templation, calls forth similar emotions.-The human countenance, in itself considered, is a beautiful object. Nature has decidedly given that character to the curving outline of the lips and forehead, the varying tints of the cheek, and the gentle illuminations of the eye. But these interesting traits, additional to what they are in themselves, convey ideas of mind; they may be regarded as natural indications and signs of the soul, which is lodged behind them; and although the human countenance is pleasing of itself, it is beyond question that the thought, and feeling, and amiability of which it is significant, are pleasing also. We may illustrate what we mean by an instance of this kind. If we fix our attention upon two men, whose outward appearance is the same, but one of them is far more distinguished than the other for clearness of perception, extent of knowledge, and all the essentials of true wisdom, we certainly look upon him with a higher degree of complacency. And this complacency is greatly heightened if we can add to these intellectual qualities certain qualities of the heart or of the moral character, such as a strong love of truth, justice, and benevolence.

It is true, that in the present life intellectual and moral objects are brought before our contemplation only in a comparatively small degree, surrounded and almost encumbered, as we are, with material things; but they are, nevertheless, proper objects of knowledge, and are among the great sources of beauty. There is no object of contemplation more pleasing and even enrapturing than the Supreme Being; but, in contemplating the Deity, we do not contemplate an outward and accessible picture, or a statue of wood and stone, but merely a complex internal conception, which embraces certain intellectual and moral qualities and powers, and excludes everything of a purely material kind. Now when we dwell upon the parts of this great and glorious conception, and follow them out into the length and breadth of infinite wisdom, of infinite benevolence, of unsearchable power and justice, and of other attributes, which are merged together and assimilated in this great sun of moral perfection, we find such a splendour and such a fitness in them that we cannot but

be filled with delight. The object before us, unless we may more properly speak of it as sublime, is obviously one of transcendent natural and moral beauty.

39. Of a distinct sense or faculty of beauty.

From the views which have been presented in this chapter, we are prepared, in some degree, to estimate the opinion of those writers who are understood to maintain that there is a distinct SENSE or faculty of beauty. The doctrine referred to is, that, by means of this sense or faculty of beauty, which seems to be regarded as entirely analogous to the external senses of sight and feeling, the mind experiences the emotions of beauty constantly, or almost constantly, whenever a particular object is present. That is, having this supposed sense, we can no more be without the appropriate emotion whenever the beautiful object is presented, than we can be without sight or feeling when our eyes are open to behold objects, or when our hands are impressed upon them. And, moreover, the beauty which is thus discovered has, according to this system, a precise and definite character, concerning which there cannot ordinarily be any possible mistake.

There are some parts, undoubtedly, of this doctrine of emotions of beauty, to which it is by no means necessary to object. Its advocates hold, with good reason, that certain objects give us pleasure of themselves; and also that the emotions arise in the mind at once whenever the objects are presented to it, and therefore, in some degree, the same as when vision follows the opening of the eyelids. But here it cannot be denied that the analogy between the susceptibility of emotions of beauty and the external senses ceases.

The opinion that we have a distinct sense or faculty of beauty would give to its appropriate emotions a character more exact and particular than is justified by what is known to be the fact; there would in this case be no more difference of opinion concerning the beauty and deformity of objects than concerning their sensible qualities, their taste, sound, or colour. If this doctrine, taken in its full extent, were true, the peasant, who can tell whether the taste of the apple be sweet or sour, and

whether the colour of the clouds of heaven be bright or dark, can sit in judgment on the beauty of the works of nature and art, no less than persons of the most critical

taste.

While, therefore, we contend that there is in the mind an original susceptibility of emotions of beauty, it is to be regarded as something quite different in its nature from the external senses; and these emotions, therefore, much more than our sensations, will differ in vividness or degree with a variety of circumstances.

CHAPTER III.

ASSOCIATED BEAUTY.

40. Associated beauty implies an antecedent or intrinsic beauty. THE views on the subject of beauty which we think it important to enforce, involve the positions, FIRST, that there is an original or intrinsic beauty; and, SECOND, that there is a beauty dependant on association.-In opposition to those persons who may be disposed to maintain that no object is beautiful of itself, but that all its beauty depends on association, we wish, in this connexion, to introduce what we regard as an important remark of Mr. Stewart. "The theory," he remarks," which resolves the whole effects of beautiful objects into Association, must necessarily involve that species of paralogism to which logicians give the name of reasoning in a circle. It is the province of association to impart to one thing the agreeable or the disagreeable effect of another; but association can never account for the origin of a class of pleasures different in kind from all the others we know. If there was nothing originally and intrinsically pleasing or beautiful, the associating principle would have no materials on which it could operate."*

This remark, if it be true, appears to be decisive on the subject before us. And that it is true, we think must * Essay on the Beautiful, chap. vi.

appear from the very nature of association. What we term association, it will be recollected, does not so much express a state of the mind, a thought, a feeling, a passion, as it does a principle or law of the mind; in other words, the circumstance under which a new state of mind takes place. Association, therefore, as Mr. Stewart intimates, does not of itself originate or create anything, but acts in reference to what is already created or originated. Something must be given for it to act upon. If it imparts beauty to one object, it must find it in another. If the beauty exists in that other object in consequence of association, it must have been drawn from some other source still more remote. If, therefore, association merely takes the beauty on its wings, if we may be allowed the expression, and transfers it from place to place, there must, of necessity, be somewhere an original or intrinsic beauty which is made the subject of such transfer.

41. Objects may become beautiful by association merely.

In accordance with what has thus far been said on this whole subject, it will be kept in mind, that some of the forms of which matter is susceptible are pleasing of themselves and originally; also that we are unable to behold certain colours, and to listen to certain sounds, and to gaze upon particular expressions of the countenance, and to contemplate high intellectual and moral excellence, without emotions in a greater or less degree delightful. At the same time, it must be admitted, that, in the course of our experience, we find a variety of objects that seem, as they are presented to us, to be unattended with any emotion whatever; objects that are perfectly indifferent. And yet these objects, however wanting in beauty to the great mass of men, are found to be invested, in the minds of some, with a charm allowedly not their own. These

objects, which previously excited no feelings of beauty, may become beautiful to us in consequence of the associations which we attach to them. That is to say, when the objects are beheld, certain former pleasing feelings peculiar to ourselves are recalled.

The lustre of a spring morning, the radiance of a summer evening, may of themselves excite in us a pleasing

emotion; but, as our busy imagination, taking advantage of the images of delight which are before us, is ever at work and constantly forming new images, there is, in combination with the original emotion of beauty, a superadded delight. And if, in these instances, only a part of the beauty is to be ascribed to association, there are some others where the whole is to be considered as derived from that source.

Numerous instances can be given of the power of association, not only in heightening the actual charms of objects, but in spreading a sort of delegated lustre around those that were entirely uninteresting before. Why does yon decaying house appear beautiful to me, which is indifferent to another? Why are the desolate fields around it clothed with delight, while others see in them nothing that is pleasant? It is because that house formerly detained me as one of its inmates at its fireside, and those fields were the scenes of many youthful sports. When I now behold them, after so long a time, the joyous emotions which the remembrance of my early days call up within me are, by the power of association, thrown around the objects which are the cause of the remembrances.

§ 42. Further illustrations of associated feelings.

He who travels through a well-cultivated country town cannot but be pleased with the various objects which he beholds; the neat and comfortable dwellings; the meadows that are peopled with flocks and with herds of cattle; the fields of grain, intermingled with reaches of thick and dark forest. The whole scene is a beautiful one; the emotion we suppose to be partly original; a person, on being restored to sight by couching for the cataract, and having had no opportunity to form associations with it, would witness it for the first time with delight. But a considerable part of the pleasure is owing to the associated feelings which arise on beholding such a scene; these dwellings are the abode of man; these fields are the place of his labours, and amply reward him for his toil; here are contentment, the interchange of heartfelt joys, and "ancient truth."