim simply to autonomy. To make the judgements of others the determining ground of one’s own would be heteronomy.

The fact that we recommend the works of the ancients as models, and rightly too, and call their authors classical, as constituting sort of nobility among writers that leads the way and thereby gives laws to the people, seems to indicate a posteriori sources of taste and to contradict the autonomy of taste in each individual. But we might just as well say that the ancient mathematicians, who, to this day, are looked upon as the almost indispensable models of perfect thoroughness and elegance in synthetic methods, prove that reason also is on our part only imitative, and that it is incompetent with the deepest intuition to produce of itself rigorous proofs by means of the construction of concepts. There is no employment of our powers, no matter how free, not even of reason itself (which must create all its judgements from the common a priori source), which, if each individual had always to start afresh with the crude equipment of his natural state, would not get itself involved in blundering attempts, did not those of others tie before it as a warning. Not that predecessors make those who follow in their steps mere imitators, but by their methods they set others upon the track of seeking in themselves for the principles, and so of adopting their own, often better, course. Even in religion—where undoubtedly every one bas to derive his rule of conduct from himself, seeing that he himself remains responsible for it and, when he goes wrong, cannot shift the blame upon others as teachers or leaders—general precepts learned at the feet either of priests or philosophers, or even drawn from ones’ own resources, are never so efficacious as an example of virtue or holiness, which, historically portrayed, does not dispense with the autonomy of virtue drawn from the spontaneous and original idea of morality (a priori), or convert this into a mechanical process of imitation. Following which has reference to a precedent, and not imitation, is the proper expression for all influence which the products of an exemplary author may exert upon others and this means no more than going to the same sources for a creative work as those to which he went for his creations, and learning from one’s predecessor no more than the mode of availing oneself of such sources. Taste, just because its judgement cannot be determined by concepts or precepts, is among all faculties and talents the very one that stands most in need of examples of what has in the course of culture maintained itself longest in esteem. Thus it avoids an early lapse into crudity and a return to the rudeness of its earliest efforts.

Proofs are of no avail whatever for determining the judgement of taste, and in this connection matters stand just as they would were that judgement simply subjective.

If any one does not think a building, view, or poem beautiful, then, in the first place, he refuses, so far as his inmost conviction goes, to allow approval to be wrung from him by a hundred voices all lauding it to the skies. Of course he may affect to be pleased with it, so as not to be considered as wanting in taste. He may even begin to harbour doubts as to whether he has formed his taste upon an acquaintance with a sufficient number of objects of a particular kind (just as one who in the distance recognizes, as he believes, something as a wood which every one else regards as a town, becomes doubtful of the judgement of his own eyesight). But, for all that, he clearly perceives that the approval of others affords no valid proof, available for the estimate of beauty. He recognizes that others, perchance, may see and observe for him, and that what many have seen in one and the same way may, for the purpose of a theoretical, and therefore logical, judgement, serve as an adequate ground of proof for or albeit he believes he saw otherwise, but that what has pleased others can never serve him as the ground of an aesthetic judgement. The judgement of others, where unfavourable to ours, may, no doubt, rightly make us suspicious in respect of our own, but convince us that it is wrong it never can. Hence there is no empirical ground of proof that can coerce any one’s judgement of taste.

In the second place, a proof a priori according to definite rules is still less capable of determining the judgement as to beauty. If any one reads me his poem, or brings me to a play, which, all said and done, fails to commend itself to my taste, then let him adduce Batteux or Lessing, or still older and more famous critics of taste, with all the host of rules laid down by them, as a proof of the beauty of his poem; let certain passages particularly displeasing to me accord completely with the rules of beauty (as set out by these critics and universally recognized): I stop my ears: I do not want to hear any reasons or any arguing about the matter. I would prefer to suppose that those rules of the critics were at fault, or at least have no application, than to allow my judgement to be determined by a priori proofs. I take my stand on the ground that my judgement is to be one of taste, and not one of understanding or reason.

This would appear to be one of the chief reasons why this faculty of aesthetic judgement has been given the name of taste. For a man may recount to me all the ingredients of a dish, and observe of each and every one of them that it is just what I like, and, in addition, rightly commend the wholesomeness of the food; yet I am deaf to all these arguments. I try the dish with my own tongue and palate, and I pass judgement according to their verdict (not according to universal principles).

As a matter of fact, the judgement of taste is invariably laid down as a singular judgement upon the object. The understanding can, from the comparison of the object, in point of delight, with the judgements of others, form a universal judgement, e.g.: All tulips are beautiful. But that judgement is then not one of taste, but is a logical judgement which converts the reference of an object to our taste into a predicate belonging to things of a certain kind. But it is only the judgement whereby I regard an individual given tulip as beautiful, i.e., regard my delight in it as of universal validity, that is a judgement of taste. Its peculiarity, however, consists in the fact, that, although it has merely subjective validity, still it extends its claims to all subjects, as unreservedly as it would if it were an objective judgement, resting on grounds of cognition and capable of being proved to demonstration.

A principle of taste would mean a fundamental premiss under the condition of which one might subsume the concept of an object, and then, by a syllogism, draw the inference that it is beautiful. That, however, is absolutely impossible. For I must feel the pleasure immediately in the representation of the object, and I cannot be talked into it by any grounds of proof. Thus although critics, as Hume says, are able to reason more plausibly than cooks, they must still share the same fate. For the determining ground of their judgement they are not able to look to the force of demonstrations, but only to the reflection of the subject upon his own state (of pleasure or displeasure), to the exclusion of precepts and rules.

There is, however, a matter upon which it is competent for critics to exercise their subtlety, and upon which they ought to do so, so long as it tends to the rectification and extension of our judgements of taste. But that matter is not one of exhibiting the determining ground of aesthetic judgements of this kind in a universally applicable formula—which is impossible. Rather is it the investigation of the faculties of cognition and their function in these judgements, and the illustration, by the analysis of examples, of their mutual subjective finality, the form of which in a given representation has been shown above to constitute the beauty of their object. Hence with regard to the representation whereby an object is given, the critique of taste itself is only subjective; viz., it is the art or science of reducing the mutual relation of the understanding and the imagination in the given representation (without reference to antecedent sensation or concept), consequently their accordance or discordance, to rules, and of determining them with regard to their conditions. It is art if it only illustrates this by examples; it is science if it deduces the possibility of such an estimate from the nature of these faculties as faculties of knowledge—in general. It is only with the latter, as transcendental critique, that we have here any concern. Its proper scope is the development and justification of the subjective principle of taste, as an a priori principle of judgement. As an art, critique merely looks to the physiological (here psychological) and, consequently, empirical rules, according to which in actual fact taste proceeds (passing by the question of their possibility) and seeks to apply them in estimating its objects. The latter critique criticizes the products of fine art, just as the former does the faculty of estimating them.

§35. The principle of taste is the subjective principle of the general power of judgement

The judgement of taste is differentiated from logical judgement by the fact that, whereas the latter subsumes a representation under a concept of the object, the judgement of taste does not subsume under a concept at all—for, if it did, necessary and universal approval would be capable of being enforced by proofs. And yet it does bear this resemblance to the logical judgement, that it asserts a universality and necessity, not, however, according to concepts of the object, but a universality and necessity that are, consequently, merely subjective. Now the concepts in a judgement constitute its content (what belongs to the cognition of the object). But the judgement of taste is not determinable by means of concepts. Hence it can only have its ground in the subjective formal condition of a judgement in general. The subjective condition of all judgements is the judging faculty itself, or judgement. Employed in respect of a representation whereby an object is given, this requires the harmonious accordance of two powers of representation. These are: the imagination (for the intuition and the arrangement of the manifold of intuition), and the understanding (for the concept as a representation of the unity of this arrangement). Now, since no concept of the object underlies the judgement here, it can consist only in the subsumption of the imagination itself (in the case of a representation whereby an object is given) under the conditions enabling the understanding in general to advance from the intuition to concepts. That is to say, since the freedom of the imagination consists precisely in the fact that it schematizes without a concept, the judgement of taste must found upon a mere sensation of the mutually quickening activity of the imagination in its freedom, and of the understanding with its conformity to law. It must therefore rest upon a feeling that allows the object to be estimated by the finality of the representation (by which an object is given) for the furtherance of the cognitive faculties in their free play. Taste, then, as a subjective power of judgement, contains a principle of subsumption, not of intuitions under concepts, but of the faculty of intuitions or presentations, i.e., of the imagination, under the faculty of concepts, i.e., the understanding, so far as the former in its freedom accords with the latter in its conformity to law.

For the discovery of this title by means of a deduction of judgements of taste, we can only avail ourselves of the guidance of the formal peculiarities of judgements of this kind, and consequently the mere consideration of their logical form.

To form a cognitive judgement we may immediately connect with the perception of an object the concept of an object in general, the empirical predicates of which are contained in that perception. In this way, a judgement of experience is produced. Now this judgement rests on the foundation of a priori concepts of the synthetical unity of the manifold of intuition, enabling it to be thought as the determination of an object. These concepts (the categories) call for a deduction, and such was supplied in the Critique of Pure Reason. That deduction enabled us to solve the problem: How are synthetical a priori cognitive judgements possible? This problem had, accordingly, to do with the a priori principles of pure understanding and its theoretical judgements.

But we may also immediately connect with a perception a feeling of pleasure (or displeasure) and a delight, attending the representation of the object and serving it instead of a predicate. In this way there arises a judgement which is aesthetic and not cognitive. Now, if such a judgement is not merely one of sensation, but a formal judgement of reflection that exacts this delight from everyone as necessary, something must lie at its basis as its a priori principle. This principle may, indeed, be a mere subjective one (supposing an objective one should be impossible for judgements of this kind), but, even as such, it requires a deduction to make it intelligible how an aesthetic judgement can lay claim to necessity. That, now, is what lies at the bottom of the problem upon which we are at present engaged, i.e.: How are judgements of taste possible? This problem, therefore, is concerned with the a priori principles of pure judgement in aesthetic judgements, i.e., not those in which (as in theoretical judgements) it has merely to subsume under objective concepts of understanding, and in which it comes under a law, but rather those in which it is itself, subjectively, object as well as law.

We may also put the problem in this way: How a judgement possible which, going merely upon the individual’s own feeling of pleasure in an object independent of the concept of it, estimates this as a pleasure attached to the representation of the same object in every other individual, and does so a priori, i.e., without being allowed to wait and see if other people will be of the same mind?

It is easy to see that judgements of taste are synthetic, for they go beyond the concept and even the intuition of the object, and join as predicate to that intuition something which is not even a cognition at all, namely, the feeling of pleasure (or displeasure). But, although the predicate (the personal pleasure that is connected with the representation) is empirical, still we need not go further than what is involved in the expressions of their claim to see that, so far as concerns the agreement required of everyone, they are a priori judgements, or mean to pass for such. This problem of the Critique of judgement, therefore, is part of the general problem of transcendental philosophy: How are synthetic a priori judgements possible?

§37. What exactly it is that is asserted a priori of an object in a judgement of taste

The immediate synthesis of the representation of an object with pleasure can only be a matter of internal perception, and, were nothing more than this sought to be indicated, would only yield a mere empirical judgement. For with no representation can I a priori connect a determinate feeling (of pleasure or displeasure) except where I rely upon the basis of an a priori principle in reason determining the will. The truth is that the pleasure (in the moral feeling) is the consequence of the determination of the will by the principle. It cannot, therefore, be compared with the pleasure in taste. For it requires a determinate concept of a law: whereas the pleasure in taste has to be connected immediately with the sample estimate prior to any concept. For the same reason, also, all judgements of taste are singular judgements, for they unite their predicate of delight, not to a concept, but to a given singular empirical representation.

Hence, in a judgement of taste, what is represented a priori as a universal rule for the judgement and as valid for everyone, is not the pleasure but the universal validity of this pleasure perceived, as it is, to be combined in the mind with the mere estimate of an object. A judgement to the effect that it is with pleasure that I perceive and estimate some object is an empirical judgement. But if it asserts that I think the object beautiful, i.e., that I may attribute that delight to everyone as necessary, it is then an a priori judgement.

Admitting that in a pure judgement of taste the delight in the object is connected with the mere estimate of its form, then what we feel to be associated in the mind with the representation of the object is nothing else than its subjective finality for judgement. Since, now, in respect of the formal rules of estimating, apart from all matter (whether sensation or concept), judgement can only be directed to the subjective conditions of its employment in general (which is not restricted to the particular mode of sense nor to a particular concept of the understanding), and so can only be directed to that subjective factor which we may presuppose in all men (as requisite for a possible experience generally), it follows that the accordance of a representation with these conditions of the judgement must admit of being assumed valid a priori for every one. In other words, we are warranted in exacting from every one the pleasure or subjective finality of the representation in respect of the relation of the cognitive faculties engaged in the estimate of a sensible object in general*.

*In order to be justified in claiming universal agreement an aesthetic judgement merely resting on subjective grounds, it is sufficient to assume: (1) that the subjective conditions of this faculty of aesthetic judgement are identical with all men in what concerns the relation of the cognitive faculties, there brought into action, with a view to a cognition in general. This must be true, as otherwise men would be incapable of communicating their representations or even their knowledge; (2) that the judgement has paid regard merely to this relation (consequently merely to the formal condition of the faculty of judgement), and is pure, i.e., is free from confusion either with concepts of the object or sensations as determining grounds. If any mistake is made in this latter point, this only touches the incorrect application to a particular case of the right which a law gives us, and does not do away with the right generally.

What makes this deduction so easy is that it is spared the necessity of having to justify the objective reality of a concept. For beauty is not a concept of the object, and the judgement of taste is not a cognitive judgement. All that it holds out for is that we are justified in presupposing that the same subjective conditions of judgement which we find in ourselves are universally present in every man, and further that we have rightly subsumed the given object under these conditions. The latter, no doubt, has to face unavoidable difficulties which do not affect the logical judgement. (For there the subsumption is under concepts; whereas in the aesthetic judgement it is under a mere sensible relation of the imagination and understanding mutually harmonizing with one another in the represented form of the object, in which case the subsumption may easily prove fallacious.) But this in no way detracts from the legitimacy of the claim of the judgement to count upon universal agreement—a claim which amounts to no more than this: the correctness of the principle of judging validly for every one upon subjective grounds. For as to the difficulty and uncertainty concerning the correctness of the subsumption under that principle, it no more casts a doubt upon the legitimacy of the claim to this validity on the part of an aesthetic judgement generally, or, therefore, upon the principle itself, than the mistakes (though. not so often or easily incurred), to which the subsumption of the logical judgement under its principle is similarly liable, can render the latter principle, which is objective, open to doubt. But if the question were: How is it possible to assume a priori that nature is a complex of objects of taste? the problem would then have reference to teleology, because it would have to be regarded as an end of nature belonging essentially to its concept that it should exhibit forms that are final for our judgement. But the correctness of this assumption may still be seriously questioned, while the actual existence of beauties of nature is patent to experience.

Sensation, as the real in perception, where referred to knowledge, is called organic sensation and its specific quality may be represented as completely communicable to others in a like mode, provided we assume that every one has a like sense to our own. This, however, is an absolutely inadmissible presupposition in the case of an organic sensation. Thus a person who is without a sense of smell cannot have a sensation of this kind communicated to him, and, even if be does not suffer from this deficiency, we still cannot be certain that he gets precisely the same sensation from a flower that we get from it. But still more divergent must we consider men to be in respect of the agreeableness or disagreeableness derived from the sensation of one and the same object of sense, and it is absolutely out of the question to require that pleasure in such objects should be acknowledged by every one. Pleasure of this kind, since it enters into the mind through sense—our role, therefore, being a passive one—may be called the pleasure of enjoyment.

On the other hand, delight in an action on the score of its moral character is not a pleasure of enjoyment, but one of self-asserting activity and in this coming up to the idea of what it is meant to be. But this feeling, which is called the moral feeling, requires concepts and is the presentation of a finality, not free, but according to law. It, therefore, admits of communication only through the instrumentality of reason and, if the pleasure is to be of the same kind for everyone, by means of very determinate practical concepts of reason.

The pleasure in the sublime in nature, as one of rationalizing contemplation, lays claim also to universal participation, but still it presupposes another feeling, that, namely, of our supersensible sphere, which feeling, however obscure it may be, has a moral foundation. But there is absolutely no authority for my presupposing that others will pay attention to this and take a delight in beholding the uncouth dimensions of nature (one that in truth cannot be ascribed to its aspect, which is terrifying rather than otherwise). Nevertheless, having regard to the fact that attention ought to be paid upon every appropriate occasion to this moral birthright, we may still demand that delight from everyone; but we can do so only through the moral law, which, in its turn, rests upon concepts of reason.

The pleasure in the beautiful is, on the other hand, neither a pleasure of enjoyment nor of an activity according to law, nor yet one of a rationalizing contemplation according to ideas, but rather of mere reflection. Without any guiding-line of end or principle, this pleasure attends the ordinary apprehension of an object by means of the imagination, as the faculty of intuition, but with a reference to the understanding as faculty of concepts, and through the operation of a process of judgement which bas also to be invoked in order to obtain the commonest experience. In the latter case, however, its functions are directed to perceiving an empirical objective concept, whereas in the former (in the aesthetic mode of estimating) merely to perceiving the adequacy of the representation for engaging both faculties of knowledge in their freedom in an harmonious (subjectively final) employment, i.e., to feeling with pleasure the subjective bearings of the representation. This pleasure must of necessity depend for every one upon the same conditions, seeing that they are the subjective conditions of the possibility of a cognition in general, and the proportion of these cognitive faculties which is requisite for taste is requisite also for ordinary sound understanding, the presence of which we are entitled to presuppose in every one. And, for this reason also, one who judges with taste (provided he does not make a mistake as to this consciousness, and does not take the matter for the form, or charm for beauty) can impute the subjective finality, i.e., his delight in the object, to everyone else and suppose his feeling universally communicable, and that, too, without the mediation of concepts.

The name of sense is often given to judgement where what attracts attention is not so much its reflective act as merely its result. So we speak of a sense of truth, of a sense of propriety, or of justice, etc. And yet, of course, we know, or at least ought well enough to know, that a sense cannot be the true abode of these concepts, not to speak of its being competent, even in the slightest degree, to pronounce universal rules. On the contrary, we recognize that a representation of this kind, be it of truth, propriety, beauty, or justice, could never enter our thoughts were we not able to raise ourselves above the level of the senses to that of higher faculties of cognition. Common human understanding which as mere sound (not yet cultivated) understanding, is looked upon as the least we can expect from any one claiming the name of man, has therefore the doubtful honour of having the name of common sense (sensus communis) bestowed upon it; and bestowed, too, in an acceptation of the word common (not merely in our own language, where it actually has a double meaning, but also in many others) which makes it amount to what is vulgar—what is everywhere to be met with—a quality which by no means confers credit or distinction upon its possessor.

However, by the name sensus communis is to be understood the idea of a public sense, i.e., a critical faculty which in its reflective act takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation of everyone else, in order, as it were, to weigh its judgement with the collective reason of mankind, and thereby avoid the illusion arising from subjective and personal conditions which could readily be taken for objective, an illusion that would exert a prejudicial influence upon its judgement. This is accomplished by weighing the judgement, not so much with actual, as rather with the merely possible, judgements of others, and by putting ourselves in the position of everyone else, as the result of a mere abstraction from the limitations which contingently affect our own estimate. This, in turn, is effected by so far as possible letting go the element of matter, i.e., sensation, in our general state of representative activity, and confining attention to the formal peculiarities of our representation or general state of representative activity. Now it may seem that this operation of reflection is too artificial to be attributed to the faculty which we call common sense. But this is an appearance due only to its expression in abstract formulae. In itself nothing is more natural than to abstract from charm and emotion where one is looking for a judgement intended to serve as a universal rule.

While the following maxims of common human understanding do not properly come in here as constituent parts of the critique of taste, they may still serve to elucidate its fundamental propositions. They are these: (I) to think for oneself; (2) to think from the standpoint of everyone else; (3) always to think consistently. The first is the maxim of unprejudiced thought, the second that of enlarged thought, the third that of consistent thought. The first is the maxim of a never-passive reason. To be given to such passivity, consequently to heteronomy of reason, is called prejudice; and the greatest of all prejudices is that of fancying nature not to be subject to rules which the understanding by virtue of its own essential laws lays at its basis, i.e., superstition. Emancipation from superstition is called enlightenment*; for although this term applies also to emancipation from prejudices generally, still superstition deserves pre-eminently (in sensu eminenti) to be called a prejudice. For the condition of blindness into which superstition puts one, which is as much as demands from one as an obligation, makes the need of being led by others, and consequently the passive state of the reason, pre-eminently conspicuous. As to the second maxim belonging to our habits of thought, we have quite got into the way of calling a man narrow (narrow, as opposed to being of enlarged mind) whose talents fall short of what is required for employment upon work of any magnitude (especially that involving intensity). But the question here is not one of the faculty of cognition, but of the mental habit of making a final use of it. This, however small the range and degree to which man’s natural endowments extend, still indicates a man of enlarged mind: if he detaches himself from the subjective personal conditions of his judgement, which cramp the minds of so many others, and reflects upon his own judgement from a universal standpoint (which he can only determine by shifting his ground to the standpoint of others). The third maxim—that, namely, of consistent thought—is the hardest of attainment, and is only attainable by the union of both the former, and after constant attention to them has made one at home in their observance. We may say: The first of these is the maxim of understanding, the second that of judgement, the third of that reason.

*We readily see that enlightenment, while easy, no doubt, in thesi, in hypothesis is difficult and slow of realization. For not to be passive with one’s reason, but always to be self-legislative, is doubtless quite an easy matter for a man who only desires to be adapted to his essential end, and does not seek to know what is beyond his understanding. But as the tendency in the latter direction is hardly avoidable, and others are always coming and promising with full assurance that they are able to satisfy one’s curiosity, it must be very difficult to preserve or restore in the mind (and particularly in the public mind) that merely negative attitude (which constitutes enlightenment proper).

I resume the thread of the discussion interrupted by the above digression, and I say that taste can with more justice be called a sensus communis than can sound understanding; and that the aesthetic, rather than the intellectual, judgement can bear the name of a public sense,* i.e., taking it that we are prepared to use the word sense of an effect that mere reflection has upon the mind; for then by sense we mean the feeling of pleasure. We might even define taste as the faculty of estimating what makes our feeling in a given representation universally communicable without the mediation of a concept.

*Taste may be designated a sensus communis aestheticus, common human understanding a sensus communis logicus.

The aptitude of men for communicating their thoughts requires, also, a relation between the imagination and the understanding, in order to connect intuitions with concepts, and concepts, in turn, with intuitions, which both unite in cognition. But there the agreement of both mental powers is according to law, and under the constraint of definite concepts. Only when the imagination in its freedom stirs the understanding, and the understanding apart from concepts puts the imagination into regular play, does the representation communicate itself not as thought, but as an internal feeling of a final state of the mind.

Taste is, therefore, the faculty of forming an a priori estimate of the communicability of the feeling that, without the mediation of a concept, are connected with a given representation.

Supposing, now, that we could assume that the mere universal communicability of our feeling must of itself carry with it an interest for us (an assumption, however, which we are not entitled to draw as a conclusion from the character of a merely reflective judgement), we should then be in a position to explain how the feeling in the judgement of taste comes to be exacted from everyone as a sort of duty.

Abundant proof bas been given above to show that the judgement of taste by which something is declared beautiful must have no interest as its determining ground. But it does not follow from this that, after it has once been posited as a pure aesthetic judgement, an interest cannot then enter into combination with it. This combination, however, can never be anything but indirect. Taste must, that is to say, first of all be represented in conjunction with something else, if the delight attending the mere reflection upon an object is to admit of having further conjoined with it a pleasure in the real existence of the object (as that wherein all interest consists). For the saying, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia, which is applied to cognitive judgements, holds good here in the case of aesthetic judgements. Now this something else may be something empirical, such as an inclination proper to the nature of human beings, or it may be something intellectual, as a property of the will whereby it admits of rational determination a priori. Both of these involve a delight in the existence of the object, and so can lay the foundation for an interest in what has already pleased of itself and without regard to any interest whatsoever.

The empirical interest in the beautiful exists only in society. And if we admit that the impulse to society is natural to mankind, and that the suitability for and the propensity towards it, i.e., sociability, is a property essential to the requirements of man as a creature intended for society, and one, therefore, that belongs to humanity, it is inevitable that we should also look upon taste in the light of a faculty for estimating whatever enables us to communicate even our feeling to every one else, and hence as a means of promoting that upon which the natural inclination of everyone is set.

With no one to take into account but himself, a man abandoned on a desert island would not adorn either himself or his hut, nor would he look for flowers, and still less plant them, with the object of providing himself with personal adornments. Only in society does it occur to him to be not merely a man, but a man refined after the manner of his kind (the beginning of civilization)—for that is the estimate formed of one who has the bent and turn for communicating his pleasure to others, and who is not quite satisfied with an object unless his feeling of delight in it can be shared in communion with others. Further, a regard to universal communicability is a thing which every one expects and requires from every one else, just as if it were part of an original compact dictated by humanity itself. And thus, no doubt, at first only charms, e.g., colours for painting oneself (roucou among the Caribs and cinnabar among the Iroquois), or flowers, sea-shells, beautifully coloured feathers, then, in the course of time, also beautiful forms (as in canoes, wearing-apparel, etc.) which convey no gratification, i.e., delight of enjoyment, become of moment in society and attract a considerable interest. Eventually, when civilization has reached its height it makes this work of communication almost the main business of refined inclination, and the entire value of sensations is placed in the degree to which they permit of universal communication. At this stage, then, even where the pleasure which each one has in an object is but insignificant and possesses of itself no conspicuous interest, still the idea of its universal communicability almost indefinitely augments its value.

This interest, indirectly attached to the beautiful by the inclination towards society, and, consequently, empirical, is, however, of no importance for us here. For that to which we have alone to look is what can have a bearing a priori, even though indirect, upon the judgement of taste. For, if even in this form an associated interest should betray itself, taste would then reveal a transition on the part of our critical faculty. from the enjoyment of sense to the moral feeling. This would not merely mean that we should be supplied with a more effectual guide for the final employment of taste, but taste would further be presented as a link in the chain of the human faculties a priori upon which all legislation depend. This much may certainly be said of the empirical interest in objects of taste, and in taste itself, that as taste thus pays homage to inclination, however refined, such interest will nevertheless readily fuse also with all inclinations and passions, which in society attain to their greatest variety and highest degree, and the interest in the beautiful, if this is made its ground, can but afford a very ambiguous transition from the agreeable to the good. We have reason, however, to inquire whether this transition may not still in some way be furthered by means of taste when taken in its purity.

It has been with the best intentions that those who love to see in the ultimate end of humanity, namely the morally good, the goal of all activities to which men are impelled by the inner bent of their nature, have regarded it as a mark of a good moral character to take an interest in the beautiful generally. But they have, not without reason, been contradicted, by others, who appeal to the fact of experience, that virtuosi in matters of taste being not alone often, but one might say as a general rule, vain, capricious, and addicted to injurious passions, could perhaps more rarely than others lay claim to any pre-eminent attachment to moral principles. And so it would seem, not only that the feeling for the beautiful is specifically different from the moral feeling (which as a matter of fact is the case), but also that the interest which we may combine with it will hardly consort with the moral, and certainly not on grounds of inner affinity.

Now I willingly admit that the interest in the beautiful of art (including under this heading the artificial use of natural beauties for personal adornment, and so from vanity) gives no evidence at all of a habit of mind attached to the morally good, or even inclined that way. But, on the other hand, I do maintain that to take an immediate interest in the beauty of nature (not merely to have taste in estimating it) is always a mark of a good soul; and that, where this interest is habitual, it is at least indicative of a temper of mind favourable to the moral feeling that it should readily associate itself with the contemplation of nature. It must, however, be borne in mind that I mean to refer strictly to the beautiful forms of nature, and to put to one side the charms which she is wont so lavishly to combine with them; because, though the interest in these is no doubt immediate, it is nevertheless empirical.

One who alone (and without any intention of communicating his observations to others) regards the beautiful form of a wild flower, a bird, an insect, or the like, out of admiration and love of them, and being loath to let them escape him in nature, even at the risk of some misadventure to himself—so far from there being any prospect of advantage to him—such a one takes an immediate, and in fact intellectual, interest in the beauty of nature. This means that he is not alone pleased with nature’s product in respect of its form, but is also pleased at its existence, and is so without any charm of sense having a share in the matter, or without his associating with it any end whatsoever.

In this connection, however, it is of note that were we to play a trick on our lover of the beautiful, and plant in the ground artificial flowers (which can be made so as to look just like natural ones), and perch artfully carved birds on the branches of trees, and he were to find out how he had been taken in, the immediate interest which these things previously had for him would at once vanish—though, perhaps, a different interest might intervene in its stead, that, namely, of vanity in decorating his room with them for the eyes of others. The fact is that our intuition and reflection must have as their concomitant the thought that the beauty in question is nature’s handiwork; and this is the sole basis of the immediate interest that is taken in it. Failing this, we are either left with a bare judgement of taste void of all interest whatever, or else only with one that is combined with an interest that is mediate, involving, namely, a reference to society; which latter affords no reliable indication of morally good habits of thought.

The superiority which natural beauty has over that of art, even where it is excelled by the latter in point of form, in yet being alone able to awaken an immediate interest, accords with the refined and well-grounded habits of thought of all men who have cultivated their moral feeling. If a man with taste enough to judge of works of fine art with the greatest correctness and refinement readily quits the room in which he meets with those beauties that minister to vanity or, at least, social joys, and betakes himself to the beautiful in nature, so that he may there find as it were a feast for his soul in a train of thought which he can never completely evolve, we will then regard this his choice even with veneration, and give him credit for a beautiful soul, to which no connoisseur or art collector can lay claim on the score of the interest which his objects have for him. Here, now, are two kinds of objects which in the judgement of mere taste could scarcely contend with one another for a superiority. What then, is the distinction that makes us hold them in such different esteem?

We have a faculty of judgement which is merely aesthetic—a faculty of judging of forms without the aid of concepts, and of finding, in the mere estimate of them, a delight that we at the same time make into a rule for every one, without this judgement being founded on an interest, or yet producing one. On the other hand, we have also a faculty of intellectual judgement for the mere forms of practical maxims (so far as they are of themselves qualified for universal legislation)—a faculty of determining an a priori delight, which we make into a law for everyone, without our judgement being founded on any interest, though here it produces one. The pleasure or displeasure in the former judgement is called that of taste; the latter is called that of the moral feeling.

But, now, reason is further interested in ideas (for which in our moral feeling it brings about an immediate interest), having also objective reality. That is to say, it is of interest to reason that nature should at least show a trace or give a hint that it contains in itself some ground or other for assuming a uniform accordance of its products with our wholly disinterested delight (a delight which we cognize—a priori as a law for every one without being able to ground it upon proofs). That being so, reason must take an interest in every manifestation on the part of nature of some such accordance. Hence the mind cannot reflect on the beauty of nature without at the same time finding its interest engaged. But this interest is akin to the moral. One, then, who takes such an interest in the beautiful in nature can only do so in so far as he has previously set his interest deep in the foundations of the morally good. On these grounds we have reason for presuming the presence of at least the germ of a good moral disposition in the case of a man to whom the beauty of nature is a matter of immediate interest.

It will be said that this interpretation of aesthetic judgements on the basis of kinship with our moral feeling has far too studied an appearance to be accepted as the true construction of the cypher in which nature speaks to us figuratively in its beautiful forms. But, first of all, this immediate interest in the beauty of nature is not in fact common. It is peculiar to those whose habits of thought are already trained to the good or else are eminently susceptible of such training; and under the circumstances the analogy in which the pure judgement of taste that, without relying upon any interest, gives us a feeling of delight, and at the same time represents it a priori as proper to mankind in general, stands to the moral judgement that does just the same from concepts, is one which, without any clear, subtle, and deliberate reflection, conduces to a like immediate interest being taken in the objects of the former judgement as in those of the latter—with this one difference, that the interest in the first case is free, while in the latter it is one founded on objective laws. In addition to this, there is our admiration of Nature, which in her beautiful products displays herself as art, not as mere matter of chance, but, as it were, designedly, according to a law-directed arrangement, and as finality apart from any end. As we never meet with such an end outside ourselves, we naturally look for it in ourselves, and, in fact, in that which constitutes the ultimate end of our existence—the moral side of our being. (The inquiry into the ground of the possibility of such a natural finality will, however, first come under discussion in the Teleology.)

The fact that the delight in beautiful art does not, in the pure judgement of taste, involve an immediate interest, as does that in beautiful nature, may be readily explained. For the former is either such an imitation of the latter as goes the length of deceiving us, in which case it acts upon us in the character of a natural beauty, which we take it to be; or else it is an intentional art obviously directed to our delight. In the latter case, however, the delight in the product would, it is true, be brought about immediately by taste, but there would be nothing but a mediate interest in the cause that lay beneath—an interest, namely, in an art only capable of interesting by its end, and never in itself. It will, perhaps, be said that this is also the case where an object of nature only interests by its beauty so far as a moral idea is brought into partnership therewith. But it is not the object that is of immediate interest, but rather the inherent character of the beauty qualifying it for such a partnership—a character, therefore, that belongs to the very essence of beauty.

The charms in natural beauty, which are to be found blended, as it were, so frequently with beauty of form, belong either to the modifications of light (in colouring) or of sound (in tones). For these are the only sensations which permit not merely of a feeling of the senses, but also of reflection upon the form of these modifications of sense, and so embody as it were a language in which nature speaks to us and which has the semblance of a higher meaning. Thus the white colour of the lily seems to dispose the mind to ideas of innocence, and the other seven colours, following the series from the red to the violet, similarly to ideas of (1) sublimity, (2) courage, (3) candour, (4) amiability, (5) modesty, (6) constancy, (7) tenderness. The bird’s song tells of joyousness and contentment with its existence. At least so we interpret nature—whether such be its purpose or not. But it is the indispensable requisite of the interest which we here take in beauty, that the beauty should be that of nature, and it vanishes completely as soon as we are conscious of having been deceived, and that it is only the work of art—so completely that even taste can then no longer find in it anything beautiful nor sight anything attractive. What do poets set more store on than the nightingale’s bewitching and beautiful note, in a lonely thicket on a still summer evening by the soft light of the moon? And yet we have instances of how, where no such songster was to be found, a jovial host has played a trick on the guests with him on a visit to enjoy the country air, and has done so to their huge satisfaction, by biding in a thicket a rogue of a youth who (with a reed or rush in his mouth) knew how to reproduce this note so as to hit off nature to perfection. But the instant one realizes that it is all a fraud no one will long endure listening to this song that before was regarded as so attractive. And it is just the same with the song of any other bird. It must be nature, or be mistaken by us for nature, to enable us to take an immediate interest in the beautiful as such; and this is all the more so if we can even call upon others to take a similar interest. And such a demand we do in fact make, since we regard as coarse and low the habits of thought of those who have no feeling for beautiful nature (for this is the word we use for susceptibility to an interest in the contemplation of beautiful nature), and who devote themselves to the mere enjoyments of sense found in eating and drinking.