'ESTHETICS, EXPERIMENTAL. Experiment made its way into the field of :esthetics from psychology on the one side and from philosophy and mathematics on the other. About the mid dle of the last century, while experiment was young in psychology, a dispute arose among theoretical writers concerning the :esthetic val ue of simple space-forms. A. Zeising, professor of philosophy in lunieh, urged that formal beauty demands a simple proportionality; while others saw, in both nature and art, a prefer ence for equality, balance, or the relations given by the vibration ratios of consonant musical intervals, or the heptagon, or the square. Zeising carried out his theory most methodically of all. He meant by proportionality the division of an object in such a way that the smaller part, the minor, stands to the greater, the major, as the greater to the whole. This division is called the Golden Section. Zeising made the most extravagant claims for the importance of his law. lle maintained that it furnished the pattern for the human body, the structure of plants, the forms of crystals. the arrangement of planetary systems; and that it determined the proportions of buildings, sculptures, and paintings.
It occurred to G. T. Fechner (q.v.) to test the claims of Zeising and his opponents. in so far as :esthetic:11 preference was concerned, by observing series of divided lines and of simple forms—reetang,les, ellipses, and crosses—under experimental conditions. Ile made use of a large number of persons, asking each to state his pref erence within each series. Fechner also per formed an important service in discriminating between the assoeiational factors in the :esthetic judgment (those furnished by the use, purpose, rareness of objects), and the direct effect pro duced upon the feelings by the form or the color or the rhythm itself. It is to this latter non-as sociational element that experiment has directed its attention. It offers the advantages of simple and constant conditions and of a direct appeal to the undivided judgment. It has confined it self thus far to the elements which are common to all individuals. Within thin limited field it may fairly be said to have been successful.