The æsthetic fact has in short been considered both in itself and in its relations with the other spiritual activities, with the feelings of pleasure and pain, with what are called physical facts, with memory and with historical treatment. It has passed before us as _subject_ until it became _object,_ that is to say, from the moment of _its birth_ until it becomes gradually changed for the spirit into _subject-matter of history._
Our treatise may appear to be somewhat meagre when externally compared with the great volumes usually dedicated to Æsthetic. But it will not seem so when we perceive that those volumes are nine-tenths full of matter that is not pertinent, such as definitions, psychological or metaphysical, of pseudo-æsthetic concepts (the sublime, the comic, the tragic, the humorous, etc.), or of the exposition of the supposed Zoology, Botany and Mineralogy of Æsthetic, and of universal history æsthetically judged; that the whole history of concrete art and literature has also been dragged into those Æsthetics and generally mangled, and that they contain judgements upon Homer and Dante, Ariosto and Shakespeare, Beethoven and Rossini, Michæl Angelo and Raphæl. When all this has been deducted from them, we flatter ourselves that our treatise will no longer be held to be too meagre, but, on the contrary, far richer than ordinary treatises, which either omit altogether, or hardly touch at all, the greater part of the difficult problems proper to Æsthetic which we have felt it to be our duty to study.
[Sidenote: _Identity of linguistic and Æsthetic._]
But although Æsthetic as science of expression has been studied by us in its every aspect, it remains to justify the sub-title which we have added to the title of our book, _General Linguistic,_ to state and make clear the thesis that the science of art and that of language, Æsthetic and Linguistic, conceived as true sciences, are not two distinct things, but one thing only. Not that there is a special Linguistic; but the much-sought-for science of language, general Linguistic, _in so far as what it contains is reducible to philosophy,_ is nothing but Æsthetic. Whoever studies general Linguistic, that is to say, philosophical Linguistic, studies æsthetic problems, and _vice versa. Philosophy of language and philosophy of art are the same thing._