 Hanslick’s strongest claim against the aesthetics of feeling involves a subtle conceptual analysis of the structure of emotions. Hanslick observes that these cannot be identified by means of the feeling state they produce in us, as the same emotion may arouse different states, and two different emotions may share a similar one. The additional component that allows us to discriminate between different emotions is conceptual content. In Hanslick’s example, hope requires a concept of a future, better condition, whereas melancholy presupposes a comparison with a happier past. Hanslick concedes that music may be able to match the dynamic profile characteristic of a feeling state. However, music cannot provide the conceptual content that is necessary to the identification of specific emotions, and it cannot therefore represent them (Hanslick 1854: chapter 2; Kivy [1990b: 9] observes that Hanslick’s analysis anticipates the contemporary cognitive theory of emotions, first proposed in Kenny 1963; Alexander Malcolm [1721: 602] adumbrates the same argument, though he is discussing aroused emotions, as opposed to represented ones).