A bush has many things belonging to it. These, as I have said, are forms of the bush. The bush also has many ways of being seen. These also are forms, but this kind of form accents the being-seen instead of the being possibilities of the bush.
Alvin Hart can see a bush in many ways. All these, once looked on as possibly in the mind of Alvin Hart, are aspects of the bush. A bush can be seen by Alvin as being in his way on certain occasions. This is the being-in-the-way-of-someone aspect of the bush. And Alvin Hart sees the bush as dark: of course many others besides Alvin can see a bush in this way. This is the dark aspect of the bush.
Everything has an indefinite number of aspects. Wherever a thing has a relation, there is an aspect, too—made by the relation, or equivalent to the relation. People, like other things, have aspects.
There is George Washington. He has an indefinite number of aspects. He can be considered physiologically. Here is his physiological aspect. He can be considered historically, or in time. He can be considered militarily. He can be considered as a son. He can be considered as a husband. He can be considered as an uncle. He can be considered as a brother, and as a nephew. He can be considered as a literary man, as a correspondent. Then, he can be considered in relation to Abraham Lincoln; or to Benedict Arnold, Lord Cornwallis, and Samuel Johnson, three varyingly different contemporaries. Further, Washington can be considered as an infant, as a boy, as a young man, as a guide, as an Indian fighter, as a lover of nature or not, as an office-holder, as a man of religion, as President, as domineering, and so on and so on.
It is quite clear, also, that I could say, George Washington in relation to the Virginia landscape; or George Washington in relation to sudden bushes. These two phrases could be put this way: George Washington considered as not indifferent to the Virginia landscape; and: George Washington considered as reacting as most people do to sudden bushes. It all comes to the fact that the aspects of George Washington are quite innumerable.
Aspects are things, because they affect us by affecting the thing which affects us, and by affecting us directly. (Things can have various kinds of effects at once.) We all have been surprised at how a profile can affect us differently from a full face. The profile and full face are fundamental aspects; for front and side are fundamental aspects.
A hundred years ago, it was difficult to see all of New York from one aspect: from on high, and centrally. With skyscrapers, a new aspect of New York could be had by us; with airplanes, this aspect has increased in intensity and scope.
Aspects have to do with kind and degree, quality and quantity. A magnifying glass enlarged an object, enabling us to see it from a new aspect—as larger than customarily seen. But a microscope enabled us to see a leaf, or water, from a new aspect different in kind; for completely new things were seen.
The telescope allowed us to see space, the moon, the sun and stars, from a new aspect. It also enabled us to see new things in space; the new aspect under which we saw space can be considered as an aspect different in kind or quality.
The finding and arranging of aspects makes for valuable excitement. It is a way of having reality more for us, making reality more nearly itself for us. Consideration of the import of aspects is therefore necessary.
We, too, have aspects. The self is a looking mechanism and a thing looked at. The self as looking is an aspect of it different from the self as looked at. Within the self as looking are all kinds of possibilities which may mingle badly with the self as looked at. When that aspect of the self, which in general can be called the self as looking, is at odds with the self as looked at, depression can result, or false exaltation. The self can be any way it can really see itself as. As soon as the self has an aspect it can coordinate with everything else it sees, it will be true and a good time will result. However, if the self chooses to give itself an aspect which it can’t coordinate with other things it sees as true, then the forms, which are aspects, make for tangle, antagonism, ugliness.
The world can be seen as a show, and ourselves can be seen as a show. What the philosophers call the thing-in-itself is the show completely understood. If we knew all the aspects of reality and all the aspects of ourselves, the show would take on complete dimension; the surface would be depth, and aspect would be seen as whole reality.