of the fine arts has any fixed principle or ideal, will find its solution in the ascertainment of two facts :-first, whether in every determination of the taste concerning any work of the fine arts, the individual does not, with or even against 5 the approbation of his general judgement, involuntarily claim that all other minds ought to think and feel the same; whether the common expressions, "I daresay I may be wrong, but that is my particular taste," are uttered as an offering of courtesy, as a sacrifice to the undoubted fact of our indi10 vidual fallibility, or are spoken with perfect sincerity, not only of the reason, but of the whole feeling, with the same entireness of mind and heart, with which we concede a right to every person to differ from another in his preference. of bodily tastes and flavors. If we should find ourselves 15 compelled to deny this, and to admit that, notwithstanding the consciousness of our liability to error, and in spite of all those many individual experiences which may have strengthened the consciousness, each man does at the moment so far legislate for all men, as to believe of necessity that he is 20 either right or wrong, and that if it be right for him, it is universally right,—we must then proceed to ascertain :— secondly, whether the source of these phenomena is at all to be found in those parts of our nature, in which each intellect is representative of all,-and whether wholly or 25 partially. No person of common reflection demands even in feeling, that what tastes pleasant to him ought to produce the same effect on all living beings; but every man does and must expect and demand the universal acquiescence of all intelligent beings in every conviction of his 30 understanding.

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FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON

BEAUTY.

1818

THE only necessary, but this the absolute necessary, prerequisite to a full insight into the grounds of the beauty in the objects of sight, is-the directing of the attention to the action of those thoughts in our own mind which are not consciously distinguished. Every man may understand 5 this, if he will but recall the state of his feelings in endeavouring to recollect a name, which he is quite sure that he remembers, though he cannot force it back into consciousness. This region of unconscious thoughts, oftentimes the more working the more indistinct they are, may, in reference 10 to this subject, be conceived as forming an ascending scale from the most universal associations of motion with the functions and passions of life,—as when, on passing out of a crowded city into the fields on a day in June, we describe the grass and king-cups as nodding their heads and dancing 15 in the breeze,-up to the half perceived, yet not fixable, resemblance of a form to some particular object of a diverse class, which resemblance we need only increase but a little, to destroy, or at least injure, its beauty-enhancing effect, and to make it a fantastic intrusion of the accidental and 20 the arbitrary, and consequently a disturbance of the beautiful. This might be abundantly exemplified and illustrated from the paintings of Salvator Rosa.

I am now using the term beauty in its most comprehensive sense, as including expression and artistic interest,— 15 that is, I consider not only the living balance, but likewise all the accompaniments that even by disturbing are neces

sary to the renewal and continuance of the balance. And in this sense I proceed to show, that the beautiful in the object may be referred to two elements,-lines and colors; the first belonging to the shapely (forma, formalis, formosus), 5 and in this, to the law, and the reason; and the second, to the lively, the free, the spontaneous, and the self-justifying. As to lines, the rectilineal are in themselves the lifeless, the determined ab extra, but still in immediate union with the cycloidal, which are expressive of function. The curve line 10 is a modification of the force from without by the force from within, or the spontaneous. These are not arbitrary symbols, but the language of nature, universal and intuitive, by virtue of the law by which man is impelled to explain visible motions by imaginary causative powers analogous 15 to his own acts, as the Dryads, Hamadryads, Naiads, &c.

The better way of applying these principles will be by a brief and rapid sketch of the history of the fine arts,-in which it will be found, that the beautiful in nature has been appropriated to the works of man, just in proportion as the 20 state of the mind in the artists themselves approached to the subjective beauty. Determine what predominance in the minds of the men is preventive of the living balance of excited faculties, and you will discover the exact counterpart in the outward products. Egypt is an illustration of 25 this. Shapeliness is intellect without freedom; but colors are significant. The introduction of the arch is not less an epoch in the fine than in the useful arts.

Order is beautiful arrangement without any purpose ab extra ;-therefore there is a beauty of order, or order may 30 be contemplated exclusively as beauty.

The form given in any empirical intuition,—the stuff, that is, the quality of the stuff, determines the agreeable but when a thing excites us to receive it in such and such a mould, so that its exact correspondence to that mould is 35 what occupies the mind,—this is taste or the sense of beauty,

Whether dishes full of painted wood or exquisite viands were laid out on a table in the same arrangement, would be indifferent to the taste, as in ladies' patterns; but surely the one is far more agreeable than the other. Hence observe the disinterestedness of all taste; and hence also a sensual 5 perfection with intellect is occasionally possible without moral feeling. So it may be in music and painting, but not in poetry. How far it is a real preference of the refined to the gross pleasures, is another question, upon the supposition that pleasure, in some form or other, is that alone which 10 determines men to the objects of the former ; —whether experience does not show that if the latter were equally in our power, occasioned no more trouble to enjoy, and caused no more exhaustion of the power of enjoying them by the enjoyment itself, we should in real practice prefer the 15 grosser pleasure. It is not, therefore, any excellence in the quality of the refined pleasures themselves, but the advantages and facilities in the means of enjoying them, that give them the pre-eminence.

This is, of course, on the supposition of the absence of all 20 moral feeling. Suppose its presence, and then there will accrue an excellence even to the quality of the pleasures themselves; not only, however, of the refined, but also of the grosser kinds,-inasmuch as a larger sweep of thoughts will be associated with each enjoyment, and with each 25 thought will be associated a number of sensations; and so, consequently, each pleasure will become more the pleasure of the whole being. This is one of the earthly rewards of our being what we ought to be, but which would be annihilated, if we attempted to be it for the sake of this increased 30 enjoyment. Indeed it is a contradiction to suppose it. Yet this is the common argumentum in circulo, in which the eudæmonists flee and pursue.

ON POESY OR ART

MAN communicates by articulation of sounds, and paramountly by the memory in the ear; nature by the impres sion of bounds and surfaces on the eye, and through the eye it gives significance and appropriation, and thus the 5 conditions of memory, or the capability of being remembered, to sounds, smells, &c. Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing Io the thoughts and passions of man into every thing which is the object of his contemplation; color, form, motion, and sound, are the elements which it combines, and it stamps them into unity in the mould of a moral idea.

The primary art is writing;-primary, if we regard the 15 purpose abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those steps of progression of which the instances are still visible in the lower degrees of civilization. First, there is mere gesticulation; then rosaries or wampum; then picture-language; then hieroglyphics, and finally alphabetic 20 letters.

These all consist of a translation of man into nature, of a substitution of the visible for the audible.

The so called music of savage tribes as little deserves the name of art for the understanding, as the ear warrants it for music. Its lowest state is a mere expression of passion by 25 sounds which the passion itself necessitates ;—the highest amounts to no more than a voluntary reproduction of these sounds in the absence of the occasioning causes, so as to give the pleasure of contrast,-for example, by the various outcries of battle in the song of security and triumph.