Physiological aesthetics Book

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1877 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII. THE INTERVENTION OF THE INTELLECT. 1. General Emotional Phenomena of the Intellect. The pleasures and pains which we have hitherto considered are those aroused by normal or excessive function in the peripheral end-organs of nerves, or in the fibres and central endorgans immediately connected with them. But there is a higher class of nervous structures in the human system, whose business it is to correlate and co-ordinate the energies so received, and, where necessary, to liberate--immediately or ultimately--in accordance with the intelligence conveyed by these impressions, new energies which re-act upon the external world in the manner demanded by the circumstances of the case. The functions of such higher co-ordinating structures are known on their subjective side by the name of Intellect. Like all other portions of the sentient system the organs of the Intellect are liable to normal and moderate exercise, subjectively cognized as pleasurable, or to abnormal and excessive exercise, subjectively cognized as painful. It was necessary in the last chapter to touch slightly upon a few of these phenomena, because the central and peripheral organ3 of sight are more closely connected with intelligence, genetically and actually, than any others. But we shall have to enter a little more fully here into the pleasures and pains of the Intellect, regarded as a separate element of iEsthetic Feeling. And first, in accordance with our Usual plan, we will glance briefly at those emotional phenomena of Intellect which do not attain the aesthetic level. Acutely painful feelings of intellectual exercise are rare or o unknown, as might indeed be expected from the peculiarly secluded position of the organs concerned, which almost pre-...