Esthetics

Esthetics, a term of somewhat vague meaning, owing to the different significations with which it has been applied. Kant and his followers understood by it the science which treats of perception by the senses, thus keeping close to the original Greek derivation. In 1750 the German philosopher Baumgarten limited it to denote the science of the Beautiful, and this is now its commonly accepted meaning. Again, within the last ten years the words aesthetic, aesthete, etc., have been used in exclusive connection with a certain type of "sentimental archaism."