approves, may, in such cases, be confined to him, because the associations from which the emotion has arisen, were his alone. It is in this way, I have said, that the chief pleasure of the emotion arises. But, if all the influence of association on beauty were exercised in this way, by the direct suggestion of a particular amount of pleasure resulting from accidental causes, that have been peculiar to the individual, it would not be easy to account for the whole phenomena of this tribe of emotions,-above all, for those regular gradations of beauty in different objects, which are felt in most cases with so general an agreement by the greater number of cultivated minds, and so uniformly, or almost uniformly, by the same individual. If every object had its own particular associations in the mind of every individual, and every object many opposite associations, it might be expected, that the emotion of beauty, or at least the estimate of the degree of beauty, would fluctuate in the same individual according to these caprices of accidental suggestion, and in the great multitude of society, would fluctuate at different moments so as scarcely to admit of being fixed in any way. A face which at one time suggested one particular delight might suggest by its various analogies, or various circumstances of the past, various degrees of delight, and with these, therefore, a perpetual variety of the resulting emotion. Notwithstanding all this variety, however, we estimate objects very nearly in the same way. There is a notion of excellence acquired in some manner,―a relative notion of fitness to excite a certain amount of delight,which seems to be for ever in our mind to direct us,-according to which, we fix at some precise degree the varying beauty of the moment. There is every appearance, therefore, in such cases, of the suggestion of one general feeling, and not merely of various fluctuating feelings. The suggestion of this general feeling, which is in perfect accordance with the laws of thought already investigated by us, forms, I conceive, a second mode of association, in its influence on the emotion of beauty; and it is this chiefly which aids us in fixing the degrees of what we constantly, or almost constantly, recognise as less or more beautiful than certain other objects,—that is to say, less or more fit to excite in cultivated minds a certain amount of pleasure. I have already explained to you, in what manner the process of generalizing takes place. We see two or more objects, we are struck with their resemblance in certain respects, we have a general notion of the circumstances in which they thus resemble each other, to the exclusion, of course, of the circumstances in which they have no resemblance. For many of these mere relative suggestions of resemblance, we invent words, which from the generality of the notion expressed by them, are denominated general terms,— such as quadruped, animal, peace, virtue, happiness, excellence, but though we invent many such general terms, we invent them, it is evident, only in a very few cases, comparatively with the cases of general feeling of resemblance of some sort, in which they are not invented, and we apply the same name frequently, in different cases, when the general feelings in our mind, however analogous, are not strictly the same. We apply the word peace, for example, to many states of international rest from war, which are far from conveying the same notions of safety and tranquillity,-the word happiness, to many states of mind which we feel at the same time, or might feel if we reflected on them, to be, in species and intensity, very different,-the word beauty, to many objects which excite in us very different degrees of delightful emotion, and which we readily recognise as fit only to excite the emotion, in these different degrees. In short, though our general terms be few, our general feelings are almost infinite,-as infinite as the possible resemblances, which can be felt in any two or more objects, and though we have not words expressive of all the degrees of feeling, we have notions of these degrees as different,-notions of various degrees of beauty,-various degrees of happiness,-various degrees of excellence in general,-not embodied in words, but capable of being suggested to the mind by particular objects, as if they were so embodied. These notions have been formed by the mind, in the same way as all its other general notions have been formed-by the observation and comparison of many particulars, and they arise to the mind on various occasions, when the particulars observed, correspond with the particulars before observed,-in the same way as the word quadruped, which we have invented for expressing various animals known to us, occurs to our mind when we see for the first time some other animal, of which we had perhaps never heard, but which agrees, in the feeling of general resemblance which it excites, with the other animals formerly classed by us under that general word. This ready suggestion of general feelings which is continually taking place, in applications of which all must be sensible, and the possibility and likelihood of which no one will deny, is that which I suppose, in the case of the emotion at present considered by us, to direct our general estimate of degrees of beauty, or, in other words, our relative notion of the fitness of certain objects to excite a pleasing emotion of a certain intensity. We discover this fitness, as we discover every other species of fitness, by observation of the past, and by observing this past in others, as well as in ourselves, we correct, by the more general coincidence of the associations of others, what would be comparatively irregular, and capricious in the results of our own limited associations as individuals. The accidents of one, or of a few, when variously mingled, become truly laws of thought of the many. As this observation is more and more enlarged, the irregularities of individual association, are more and more counteracted by the foresight of the diversities of general sentiment,-till, at length, the beauty of which we think, in our estimates of its degree of excellence, though still, in a certain degree, influenced by former accidental feelings of the individual,-is in a great measure, the beauty which we foreknow, that others are to feel,-and which we are capable thus of foreknowing, because we have made a wide induction of the objects, that have been observed by us, to excite the emotion in its various degrees, in the greater number of those, whose emotions we have had opportunities of measuring. As we say of a well-cultivated memory, that it is rich in images of the past, we may say of a well-cultivated mind in general, that it is rich in notions of beauty and excellence,-notions, which it has formed by attentive observation and study of various objects, as exciting, in various circumstances, various degrees of delight; but which ever after rise simply and readily to the mind by suggestion, according as the objects, perceived or imagined, are of a nature to harmonize with them. The general notion of what will be most widely regarded as beauty or excellence, in some one or other of its degrees, rises instantly, or at least may arise instantly to the mind, on the perception of the beautiful or excellent object, and with it the emotions, which have usually attended it. In our estimate of degrees of beauty, then, as often as we attempt to calculate these, it is the general notion, that has resulted from the contemplation of many excellent qualities, which, as one state of mind, arises to us, and directs us,-not the many separate states, which constitute the remembrances of many separate qualities. These, indeed, are not necessarily excluded, though, as I have already said, they arise less, where the beauty is felt to be great, than where it is felt only in a less degree. Many analogous images may arise, and they do frequently arise; and, if pleasing in themselves, may add to the gratification previously felt; but though they may arise, and when they arise, they increase the amount of pleasure, they are far from being absolutely necessary to the pleasing emotion itself. Though we have a general notion attached to the word peace, this cannot exist long in our mind, without exciting some particular conception in accordance with it, though we know what is meant by the general word animal, independently of the particular species, which it may at different moments suggest, we yet cannot continue long to think of what is meant by the mere general word, without the suggestion of some particular animals. It would not be wonderful, then, that the general notion of beauty, which we have attached to a particular form, should of itself, give rise to particular suggestions of analogy, even though the form, on which we gaze, were not, of itself, capable of suggesting them; and it cannot, surely, be more wonderful, that it should allow these suggestions of objects analogous, when the particular form perceived is of a kind to occur in the tendency to this suggestion, with the general notion of beauty itself. It is this subsequent suggestion of trains of associate images, increasing perhaps the effect of the emotion that existed previously as a state of the mind, but not producing it, which has led the very ingenious theorist, to whom I have before alluded, to ascribe to these mere consequences of the feeling of beauty, that very feeling itself, which more probably gave occasion to them. Indeed, if the suggestion of particular images after images, and not the suggestion of one general delight, or the more general suggestion of beauty or excellence itself, be essential to the very existence of the emotion, it seems to me quite impossible to account for that instant, or almost instant delight, which beauty, in its form of most powerful attraction, seems to beam on the very eye that gazes on it. "What sublimer pomp Adorns the seat, when virtue dwells on earth, In these cases, there are instant conceptions of dignity, or of gentleness, which we attach to the imperial front of man, or to the more powerful, and more truly imperial smiles of woman. What we term expression, is the suggestion of that general character of intelligence and virtue, which is said to be expressed, not the necessary suggestion of many separate truths, nor the suggestion of many separate acts of kindness,-which may be suggested, indeed, if we continue long to contemplate the intelligent and benevolent form; but which are, in that case, subsequent to the emotion, that, in its origin at least, truly preceded them. Such are the modes in which I conceive the past, in our emotion of beauty, to influence the present. But if all which the past presents to us, be the conceptions of former delight, how happens it, that these conceptions, which often pass along our mind in reverie, with only faint and shadowy pleasure, * Pleasures of Imagination-2d form of the poem, B. I. v. 547–551. should be heightened to so much rapture, when suggested by some real object before us? The images suggested may afford the sources of the delight; but the delight itself must be in some way modified, before it is converted into beauty. There is another part of the process, then, which we have not yet considered, to which it is necessary to direct your attention. What is truly most important to the emotion of beauty, is this very part of the process which theorists have yet neglected. It is not the mere suggestion of certain conceptions, general or particular, for these often form a part of our trains of thought, without any very lively feeling as their consequence. It is the fixing and embodying of these in a real object before us, which gives to the whole, I conceive, one general impression of reality. This, I have little doubt, takes place, in the manner explained by me in former Lectures, when I treated of the peculiar influence of objects of perception, in giving liveliness to our trains of suggestion, and consequently greater liveliness to all the emotions which attend them. The delight of which we think, when images of the past arise, is very different from the delight which seems to be embodied in objects, and to meet our very glance, as the terror of the superstitious, when they think of a spectre in twilight, is very different from that which they feel, when their terror is incorporated in some shadowy form that gleams instinctively on their eye. But for a process of the kind which I have stated, I do not see how the effect of beauty, as seen, should be so very different as it most certainly is, from the effect produced by a long meditation on all those noble and gracious characters of virtue and intelligence,the mere expression, that is to say, the mere suggestion of which is stated to be all which constitutes it. It is, in short, as I have said, this very part of the process which seems to me the most important in the whole theory of beauty. The increased effect of that incorporating process, which I suppose, in the case of beauty, is, in truth, nothing more than what we have found to take place in all the cases of suggestion of vivid images, by objects of perception, rather than by our fainter and more fugitive conceptions. The reality of what is truly before us, gives reality to all the associate images that blend and harmonize with it. We think of ancient Greece-we tread on the soil of Athens or Sparta. Our emotion, which was before faint, is now one of the liveliest of which our soul is susceptible, because it is fixed and realized in the existing and present object. The same images arise to us, but they coexist now as they rise, with all the monuments which we behold, with the land itself, with the sound of those waves, which are dashing now as they dashed so many ages before, when their murmur was heard by the heroes of whom we think—all now lives before us, and when we behold a beautiful form, all the images suggested by it, live in like manner in it. It does not suggest to us what was once delightful, but it is itself representative of what was once delightful. The visions of other years exist again to our very eyes. We see embodied all which we feel in our mind; and the source of delight which is itself real, gives instant reality to the delight itself, and to all the harmonizing images that blend with it. We may, even in solitude, think with pleasure of the kindness of smiles and tones which we have loved; but when a smile of the same kind is beaming on us, or when we listen to similar tones, it is no longer a mere dream of happiness,-the whole seems one equal perception, and we are surrounded again, as it were, with all the vivid happiness of the past. Though the result of our inquiry into original beauty, then, has led us to adopt the greater probability of some original susceptibilities of emotions of this sort, that are independent of the arbitrary associations which must be formed in the progress of life, we have found sufficient reason to ascribe to this slow and silent growth of circumstances of adventitious delight, almost all the beauty which is worthy of the name:-and we have seen, I flatter myself, in what manner these circumstances operate in inducing the emotion. This happy effect, I have shown to be too instantaneous to be the result of a rapid review or suggestion of many particulars, in each separate case, but to depend on the combination with the objects which we term beautiful, of some instant complex feeling of past delight, or of those general notions of beauty and excellence, which themselves, indeed, originally resulted from the observation of particulars, but which afterwards are capable of being suggested as one feeling of the mind, like our other general notions of every species; and when combined with objects really existing, or felt as if really existing, to derive from this impression of reality in the harmonizing objects with which they are mingled in our perception, a liveliness without which they could not have exercised their delightful dominion on our heart. Such, I conceive, then, in the principles on which it depends, is that delightful dominion, which is exercised on our heart, not directly by mind only, but by the very forms of inanimate nature. "Hence the wide universe, Through all the seasons of revolving worlds, To the sweet accent of the well tuned lyre."* LECTURE LVII. I. IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS, NOT INVOLVING NECESSARILY ANY MORAL FEELING.-3. BEAUTY AND ITS REVERSE, CONCLUDED.-4. SUBLIMITY, -LIKE BEAUTY, A MERE FEELING OF THE MIND.-SOURCES OF SUBLIMITY. FOR several Lectures, gentlemen, we have been engaged in considering one of the most interesting of our emotions—an emotion connected with so many sources of delight, material, intellectual, and moral; that it is not wonderful that it should have attracted, in a very high degree, the attention of metaphysical inquirers, and should even have become a subject of slight study, with those lovers of easy reading, to whom the word metaphysical is a word of alarm, and who never think that they are studying metaphysics, when they are reading only of delicate forms, and smiles, and graces. What they feel, in admiring beauty, is an emotion so very pleasing, that they connect some degree of pleasure with the very works that treat of it, and would perhaps be astonished to learn, that the inquiry into the nature of this emotion, which it would seem to them so strange not to feel, is one of the most difficult inquiries in the whole philosophy of mind. * Pleasures of Imagination, second form of the poem, B. I. v. 682-689. |