(LARGE PRINT EDITION) 1910. Aesthetic theory is a branch of philosophy, and exists for the sake of knowledge and not as a guide to practice. The present work is, therefore, primarily addressed to those who may find a philosophical interest in understanding the place and value of beauty in the system of human life, as conceived by leading thinkers in different periods of the world's history. Contents: Proposed Treatment, and Its Connection with the Definition of Beauty; The Creation of a Poetic World, and Its First Encounter with Reflection; The Fundamental Outlines of Greek Theory Concerning the Beautiful; Signs of Progress in Greek Theory Concerning the Beautiful; Alexandrian and Greco-Roman Culture to the Reign of Constantine the Great; Some Traces of the Continuity of the Aesthetic Consciousness Throughout the Middle Ages; A Comparison of Dante and Shakespeare in Respect of Some Formal Characteristics; The Problem of Modern Aesthetic Philosophy; The Data of Modern Aesthetic Philosophy; Kant-The Problem Brought to a Focus; The First Steps of a Concrete Synthesis-Schiller and Goethe; Objective Idealism-Schelling and Hegel; Exact Aesthetic in Germany; The Methodical Completion of Objective Idealism; and Beginnings of a Theoretical Reunion of Content and Expression.