PART I. may be required by the understanding in other instances. CHAP. V. Of Sight. 27. We must not, however, attempt to apply these principles of abstract beauty to the charms of the other sex, or imagine that we can prove or illustrate them by instances drawn from that source for though the person, hypothetically stated above to be restored to sight, would give the preference in beauty to the female, whose colour made the most agreeable impression on his eye, provided there was no difference in expression to influence his choice, yet this preference would be of a very cold kind, and utterly void of all the warmth of sexual desire. It would also be guided by principles totally different from those, which direct the choice of men, who have been accustomed to employ the sense of vision, as the criterion of their sexual predilections: for such a person would not be able to distinguish the blush of modesty or glow of sensibility, from the redness caused by intemperance, or morbid inflammation: nor would the delicate fairness, or cadaverous whiteness of a skin make any other impressions respectively upon his feelings, than the same different degrees or modifications of the same tint, seen in other substances. All the fascinating attractions of these charms of the sex CHAP. V. owe their influence to sympathy and habit; as PART I. being symptoms of mental and bodily perfections, the meaning of which is only known by expe- Of Sight. rience and observation; so that it could neither be felt nor understood by a person, who saw them for the first time. The redness of any morbid inflammation may display a gradation of tint, which, in a pink or a rose, we should think as beautiful as the purple light of love and bloom of young desire; and the cadaverous paleness of death or disease, a degree of whiteness, which, in a piece of marble or alabaster, we should deem to be as pure, as that of the most delicate skin of the fairest damsel of the frigid zone: consequently, the mere visible beauty is in both the same; and the difference consists entirely in mental sympathies, excited by certain internal stimuli, and guided by habit. The African black, when he first beholds an European complexion, thinks both its red and white morbid and unnatural, and of course disgusting. His sun-burnt beauties express their modesty and sensibility by variations in the sable tints of their countenances, which are equally attractive to him, as the most delicate blush of red is to us. Were it possible for a person to judge of the beauty of colour in his own species, upon the same principles, and with the same impartiality, as he judges of it in CHAP. V. PART I. other objects, both animal, vegetable, and mineral, there can be no doubt but that mixed tints would Of Sight. be preferred; and a pimpled face have the same superiority over a smooth one, as a zebra has over an ass, a variegated tulip over a plain one, or a column of jasper or porphyry over one of common red or white marble. It does, however, sometimes happen that men of quick sensibility and vivid imaginations fall seriously and violently in love, at first sight, and without any other knowledge of the object than what is, at the moment, acquired through the sense of vision: but nevertheless, it is not any merely organic pleasure, felt by this sense, that attaches them; but mental sympathies acting through the medium of the imagination; as shall hereafter be explained. 28. As light is the sole medium of vision, the effects of visible objects upon the eye must depend, not only upon the quantities reflected from them, and the modes of its reflection or refraction, but, likewise, upon the degree of force with which it acts; and this, as well as the quantity, depends, in a great measure, upon the degrees of proximity between the object and the organ. Hence in proportion as bodies are near, their outlines appear more sharp, their colours more vivid, and their lights and shadows more forcible CHAP. V. and distinct; and, in proportion as they recede PART I. from us, all these gradually fade away, till at length they entirely vanish. Hence there are Of Sight. visible variations in the eye according to the distance of the object, to which it is directed; which seem to be produced by the greater or smaller degrees of irritation caused by impressions more or less vivid *. 29. Similar variations are produced, as before observed, by different quantities of light thrown directly upon the eyes; the membrane of the iris contracting with its increase, and dilating with its decrease, in proportion as the irritation is It has been calculated that objects are visible at the distance of 3436 times their diameter, if viewed by eyes perfectly organized, and through the common medium of common daylight equally diffused from the organ to the object: but in proportion as the comparative degree of light is greater upon the object than upon the eye, this power of seeing it at a distance will be extended; and in proportion as it is less, it will be shortened. We can see a burning coal by night at least 100 times as far as we can see the same coal extinct by daylight; and the difference is proportionately great between looking out of an obscure room upon objects in sunshine, and looking from sunshine at objects in an obscure room. The above calculation relates of course to the powers of the human eye; there being many kinds of birds of prey, such as eagles, kites, &c. which manifestly possess them in a much greater extent. CHAP. V. PART I. more or less violent. When extended beyond a certain degree, it becomes absolutely painful; Of Sight. and in that case, the eloquent author, already so often cited, by mistaking as usual a power for a sensation, concludes it to be sublime*; though if he or any other person had been compelled to expose their eyes to unsufferable light for a few moments, they would have felt how totally void of all sublime ideas their minds would have become, how much soever the power and magnificence of such light, surrounding the throne of Omnipotence, might have exalted or expanded their imaginations, when described in the verses of Milton. 30. Darkness is the entire cessation or absence of light; and, of course, utterly negative, and producing no sensation at all of itself: but, nevertheless, when we go suddenly out of a very strong light into it, the transition, like all other very violent and quick transitions, may be painful to very tender eyes; as there will ensue a sudden change in the internal state of the fibres; which, notwithstanding that it be from tension. to relaxation, and from irritation to repose, may nevertheless, in the first sensation of it, be unpleasant to some organs, though I could never * Sublime and Beautiful, Part II. s. xiv. et seq. 2 |