or lengthened sound seems to me to have no expression in itself, but only to signify the continuance of that quality which is signified by other qualities of sound. A loud or a low, a grave or an acute sound prolonged expresses to us no more than the continuance of the quality which is generally signified by such sounds.
“Short or abrupt sound has a contrary expression, and signifies the sudden cessation of the quality thus expressed.
“Increasing sound signifies, in the same manner, the increase of the quality expressed.
“Decreasing sound signifies the gradual diminution of such qualities.
“Motion furnishes another sort of beauty.
“Figure, color, and motion, readily blend in one object, and one general perception of beauty. In many beautiful objects they all unite, and render the beauty greater.”
These characteristics are too universal not to support the doctrine of natural appropriation and power, of which association is merely a consequence.
It may be said, that all this chiefly regards mere geometrical forms, not objects in nature. But, on referring to inanimate objects, it will be found that they everywhere present these forms.
The round, the simplest form appears to characterize all elementary bodies and all that are free from compression, to be in fact the most elementary and the most readily assumed in nature. This form, accordingly, is presented by the drops of water and of every liquid, by every atom probably of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote, by the smallest as well as the largest bodies, even the innumerable celestial orbs.
All the other, the angular forms are presented by inanimate bodies under compression, or by mineral crystals.
Thus, then, do these simple geometrical forms characterize the simplest bodies in nature; and it appears that this first kind of beauty is peculiarly their own. It will, in the sequel, be as clearly seen, that each of the other classes of natural beings presents beauty of a different kind, which similarly characterizes it. Hence, no rational theory of beauty could be formed by writers, who indiscriminatingly jumbled together the characteristics of all the kinds of beauty, and expected to find them everywhere.
As, then, from all that has been said, it appears that all the elements of beauty which have thus been noticed, belong to inanimate beings, and as this is shown by the passages I have quoted from the best writers, it seems surprising, not merely that they should not have seen this to be the case, but, that it should not have led them to observe, that there exists also a second beauty, of living beings, and third, of thinking beings, as well as others of the useful, the ornamental, and the intellectual arts respectively, in each of which some new element was only added to the characters of the preceding species.
It seems still more surprising that Alison, who deviates so widely from all fundamental principles, should have actually stumbled upon an observation of a few of the characteristics of inanimate beings, and traced them as they pass upward through some living and thinking beings—whose new characteristics, however, he did not discriminate. He observes, that “the greater part of those bodies in nature, which possess hardness, strength, or durability, are distinguished by angular forms. The greater part of those bodies, on the contrary, which possess weakness, fragility, or delicacy, are distinguished by winding or curvilinear forms. In the mineral kingdom, all rocks, stones, and metals, the hardest and most durable bodies we know, assume universally angular forms. In the vegetable kingdom, all strong and durable plants are in general distinguished by similar forms. The feebler and more delicate race of vegetables, on the contrary, are mostly distinguished by winding forms. In the animal kingdom, in the same manner, strong and powerful animals are generally characterized by angular forms; feeble and delicate animals, by forms of the contrary kind.”13
SECTION II.
ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY IN LIVING BEINGS
I have now to show that, in living beings, while the characters of the first and fundamental beauty, that of inanimate beings, are still partially continued, new characteristics are added to them.
Plants accordingly possess both rigid parts, like some of those described in the preceding section, and delicate parts, which, in ascending through the classes of natural beings from the simplest to the most complex, are the very first to present to us new and additional characters totally distinct from those of the preceding class.
I. To begin as nature does, then, we find the trunks and stems of plants, which are near the ground, resembling most in character the inanimate bodies from among which they spring. They assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one; but as growth is their great function, they extend in height and become cylindrical.
Even the branches, the twigs, and the tendrils, continue this elementary character; but it is in them, or in the stem when, like them, it is tender, that such elementary characters give way to the purposes of life, namely, growth and reproduction, and that we discover the new and additional characters of beauty which this class presents to us.
II. To render this matter plain, I must observe that the formation of rings, which unite in tubes, appears to be almost universally the material condition of growth and reproduction. Every new portion of these tubes, moreover, and every superadded ring, is less than that which preceded it.
It is from this that results the first characteristic of this second kind of beauty, namely, fineness or delicacy. Hence, Burke made the possession of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength, his fifth condition in beauty; and he here erred only from that want of discrimination which led him to confound together all the conditions of beauty, and prevented his seeing that they belonged to different genera.
Now, as fine and delicate bodies, which are growing, will shoot in that direction where space, air, and light, can best be had, and as this, amid other twigs and tendrils, will greatly vary, so will their productions rarely continue long in the same straight line, but will, on the contrary, bend. Hence, the curved or bending form is the second characteristic of this kind of beauty.
It is worthy of remark, that, as the trunks, stems, twigs, and tendrils, of plants assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one, so their more delicate parts have again the tendency to bend into a similar form.
In the young and feeble branches of plants, it is observed by Alison, that the bending form is “beautiful, when we perceive that it is the consequence of the delicacy of their texture, and of their being overpowered by the weight of the flower.... In the smaller and feebler tribe of flowers, as in the violet, the daisy, or the lily of the valley, the bending of the stem constitutes a very beautiful form, because we immediately perceive that it is the consequence of the weakness and delicacy of the flower.”
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Appendix D
