Note 207 — Chapter X · THE ÆSTHETIC SENTIMENT.

Weismann, Essais sur l’hérédité (French ed., p. 475); Wallace, Darwinism, chap. xv. Before these, Schneider (Freud und Leid, pp. 28, 29), an adherent of the English theory of the inherent uselessness of the æsthetic activity, has tried to connect it with the conservation of the individual and the species by an extremely bold and problematical hypothesis resting on heredity. If we experience different feelings before a stormy sea, or a calm, blue lake, covered with boats, or a vast plain, or snow-covered mountains, “it is because our feelings are those of primitive man, when he lived really in the midst of nature and had to wrest his daily bread from it. Through countless generations our ancestors, on finishing their daily task, in the evening have thought with satisfaction of the work accomplished; it was in this frame of mind that they looked on the approach of evening and the sunset. Why does a landscape representing it produce on us an impression of repose and peace? We have no other answer than this: for countless generations past the evening sky has been associated with the consciousness of work finished and a feeling of rest and satisfaction.” Apart from its extreme flimsiness, this hypothesis would not be applicable to all the arts.