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Comparative Aesthetics
119 appear. Rationalistic, preplanned designs, whether as creator, appreciator, or even prolonged, meticulous, detailed execution, owner of an art work, whether utilitarian and perpetual revision and retouching, re- or fine, or whether minute or magnificent, tard, when they do not extinguish, the Zen involves as an essential aspect some enspirit. Voluntaristic expression of individ- joyment of an end in itself. ual willfulness, whether for "success" or from egotistical desirousness, tends to de- The University of New Mexico stroy something of the demure willingness with which a Zen artist submits himself to the opportunities presented to him.
See Archie J. Bahm, Philosophy of the Buddha CONCLUSION
(London, 1958; New York, 1959, 1962).
"Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea (New York, Despite diversity, not merely in varieties 1906, Tokyo, Rutland, 1956, 1958), p. 4.
• Dewit H. Parker, Human Values (New York, of art forms, histories of art and of aes
1931), p. 24. thetic theories but also in the dominating Robert Louis Stevenson, El Dorado. metaphysical ideals and their differing im- 5"Beauty is pleasure objectified.” George Santaplications for aesthetics, common elements yana, The Sense of Beauty (New York, 1896), p. running through all particular views can be 52.
See P. T. Raju, "The Principle of Fourfound. Although the problem of finding Cornered Negation in Indian Philosophy," Review such common elements presents greater duithe common Shements thresents
of Metaphysics, VII (1954), 649-713.
enrer difficulty when one seeks through all three Bhagavad Gita, tr. Archie J. Bahm, Ch. IX, civilizations than when one is content to Sloka 9. In press.
In many ways, i.e., opposing Spirit versus study only one civilization or some portion
Matter, Justice versus Grace, as well as Reason of it, when a theory drawn from such
versus Will. broader bases has been achieved, it should See my edition: Tao Teh King, or Book about prove to be sounder, more adequate, and Nature and Intelligence (New York, 1958). more enduring. Too often aestheticians
19 Ibid., p. 18.
11 Ibid., pp. 51-52. working within the confines of a single
Op. cit., p. 44. culture waste their genius in drawing con- 1 Lin Yutang, My Country and My People clusions, unaware that some principles oc- (New York, 1935, 1939), pp. 287, 288. cur as ideals peculiar to that culture rather
" See Plate VIII of "The Ten Cowherding than as universal among mankind. Who
Pictures" in D. T. Suzuki's Essays in Zen Bud
dhism (New York, 1949), p. 371. ever proposes an aesthetic theory which
15 West: "iron curtain"; India: "neutralism"; does not apply equally well within the per- China: first on one side and then on the other, spectives of each culture has not yet without ever abandoning either side completely. reached a finally satisfactory view.
E.g., with some Chinese on the mainland (yang)
and some on Formosa (yin), those on Formosa My conclusion is, as I stated at the be
expect to return to domination of the mainland, ginning: Aesthetic experience consists in despite control of the mainland by a Marxist (i.e., intuition of intrinsic value. Each aesthetic Western "either-or, but-not-both") philosophy. experience, no matter how simple or com- For further exposition of the philosophy of plex, static or dynamic, reasonable or un
Confucius, see The World's Living Religions (New reasonable, exciting or satisfying, nor
17 Ibid., pp. 215-216. See further, pp. 206-221, whether in life or in any of the arts, especially pp. 215-218, for details.
