66 PERCEPTION OF BEAUTY A COMPLEX EMOTION. mind, to be the foundation of all the emotions we receive from the objects of taste, and which resolves, therefore, all the various phenomena into some more general law of our intellectual or moral constitution. Of this kind are the hypotheses of M. Diderot, who attributes all our emotions of this kind to the perception of relation; of Mr. Hume, who resolves them into our sense of utility; of the venerable St. Austin, who, with nobler views, a thousand years ago, resolved them into the pleasure which belongs to the perception of order and design, &c. It is the species of hypothesis most natural to retired and philosophic minds; to those, whose habits have led them to attend more to the nature of the emotions they felt, than to the causes which produced them. If the success of these long and varied inquiries has not corresponded to the genius or the industry of the philosophers who have pursued them, a suspicion may arise that there has been something faulty in the principle of their investigation; and that some fundamental assumption has been made, which ought first to have been patiently and securely ascertained. It was this suspicion that first led to the following inquiries. It seemed to me that the simplicity of the emotion of taste, was a principle much too hastily adopted; and that the consequences which followed from it (under both these classes of hypothesis), were very little reconcileable with the most common experience of human feeling; and from the examination of this preliminary question, I was led gradually to conclusions which seemed not only to me, but to others, whose opinion I value far more than my own, of an importance not unworthy of being presented to the public. In doing this, I am conscious that I have entered upon a new and untrodden path ; and I feel all my own weakness in pursuing it: yet I trust my readers will believe, that I should not have pursued it so long, if I were not convinced that it would finally terminate in views not only important to the arts of taste, but important also to the philosophy of the human mind. The inquiries which follow, naturally divide themselves into the following parts; and are to be prosecuted in the following order : I. I shall begin with an analysis of the effect which is produced upon the mind, when the emotions of beauty or sublimity are felt. I shall endeavour to show, that this effect is very different from the determination of a sense; that it is not in fact a simple, but a complex emotion; that it involves, in all cases, first, the production of some simple emotion, or the exercise of some moral affection, and, secondly, the consequent excitement of a peculiar exercise of the imagination; that these concomitant effects are distinguishable, and very often distinguished in our experience; and that the peculiar pleasure of the beautiful or the sublime is only felt when these two effects are conjoined, and the complex emotion produced. The prosecution of the subject will lead to another inquiry of some difficulty and extent, viz., into the origin of the beauty and sublimity of the qualities of matter. To this subordinate inquiry I shall devote a separate essay. I shall endeavour to show that all the phenomena are reducible to the same general principle, and that the qualities of matter are not beautiful or sublime in themselves, but as they are, by various means, the signs or expressions of qualities capable of producing emotion. II. From this examination of the effect I shall proceed, in the second part, to investigate the causes which are productive of it; or, in other words, the sources of the beautiful and the sublime in nature and art. In the course of this investigation I shall endeavour to show, first, that there is no single emotion into which these varied effects can be resolved; that on the contrary, every simple emotion, and therefore every object which is capable of producing any simple emotion, may be the foundation of the complex emotion of beauty or sublimity. But, in the second place, that this complex emotion of beauty or sublimity is never produced, unless, beside the excitement of some simple emotion, the imagination also is excited, and the exercise of the two faculties combined in the general effect. The prosecution of the subject, will lead me to the principal object of the inquiry, to show what is that law of mind, according to which, in actual life, this exercise or employment of imagination is excited; and what are the means by which, in the different fine arts, the artist is able to awaken this important exercise of imagination, and to exalt objects of simple and common pleasure, into objects of beauty and sublimity. In this part of the subject, there are two subordinate inquiries which will necessarily demand attention. 1. The qualities of sublimity and beauty are discovered not only in pleasing or agreeable subjects, but frequently also in objects that are in themselves productive of pain; and some of the noblest productions of the fine arts are founded upon subjects of terror and distress. It will form, therefore, an obvious and important inquiry, to ascertain by what means this singular effect is produced in real nature, and by what means it may be produced in the compositions of art. 2. There is a distinction in the effects produced upon our minds by objects of taste; and this distinction, both in the emotions and their causes, has been expressed by the terms of sublimity and beauty. It will form, therefore, a second object of inquiry to ascertain the nature of this distinction, both with regard to these emotions and to the qualities that produce them. III. From the preceding inquiries I shall proceed, in the last part, to investigate the nature of that faculty by which these emotions are perceived and felt. I shall endeavour to show, that it has no resem 68 THE FINE ARTS ARE ARTS OF IMITATION. blance to a sense; that as, whenever it is employed, two distinct and independent powers of mind are employed, it is not to be considered as a separate and peculiar faculty, and that it is finally to be resolved into more general principles of our constitution. These speculations will probably lead to the important inquiry, whether there is any standard by which the perfection or imperfection of our sentiments upon these subjects may be determined; to some explanation of the means by which taste may be corrected or improved; and to some illustration of the purposes which this peculiar constitution of our nature serves, in the increase of human happiness, and the exaltation of human character. I feel it incumbent on me, however, to inform my readers that I am to employ, in these inquiries, a different kind of evidence from what has usually been employed by writers upon these subjects, and that my illustrations will be derived, much less from the compositions of the fine arts than from the appearances of common nature, and the experience of common men. If the fine arts are in reality arts of imitation, their prin-ciples are to be sought forin the subject which theyimitate; and it is ever to be remembered, 'That music, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general sense and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of these arts themselves; in other words, that the taste is not to conform to the art, but the art to the taste' (Addison). In following this mode of illustration, while I am sensible that I render my book less amusing, I trust I may render it more useful. The most effectual method to check the empiricism, either of art or of science, is to multiply, as far as possible, the number of those who can observe, and judge; and (whatever may be the conclusions of my readers with regard to my own particular opinions), I shall not have occupied their attention in vain, if I can lead them to think and to feel for themselves; to employ the powers which are given them to the ends for which they were given; and, upon subjects where all men are entitled to judge, to disregard alike the abstract refinements of the philosopher who speculates in the closet, and the technical doctrines of the artist who dictates in the school. 69 ESSAY Ι. ON THE NATURE OF THE EMOTIONS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY. CHAPTER I. - OF THE EFFECT PRODUCED UPON THE IMAGINATION BY OBJECTS OF SUBLIMITY AND BEAUTY. SEC. I. The emotions of sublimity and beauty are uniformly ascribed, both in popular and in philosophical language, to the imagination. The fine arts are considered as the arts which are addressed to the imagination; and the pleasures they afford are described, by way of distinction, as the pleasures of the imagination. The nature of any person's taste is, in common life, generally determined by the nature or character of his imagination; and the expression of any deficiency in this power of mind, is considered as synonymous with the expression of a similar deficiency in point of taste. Although, however, this connexion is so generally acknowledged, it is not perhaps as generally understood in what it consists, or what is the nature of that effect which is produced upon the imagination by objects of sublimity and beauty. I shall endeavour, therefore, in the first place, to state what seems to me the nature of this effect, or, in what that exercise of imagination consists, which is so generally supposed to take place, when these emotions are felt. When any object, either of sublimity or beauty, is presented to the mind, I believe every man is conscious of a train of thought being immediately awakened in his imagination, analogous to the character or expression of the original object. The simple perception of the object, we frequently find, is insufficient to excite these emotions, unless it is accompanied with this operation of mind, unless, according to common expression, our imagination is seized, and our fancy busied in the pursuit of all those trains of thought which are allied to this character or expression. Thus, when we feel either the beauty or sublimity of natural scenery, -the gay lustre of a morning in spring, or the mild radiance of a summer evening, the savage majesty of a wintry storm, or the wild magnificence of a tempestuous ocean, we are conscious of a variety of images in our minds, very different from those which the objects themselves can present to the eye. Trains of pleasing or of solemn thought arise spontaneously within our minds; our hearts swell with emotions, of which the objects before us seem to afford no adequate 70 CLAUDE LORRAINE. -HANDEL.-MILTON. cause; and we are never so much satiated with delight, as when, in recalling our attention, we are unable to trace either the progress or the connexion of those thoughts, which have passed with so much rapidity through our imagination. The effect of the different arts of taste is similar. The landscapes of Claude Lorraine, the music of Handel, the poetry of Milton, excite feeble emotions in our minds when our attention is confined to the qualities they present to our senses, or when it is to such qualities of their composition that we turn our regard. It is then, only, we feel the sublimity or beauty of their productions, when our imaginations are kindled by their power, when we lose ourselves amid the number of images that pass before our minds, and when we waken at last from this play of fancy, as from the charm of a romantic dream. The beautiful apostrophe of the Abbé de Lille upon the subject of gardening, N'avez-vous pas souvent, au lieux infrequentés, is equally applicable to every other composition of taste; and in the production of such trains of thought, seems to consist the effect which objects of sublimity and beauty have upon the imagination. For the truth of this observation itself, I must finally appeal to the consciousness of the reader; but there are some very familiar considerations, which it may be useful to suggest, that seem very strongly to show the connexion between this exercise of imagination and the existence of the emotions of sublimity and beauty. SEC. II. That unless this exercise of imagination is excited, the emotions of beauty or sublimity are unfelt, seems capable of illustra tion, from many instances of a very familiar kind. I.- If the mind is in such a state as to prevent this freedom of imagination, the emotion, whether of sublimity or beauty,. is unperceived. In so far as the beauties of art or nature affect the external senses, their effect is the same upon every man who is in possession of these senses. But to a man in pain or in grief, whose mind by these means is attentive only to one object or consideration, the same scene, or the same form, will produce no feeling of admiration, which, at other times, when his imagination was at liberty, would have produced it in its fullest perfection. Whatever is great or beautiful in the scenery of external nature, is almost constantly before us; and not a day passes, without presenting us with appearances, fitted both to charm and to elevate our minds; yet it is in general with a heedless |
