can appreciate the phenomena aright. We are, however, constantly drawing unwittingly upon the fact that certain shapes are sensibly pleasant, for where utility is not interfered with we choose smoothness and roundness before other shapes. Smokers do not care to smoke in the dark; why? partly because they do not see the round wreaths. of curling smoke as they ascend in soft and gentle volumes to the ceiling. Shape, therefore, per se, is no more a thing of beauty than colour per se.

But lastly, motion is also a sensation, and when we have realised this great fact, together with the two previous ones regarding colour and shape, we are in a position to inquire into the nature of beauty, but not till then. The same reasoning that applied to colour and shape, applies to motion. By the fundamental law of metaphysics we are incapable of knowing intuitively any object, or any quality of an object, external to us. What we know intuitively is a modification of our own minds; what we believe of necessity is an unknown cause of that modification. Now, motion, in every form in which we are acquainted with it, is a modification of our own organism, and finally a feeling in the mind. That the motion of a bird flying through the air is a mere sensation in us, it may indeed be difficult for many persons to believe; but it is first absolutely necessary to remember, what is incontrovertible, that the bird itself, its size, colour, shape, are mere sensations of the mind, caused by something, we know not what, and we know not how. How then can motion be more real or independent than that which causes it? To be assured of the subjectivity of motion you need only stand on the bank of a stream and gaze steadily for a while on the water flowing by; having done so, look as steadily on the bank at your feet, and you will see a stream of sand or grass, or whatever the bank consists of, flowing in the opposite direction; and what will appear most peculiar, the bank, though it seems to flow on, never seems to flow away from the spot at which

you are looking, nor to leave any gap behind. From this it will be understood, that motion is just as much a species of vibration set up in the retina, as are shape and colour. But why, after looking at the motion of the stream, should a motion in an opposite direction be set up in the bank? For precisely the same reason as the eye after contemplating a particular colour is rendered more sensitive to the complementary of that colour. After looking steadily at red for instance, the retina becomes more sensitive to greenish-blue, the complementary of red; after looking at violet, it becomes more sensitive to greenish-yellow, the complementary of violet; and so on; and whenever the complementary colour is to be had, the eye will pick it out in preference to any other. White, for example, contains all colours; if therefore you look steadily at a red wafer, or a bit of sealing-wax, or at the petal of a red flower, and then on a sheet of white paper, a portion of the retina being now sensitive to greenishblue will pick that colour out of the white, and you shall see on the paper a patch of greenish-blue, of the same figure as the red object. We are capable of a variety of very singular experiments of this kind with regard to light and colour. Similarly, motion in one direction being set up in the retina, the nerves become more sensitive to motion in the contrary direction-i.e., to the complementary motion-and after looking steadily at the running stream, the eye calls up an opposite motion in the still bank.

Thus much being premised, little remains to be said concerning motion or its value in æsthetic experiences, since very much the same remarks apply to it as have been predicated of shape. Motion must describe a certain figure, and as figure is shape of two dimensions, it follows that the same rules which govern pleasant and unpleasant shapes will apply to pleasant and unpleasant movements, for the vibrations must correspond with the figure whether the figure be caused by an object or by its motion. Circular, serpentine, undulating, uniform movements will there

fore be pleasant, and angular, abrupt, and irregular movements will be unpleasant; and slow and gentle motion will be more grateful than fast. The first class of movements are called graceful, the second ungraceful. Compare, for example, the sweeping curve of a rocket with the irregular shooting of forked lightning, and say which is pleasantest to the eye; compare the ups and downs of the blades in a sawmill with the rotating of the wheels in the machinery or with the water-jets of a fountain; compare the angular charging and counter-charging of football players with the sliding and winding of a party of dancers or with the curving and sweeping of a crowd of skaters; compare the motion of a carriage, an omnibus, or a train with that of a steamer, a yacht, or a canoe; compare the pointed motions of a billiard ball or a weaver's shuttle with the rounded gliding of a pigeon or a goldfish; compare the thrust and parry of the bayonet in military exercise with the floating folds of a royal standard or the waving of a tree's branches, and then say whether in each of these cases the graceful and grateful do not accompany the circular, serpentine, or undulating motion and the unpleasant the angular.

It appears, then, that in a recognition of the beautiful neither colour, shape, nor motion are anything more than sensations in the retina. We must not, however, suppose from this that the retina is the only field of such sensations. True, colour can only come in by that entrance, but both shape and motion are set up in us in every part of the body; in other words, the whole body itself is an object endowed with the qualities which cause shape and motion in the mind; and though the shape and motion with which the eye furnishes us are very much more extensive than what we get through any other part of the body, they are also of a much less accurate and reliable description. Now, with the pleasant sensations of colour, shape, and motion, as with all other pleasant sensations, there is coexistent with the organic feeling an appetital or animal

propensity for the sensation; this appetite, of course, has but a faint and delicate influence, and being, in fact, but the active side of the sensation itself, is not easily recognised; but if the sensation be pleasant at all, its pleasure implies the existence of an appetital impulse, however much that impulse may be repressed by reason or otherwise; and I call attention to it now in order to get the emotion of admiration clear from every trace of sensuality.

The results to be registered from the foregoing considerations are, first, that colour is a feeling in ourselves, and in so far as it seems to be a quality in objects it is we that make it, and are by our nature necessitated to make it, seem so; and, secondly, that shape and motion are likewise sensations in ourselves, and so far as they appear to be a quality or condition of objects, it is we that make them, and are necessitated to make them, appear so. Everything, in short, which we suppose to be a quality in objects, is no more than a feeling in our own mind, the consequence of a modification of our sensitive organism caused by something external to us; but as to what this causatory something is, we have not the smallest information, and neither it nor its sensible effects in the mind has any right to the epithet "beautiful."

Pass we now from the sensational to the second and only other class of feelings of which the mind is capable, viz., the emotional; let us turn from organic to inorganic, from corporeal to spiritual affections. Every sensation influences us in some degree, either greater or less, and by so doing calls up an emotion of a greater or less intensity. It is a psychological impossibility that we should be perfectly indifferent to any of our sensations, for if they are neither a source of direct harm nor of direct benefit to us, they may be a source of negative harm or of indirect benefit, i.e., of knowledge. We regard each one of our sensations with something of hope or fear, of love or repugnance, of admiration or disgust, of awe or contempt; and while in some cases the emotion is almost imper

ceptible, in others it seems to occupy the mind to the exclusion of sensation, reason, and will. A clear and distinct appreciation of the emotion of admiration is quite as necessary as a clear and distinct appreciation of the sensations which precede it in the mind; for on this clearness and distinctness much of our subsequent investigations will depend. Except in infancy we never look upon an object with perfect impartiality; we always think of its utility or its inutility, and are affected according to the estimate we form; if we know not what the object which we see is, we are puzzled and inquisitive, and therefore unhappy, till we do know. The sensations which objects cause on the retina are very delicate, and under ordinary circumstances removed from intensity; the emotions, on the other hand, which these same objects call up often reach a high degree of intensity, and in fact generally obscure by their presence the sensations that forerun them. When a peasant and a poet look at a single bright star shining in the sky, they both have the same sensations; but while the former can think of nothing but the colour, size, and brilliancy of the object, and is consequently but little affected by emotion, the latter is carried off at once into the regions of imagination, and revels in the countless suggestions which the orb awakens in his fancy; and he is thereby led to admire the object to such a degree that he presently becomes quite oblivious to his sensations. To the peasant the star is very bright; to the poet it is very beautiful. Beauty is a relative term, implying admiration and something that is admirable. The subjective side of beauty is this emotion of admiration consequent upon the suggestion of pleasant sensations. To speak, then, of the emotion of beauty or of the emotion of sublimity is irregular and erroneous phraseology; there is an emotion of admiration for beauty and an emotion of awe for sublimity, an emotion of disgust for ugliness and of contempt for meanness; but there is no emotion of beauty or of sublimity, and it is quite as improper to speak