Scope of Æsthetic
Æsthetic experience, then, is the experience which is presupposed by all art but does not necessarily—does, in fact, quite exceptionally—result in art: and this is the experience which, as a feature of life as a whole, and not of any specialised life, forms the field of the æsthetic science. (The taking in of a work of art is, of course, an æsthetic experience; but what is then taken in is different from all other æsthetic experience: and this term will, therefore, be most conveniently used as excluding artistic experience.) Now this æsthetic science is often held to be the study of that peculiar reaction in us to the events of inner and outer life which is called the sense of beauty. But we must decline to allow our terms of reference to be limited beforehand. Beauty occurs, of course, both in art and nature: both as the result of deliberate intention and of casual occurrence. And this is the most obvious link between art and æsthetic. But just now we are considering the æsthetic and inevitable experience of everybody as the necessary preliminary of the exceptional and deliberate activity of the artist. No doubt the most important thing about æsthetic experience is the fact that beauty can occur in it. But as soon as we begin to investigate beauty we come upon ugliness, and at once our enquiry widens. New questions arise: Is ugliness the mere absence of beauty? We must not assume that: any more than in ethics we ought to assume that a bad deed is simply one that is not good. Then is ugliness a sort of active opposite to beauty? It may be; but we cannot begin to decide until we are sure, first, what sort of experience it is in which both beauty and ugliness can occur? Second, how do they occur?
The Matter of Æsthetic
As to the kind of experience in which they occur, the shortest way round that question is by way of art. For however art may specialise, it derives its matter solely from æsthetic experience; and has the advantage of presenting that pure, and therefore in a peculiarly recognisable form. Let me for a moment attend to the art of literature. How could we—not define it—but just roughly describe it? We might call it, the art of expressing oneself in words. Well, that is what I am doing now. Am I, therefore, creating a work of art? Assuredly not. And note the ambiguity in the word "art." For in that phrase—"the art of expressing oneself in words"—the word "art" means no more than it does in "the art of household management." It means simply a definitely adjusted skill. But there is no ambiguity when we speak of a work of art. How then must we qualify that meaning of "a definitely adjested skill" in order to arrive at the sense of a work of art? At first it would seem to be in a merely negative fashion. Why am I not now creating a work of art, although I am expressing myself in words? I think everyone would agree, that it is because I am using expression for an ulterior purpose. The success I hope to achieve is more than the success of merely achieving expression. I am arguing: I am trying to convince you. Whether I succeed or fail does not depend solely on my power of expression; it depends also on the value of my theory. My expression is not now in the least for its own sake, but altogether for the sake of making my theory penetrate your minds and get to work there. And you are judging my power of expression not in itself, not for its own sake, but for the sake of something it conveys beyond itself, the operation of a train of reasoning: you judge it according as it effects a purpose outside itself, you judge it according as it enables you to judge my argument. That is the sole value of the expression I am now using: that it is the means by which you value something else.