ABSTRACT

Sociological aesthetics, brilliantly defended by a group of French writers, is a branch of the contemporary sociological school whose tendency is to see only social values in human facts. The judgment of morality and the judgment of artistic beauty are social values. The contemporaries of Phidias required the sculptor to place the accent on the symmetry and the plastic regularity of the human body. These works are beautiful because they obey the social injunctions of the time. Nothing is more untenable. Homer, Dante, Moliere, La Fontaine, Racine, Corneille, Beethoven, Shakespeare are of all time; they will continue to command the admiration of passing generations because of the indelible imprint of genius by which their works are marked. The beauty of the great classics is not, therefore, comparable to a financial value which falls or rises according as it loses or recovers the favor of the capitalists.