are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things!
“Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion: his appetite is to keen to suffer his taste to be delicate.... One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet calls ‘elegans formarum spectator.’
“The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these arts even in their rudest condition; and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But as arts advance toward their perfection, the science of criticism advances with equal pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are discovered in the most finished compositions.”
The chief idea above expressed, is again repeated by Sir J. Reynolds, who says: “The principles of these (the imagination and the passions) are as invariable as the former (the senses), and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal to common sense deciding upon the common feelings of mankind.”
These views are thus summed by Hume: “The organs of internal sensation are seldom so perfect as to allow the general principles their full play, and produce a feeling correspondent to those principles. They either labor under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means, excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced erroneous. When the critic has no delicacy, he judges without any distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more palpable qualities of the object: the finer touches pass unnoticed and disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his verdict is attended with confusion and hesitation. Where no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object of his admiration. Where he lies under the influence of prejudice, all his natural sentiments are perverted. Where good sense is wanting, he is not qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning, which are the highest and most excellent. Under some or other of these imperfections, the generality of men labor; and hence, a true judge in the finer arts is observed, even during the most polished ages, to be so rare a character: strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty.”
Taking the principal ideas above, Burke also concludes: “On the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners, and actions.”
“It is sufficient for our present purpose,” Hume farther observes, “if we have proved that the taste of all individuals is not upon an equal footing, and that some men in general, however difficult to be particularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by universal sentiment to have a preference above others.
“Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind. The ascendant which they acquire, gives a prevalence to that lively approbation, with which they receive any productions of genius, and renders it generally predominant. Many men, when left to themselves, have but a faint and dubious perception of beauty, who yet are capable of relishing any fine stroke which is pointed out to them. Every convert to the admiration of the real poet or orator, is the cause of some new conversion. And though prejudices may prevail for a time, they never unite in celebrating any rival to the true genius, but yield at last to the force of nature and just sentiment.”
Hume finally obviates some apparent difficulties:—
“But notwithstanding all our endeavors to fix a standard of taste, and reconcile the discordant apprehensions of men, there still remain two sources of variation, which are not sufficient indeed to confound all the boundaries of beauty and deformity, but will often serve to produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or blame. The one is the different humors of particular men; the other, the particular manner and opinions of our age and country.
“A young man, whose passions are warm, will be more sensibly touched with amorous and tender images, than a man more advanced in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philosophical reflections concerning the conduct of life and moderation of the passions. At twenty, Ovid may be the favorite author; Horace at forty; and perhaps Tacitus at fifty. Vainly would we, in such cases, endeavor to enter into the sentiments of others, and divest ourselves of those propensities which are natural to us. We choose our favorite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humor and disposition.
“Such preferences are innocent and unavoidable, and can never reasonably be the object of dispute, because there is no standard by which they can be decided.
“For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of our reading, with pictures and characters that resemble objects which are found in our own age or country, than with those which describe a different set of customs.
“A man of learning and reflection can make allowance for these peculiarities of manners; but a common audience can never divest themselves so far of their usual ideas and sentiments, as to relish pictures which nowise resemble them.”
Thus I believe the reader has before him a view, sufficiently clear, of that popular topic, the standard of taste, as well as of the agreement which subsists among the best writers on the subject. In the next chapter, we proceed to a more fundamental and difficult inquiry.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY. 10
On the subject of the preceding chapter, even the reasonings of Hume appear to me to be of too vague and indefinite a kind. It requires the more minute scrutiny into which I shall now enter, in order to place it upon a deeper and more scientific foundation. If I can here show that, in the material qualities of the objects of nature and art, there exist elements of beauty equally invariable in themselves and in the kind of effect they produce upon the mind, it is evident there can be no farther dispute about a standard of beauty.
Many attempts have been made to determine the material elements of beauty, by Hogarth, Home, and others. All have more or less failed, from not observing that these elements are modified, varied, and complicated, as we advance from the most simple to the most complex class of natural beings, or of the arts which relate to these respectively. Many partial views of perfect truth and great interest have been taken, and by every one of these it will be my duty here to profit: but, from the failure just pointed out, no philosophical and systematic doctrine of beauty, ascending from its origin in elements through its higher combinations, has ever been attained by any of the numerous, deep, acute, and elegant thinkers who have devoted their time to this subject, as the foundation of taste and of the fine or intellectual arts.
Profiting, as I ought to do, by the partial views of these philosophers, I pretend here only to take one larger view—to analyze, to generalize, to systematize, the materials which they present to me.
In the hope of accomplishing this, I shall now endeavor successively to trace the elements of beauty which belong respectively to inanimate, living, and thinking beings, and to the useful, ornamental, and intellectual arts which have a reference to these, the neglect of all which I have described as the fundamental cause of previous failure.
Again, I repeat, it is to this analysis and generalization alone, and to the systemization founded upon it, that I make any pretence. The materials have long been presented by all the
To the reader unaccustomed to inquiries of this kind, it may save trouble to peruse first the brief Summary of the contents of this important chapter, beginning in page 120.
