mere mockery and insults to the things by which you endeavour to do "1

If the utility of flowers be made out, it is a small matter to establish the utility of other classes of beautiful objects or graceful movements - birds, jewels, sunsets, dancing, skating, &c. Besides an organism and a physiological system far more wonderful than flowers, birds have colour, song, feathers, and flesh. The last two commodities, together with the eggs, are often remote and reserved utilities, especially in song birds, but they unquestionably form elements in our general estimate of the species.

The utility of jewellery, and silver, gold, or precious ornaments is evident. They are the surplusage and the symbols of wealth. Should the necessity arise, they

could be turned into money, exchanged, or utilised as they are. But this utility is always kept in the background. The articles are security for a contingency which may, but which is not expected to occur. They are evidences of a power which it is hoped will not be required. The utility, however, is never lost sight of; for mark how such objects dwindle in our regard when we learn that they are counterfeits-that the "jewels" are glass, and the "gold and silver" mere gilding.

Sunset and sunrise beauty depend on the atmosphere and the clouds two essentials to mundane life. The innate utility of such phenomena consists in the additional light they enable the sun when sinking to shed on the earth by reflection and refraction, together with the incomparable brilliancy, richness, and variety of their colours.

The utility of skating and other outdoor pastimes consists in the health derived from air and muscular exercise, together with the increase of dexterity and skill which accompanies every successful exertion of power on our part. We are advantaged in being able to diminish friction 1 "Seven Lamps of Architecture," chap. iv. § 21.

and overcome or subjugate the laws of nature to our will, and to exhibit our dexterity and skill to those around us. The utility of dancing is confined to the suppleness, agility, and grace imparted to the body by the exercise, together with what lesson may be learned by keeping pace correctly with the music.

The utility of steeples lies in attracting attention from afar and calling the stranger and sojourner to worship, while that of pinnacles and other architectural features is akin to that of the costume of ecclesiastics, and serves to proclaim the character of the building and to distinguish it from surrounding structures.

G

CHAPTER V.

III. BEAUTY ATTACHES ONLY TO UTILITY-continued.

2. Subjective Utility.

SUBJECTIVE utility admits of the same division as objective, and consists in knowledge, which teaches us either (1) how to avoid pain, or (2) how to secure pleasure. And as objective utility relates to material things upon which the senses can work, so this relates to immaterial thoughts upon which the faculties can operate. The above division does not indicate two kinds of utility: it merely exhibits two aspects of the same thing. For utility is a relative term and necessarily implies both the objective and subjective elements. If I wanted to cross a dyke fifteen feet wide, and had but two planks each less than fifteen feet long, it would be as necessary for me to know how to make use of my planks as to have the planks to make use of. I might as well know how to adjust the planks and not possess them as possess them and not know how to adjust them. Any one, therefore, who will tell me how to utilise my planks, when possessed, will do me as great a service as he that supplies me with the planks to be utilised. As under objective utility, therefore, we considered chiefly the materials which operate on the mind, we shall now address ourselves more particularly to the mind which operates on the materials.

Objective utility springs from what is materially serviceable; subjective utility from what is morally profitable. Some tangible advantage must underlie the first; some

If

didactic lesson must be derivable from the second. these conditions be not fulfilled there will be no beauty, and, consequently, no admiration. We have seen this to be the case in the first department of utility-the objective; we shall now proceed to test it in the latter department— the subjective.

Subjective utility appertains, as was said, to the mind. In entering this department of beauty we shall find some difficulty in keeping clear of ethical considerations which meet us half way; for æsthetics and ethics join hand in hand; beauty and virtue embrace each other; so that before we can finish the first we must have begun the second. It is no part of our business, however, to investigate the basis or details of moral philosophy or the laws of duty, inculcated by appeals to reason and ending in wisdom. Our purpose is to investigate æsthetic science, or the laws of beauty inculcated by appeals to fancy and ending in admiration. It is our purpose not to discuss the causes of those virtuous principles of conduct which beget love, but to inquire into the qualities and phenomena of matter which occasion admiration.

Matter or material qualities can, of course, beget admiration or awaken emotion only mediately and indirectly by means of the intellect, just as a blow by a mallet on a croquet-ball sends another ball lying hard by flying off across the lawn, without having actually touched it at all. It must be remembered that as genius is only an advanced form of knowledge, so virtue is only a higher form of beauty; and as we respect the learned but reverence the great, so we admire the beautiful but love the virtuous. Thus as reverence is only deep-rooted respect, so love is only deep-rooted admiration. There is no difference in kind between the two emotions; the distinction must be sought for in the degree of feeling and in the thoughts by which it is raised. It may seem a contradiction to assert that love is only advanced admiration, since brutes, who are undoubtedly capable of love, not only for each other,

but for man, are apparently as incapable of admiration. The paradox, however, is only superficial. Love is the very first instinct which any sentient being manifests, and its primary form is self-love; but as self is not sufficient for self, this self-love is refracted to what serves and sustains self-to food, to heat, to shelter, to parents, to kindred, and to whatever will, as Hobbes puts it, "serve its turn." This love is simple enough, and it is easy for brutes to feel it, for it is nothing more than a better form of desire. Man, however, is capable of more than this. He can contemplate with a delicate affection things he cannot love and scarcely desires. He can divide his emotion into two; he can stop at admiration for things which serve another's turn but may never serve his own. As the appropriate emotion for just actions is approbation and for virtuous conduct is love, so the appropriate emotion for beautiful qualities is admiration, for sublime qualities is awe, for ugly ones disgust, and for mean ones contempt. Now all these æsthetic emotions are partial forms of stronger ethical ones, the stronger being common to almost all sentient creatures, while the partial forms are apparently peculiar to man. Thus admiration is love curtailed, disgust is hatred halved, awe is terror cut short, and contempt is resentment in little; and while brutes are capable of feeling love, hatred, terror, and resentment, they are incapable of admiration, disgust, awe, or contempt; a coincidence, moreover, which throws light upon the fact that when any of these stronger emotions are present, the mind cannot experience the partial forms.

Starting, then, from this great fact, that in the division of beauty we are about to consider-that which attaches to subjective utility-there must be knowledge of some kind communicated to the intellect, or good of some kind promised of an intellect, we may call this subjective utility, this knowledge, or this good, a moral; and we shall seek to justify the proposition by a consideration of beauty as exhibited, first, in the human features; secondly,