Editorial note — APPENDIX

The gap of five hundred years, which occurred between the artistic-philosophic observations of Plato and Aristotle and those of Plotinus, may indeed appear striking, but one cannot exactly say that in this interval of time there was absolutely no mention of esthetic matters; or even that a complete lack of correspondence exists between the art-views of the last-named philosopher and that of the former. It is true that the science founded by Aristotle was not in any way advanced thereby; but, for all that, during this interval a certain interest in esthetic questions still appears. But after Plotinus (the few philosophers near him in time, such as Longinus, Augustinus and so forth, hardly come into question as we have seen, and moreover they adhere to him in their views) there passed not five, but fifteen centuries in which there is no indication of any sort of scientific interest for the world of the beautiful and of art.

These one-and-a-half-thousand years, within which the world-spirit worked out a completely new foundation of life, are lost for esthetics as regards any further construction of this science.