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Having considered the significance of the work of art as a product of artistic activity in a previous paper, the author now proceeds to consider the significance of the work of art as a source of æsthetic experience. For this purpose the so-called 'found objects' of the Surrealist are chosen as the starting-point of investigation. These 'found objects' are objects in which the Surrealist discovers a hidden symbolic significance dependent on the fact that they represent for him a union between the outer world of reality and the inner world of wish-fulfilment. Such a discovery is accompanied by an æsthetic experience, which leads the discoverer to isolate and preserve the symbolically significant object and so to effect a transition from the rôle of beholder to that of artist. In conformity with this transition, the 'found object' itself must be regarded as just a work of art and no more. There are reasons for concluding (1) that the historical origin of art is to be traced to the discovery of 'found objects' by prehistoric man, who subsequently made these the nuclei of works of art in the accepted sense, (2) that even the most developed forms of artistic creation merely represent an elaboration of the process whereby symbolically significant objects are discovered and perpetuated.
When we consider the æsthetic experience afforded by a 'found object' in isolation from the urge to perpetuate it as a work of art, we seem justified in concluding that oesthetic experience is a specific emotional reaction occurring in the beholder when he discovers an object which functions