Universal Harmony Research Articles

The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds

ion, not very consistent with the employment which ought to occupy and the habits which ought to prevail in a practical artist." 56 Away from his easel, Reynolds was habitually sio deferential toward others that it is easy to speak slightingly of the Discourses. Philosophers of his own time, however, were apt to praise them. Beattie quoted at length from two of the addresses, and Dugald Stewart cited with commendation several of the Il Quoted from the biography by Sir William Forbes, p. 358. " Diacourses, XIII, p. 195. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.117 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:35:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms DISCOURSES OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS 365 painter's theories. These were not essentially new to the author. They were the broad, well-established ideas that philosophy and criticism then stressed. Reynolds's first interest in them was due to his friends in London, but he handled them as his own. The Discourses express the convictions of a broad and philosophic mind. Inconsistencies in Reynolds's statements can easily be detected; for the first paper in the Idler appeared in, 1759, and the last address was delivered in 1790. Moreover, the artist did not always practise what he preached. Nevertheless, there is a general uniformity in his teaching.57 Ile insists ever on obedience to the " higher tribunal [reason], to which those great masters themselves must submit, and to which indeed every excellence in art must be ultimately referred." The painter may resort to the various devices known to dramatists and poets contrast, novelty, simplicity, repose. But he must remember that no trick can be safely carried to excess, and that reason must dominate all. This reason prescribes to the painter an ideal beauty. " The beauty of which we are in quest is general and intellectual; it is an idea that subsists only in the mind;, the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed it; it is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which he is always labouring to impart, and which he dies at last without imparting." The same holds of other arts. Their first aim may be to gratify the senses; but no art can rest content there. They are forced on to " the idea of general beauty and the contemplation of general truth." Art deals with matter higher than can be found in actual nature, and to that level the mind must be raised. The arts, so conceived and so executed, will " raise the thoughts and extend the views of the spectator." Thus 'f Ibid., vm, p. 119; rx, pp. 143-144. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.117 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:35:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 366 ELBERT N. S. THOMPSON the effects of art "may extend themselves imperceptibly into public benefits, and be among the means of bestowing on whole nations refinement of taste; which, if it does not lead directly to purity of manners, obviates at least their greatest depravation, by disentangling the mind from appetite, and conducting the thoughts through successive stages of excellence, till that contemplation of universal rectitude and harmony which began by Taste, may, as it is exalted and refined, conclude in Virtue." ELBEIT N. S. THOMPSON. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.117 on Sun, 23 Oct 2016 04:35:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Teaching of Ernst Troeltsch of Heidelberg

In these days of world-wide intercommunication, the hope of unity and demand for it among men are very strong, so strong that the optimistically inclined often think they already see the rosy hues of a dawn heralding the day of universal harmony. Perhaps these good people are right; but in no respect do modifying considerations appear more clearly than in matters of religion and religious thought. In these things racial as well as individual differences exist; and even between nations so near akin as Germany and the United States mutual understanding seems hard to attain. No doubt the average religious man in America looks upon Germany as a hot-bed of religious radicalism, opposed to all those principles of piety which good men wish to see preserved. There is ground for this opinion, in that German theologians have led the way in the application of the critical method to the facts of religion, and it is often still true, though far less than a few decades ago, that the theories advanced contain poison for the springs of pure religion. But this is not the whole of the picture. Besides the forces of stanch conservatism, which are as strong and as active in Germany as elsewhere, there exists also there at present a vigorous and increasing body of men, as much interested in religion as any conservatives, who are attempting to mediate the great truths of religion to the modern man, whose views are no longer in agreement with orthodoxy. To some these teachers may seem radical, but to those who realize that the great crux is the religious life itself and not this or that particular formulation of it, they convey a distinct impression of constructive renewal—renewal, because they reckon with the knowledge and forces of the new day; constructive, because they build upon and further the knowledge which the past has bequeathed and the forces to which man has ever turned for help and strength.Such a man is Ernst Troeltsch of Heidelberg, too little known on this side of the Atlantic, but a man to be reckoned with in the future here, as he already is in his own land. That a new school will form itself about him is unlikely; his teaching is too individualistic for that. But many a student is attracted by his powerful reasoning, fearlessly critical of all the prevailing tendencies—orthodox, Ritschlian, Hegelian, pragmatic—and gets from him a deeper hold on the realities of the spiritual life and a stronger faith in Christianity as the permanent expression of that life. It is this broad aspect of Troeltsch's teaching which will interest us here rather than his views concerning the history of Protestant Christianity, which is his special field.