ately at the close. It is evident that in some sense the creative artist (and to a lesser degree the individual appreciatively enjoying his work) is facing a definitely reflective problem, that of the social objectification of a feeling individually prized. He who successfully grasps the requirements of such objectification implies æsthetic judgments that are definitely superior to those ventured by less successful minds, as making possible a larger attainment of the result that in the aesthetic enterprise is always sought. But what is the standard that determines this kind of success? How can we state in clear and precise form the nature of that beauty whose reality and objectivity we presuppose in every asthetic experience, or in just what way, through a given medium, the fullest appreciative response may be won?

It may well be, of course, that it is impossible and undesirable to reduce the æsthetic consciousness entirely to a mechanical technique, that if such analysis were fully accomplished something uniquely valuable in this type of experience would have slipped away. Such a question the present chapter does not intend to prejudge. In fact, the reader will easily see that if the comments in chapter fourteen on the essential nature of valuation are on the right track, it would have to be admitted in general that this is the case. None the less it holds true that at every point in the experience of beauty where reflection enters, its function is precisely to establish and apply a standard, grasped as clearly and formulated for guidance as definitely as the nature of the case permits. The problem of right thinking in such matters is then no unreal problem. Where are the pioneers of logic who can begin the conquest of the field of artistic creation and appreciation?

EXERCISES.-A. Compare the portrayals of Venice offered by Monet and by Canale from almost the same spatial standpoint. What are the aesthetic assumptions of each?

B. Read Winston Churchill's The Inside of the Cup in comparison with Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry. Abstract as fully as you can from the sociological problems involved, and consider the books purely in terms of their æsthetic appeal. On just what does the latter rest in each case?

C. Play in close succession the familiar wedding marches of Wagner and of Mendelssohn. What differences significant for logic do you note?

How far are they characteristic of differences between the two composers as revealed in other productions?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BELL, CLIVE., What is Art?

A lively and readable account, partly historical, of the relation of art to the problems of life.

CARRITT, E. F., The Theory of Beauty.

A brief history of æsthetic theory, not too technical in character. Parker, DeWitT, H., The Principles of Esthetics.

One of the best general analyses, in small compass, of the aesthetic experience.

SANTAYANA, G., The Sense of Beauty.

A philosophical discussion of the nature of æsthetic feeling. SANTAYANA, G., Reason in Art.

Treats of the significance of art in the whole of life and experience. The author's inimitable style is more in evidence here than in the earlier book.

STREIN, LEO, The A B C of Esthetics.

Good on the definition of æsthetic as contrasted with other types of experience.

CHAPTER TWENTY

HOW SHALL WE THINK IN RELIGION?

IN ALL the forms of religion that are of immediate concern The place to a reflective thinker we have an institution that promises of evaluto those who follow its prescriptions a way of salvation. What ation in religious does salvation mean? For our present purpose it is sufficient thinking

to note that whatever else it means it includes the realization of one's ultimate at-homeness in the universe. It means a mode of life in which evil is transcended, so that the panorama of events, viewed as a single whole, presents itself as neither evil nor indifferent but good. To believe in God is, whatever else it involves, to have faith in a being whose existence is felt somehow to guarantee the final supremacy of good in the believer's experience. The existence of the world is justified as a drama which in the end is a divine comedy, not a tragedy; its net outcome is a value positive, inclusive, and deep. The universe, when seen through and through, harmonizes with our profounder valuations. As St. Paul remarks, "To those that love God all things work together for good"-in other words, God is the being whom to know and to love brings it about that all things which enter our experience shall be seen as means to an ultimate good. That religious thinking involves a fundamental element of evaluation is accordingly clearly evident.

sidera

Before, however, we embark upon the larger problems sug- Certain gested by this fact, a few preliminary discussions will not be prelimiout of place. Many who first take up the study of logic come nary confrom religious environments in which certain attitudes are apt tionsto prevail such as logicians of all schools would so unanimously belief in condemn that it seems silly not to recognize the fact and dis- miracles cuss these attitudes with complete frankness, attempting to show

Hume's analysis

of such beliefs

clearly their inconsistency with the central assumptions of all careful, critical thinking. Accordingly, let us analyze the thinking revealed in certain beliefs which still exert widespread popular influence, beginning with the belief in miracles. For it is evident that many people believe quite firmly in the reality of occasional divine interferences with the ordinary course of events, providentially bringing about results that would not otherwise

occur.

If we examine what goes on usually in our thinking when something extraordinary occurs in our experience, we find that we tend to assume that the occurrence has regular causes if we only knew how to locate them. When a friend who has been sick nigh to death suddenly and unexpectedly begins to improve, we suppose that changes in the physiological conditions adequate to account for the sudden improvement had taken place even before we saw overt evidence of them; and if our wish, on the morning of a long planned outing, that the day be clear is followed immediately by the dispersion of the clouds, we do not imagine that our wish replaced or affected the atmospheric conditions which normally produce fair weather. Now since we mean by a miracle (or ought to, if the term is to be given a consistent and important significance) a definite exception to or violation of such regular causal relationships, why should we ever be tempted to suppose its reality, and are there ever any conditions under which belief in its reality is legitimate?

The essential features of our answer to these questions are contained in the discussions of the first part of the present volume-it happens, however, that they are stated so forcibly in David Hume's famous essay On Miracles that we may appropriately turn to it for guidance. The former, or psychological, question as to the explanation of the belief in miracles, Hume answers in substance as follows. Since unusual events that happen in our own experience we do not ordinarily suppose to be miraculous, but view as instances of some regular causal law, however difficult to discover, it is evident that it is on the support of the testimony of others that we believe in the real occurrence of those miracles which we do accept, this testimony