A CRITICAL DISSERTATION ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF TASTE. CHAP. I. On the Nature of Taste, and wherein it differs from Sensibility, or the Emotion that attends the Perception of Beauty. WHOEVER Would make himself acquainted with the original archetypes of beauty that exist in nature, or with the imitative beauties of art, whether presented through the medium of language or of painting, whether they brighten in the inspired page of a Homer or a Milton, or fix the 'attention of the admiring spectator to the glowing canvass of a Raphael, or an Angelo-whoever would commune with those qualities of mind that irradiate thought, and enrobe sentiment in the light vesture of beauty-must first make himself acquainted with that association or disposition of qualities in which sensible and intellectual beauty consists. It is this knowledge that constitutes taste; whence it follows, that the extent of our acquaintance with the qualities of beauty always determines the extent of our acquaintance with the principles of taste. A knowledge of the one necessarily implies a knowledge of the other; and when we say it is difficult to define taste, we only acknowledge that it is difficult to tell in what beauty consists. If the qualities of beauty were fixed and invariable, an acquaintance with them would render our ideas of taste as fixed and permanent, nor would it longer be pronounced that volatile and airy faculty which will not endure the chains of a definition, and which stands for a different idea in different minds. Beauty and taste, though they belong to different subjects, cannot be separated: the former belongs to the object perceived; the latter to the percipient. Taste is an acquired power of discriminating those qualities of sensible and intellectual being, which, from the invisible harmony that exists between them and the constitution of our nature, are endowed with the property of exciting in us pleasing and delightful emotions, in degrees proportioned to our natural sensibility, and of distinguishing from them the opposite qualities of ugliness, which excite, in similar degrees, the opposite emotions of aversion and disgust. Beauty, as it-is distinguished from taste, of which it is the proper object, may be defined, that association of qualities in sensible and intellectual being which awakens in us the above emotions of pleasure or delight, and in the discrimination of which taste is conversant. In this definition of beauty, I have considered it only in reference to taste, without any regard to the principle by which the qualities of beauty awaken in us their correspondent emotions. This principle has been anxiously sought after by the most eminent philosophers in England, France, and Germany; and, indeed, an inquiry into the origin of the emotions produced by the sublime and beautiful, in nature and in art, has been a favourite topic with many elegant writers, since the time of Longinus. Professor Stuart, however, in his late work on the subject, tells us, that "the success of their speculations has been so inconsiderable, that little can be inferred from them, but the impossibility of the problem to which they have been directed." This sweeping clause, coming from so high an authority, must have considerable influence in deterring others, and, it would seem, should have deterred himself, from attempting the enodation of a problem that admits of no solution. If it be true that no common quality belongs to objects, which entitles them to the name of beautiful, it is idle, in the highest degree, to seek for that which has no existence; but if such a quality be allowed to exist, the fruitless attempts that have been hitherto made to discover it, should not deter the labours of others, nor check that spirit of inquiry which seeks to trace the original form and features of things through all the various and diversified aspects in which they present themselves to our view. If we are to be deterred by the ill success of others, what becomes of that Emulation, whose keen eye Forward still and forward strains, While a higher hope remains? A belief that this common quality has a real existence in the nature of things, that it connects all the other qualities of beauty, and that the term beautiful is applied to no object in which its connecting power does not prevail, has alone induced me to engage in the present inquiry; but, as I confine myself entirely, at present, to the investigation of those mental energies, and mediums of sensible perception, that are necessarily exercised in the cultivation of taste, the subject of beauty will necessarily belong to the second part of this work. It is of the first importance to set out with a just view of our subject, as a leading error is generally the cause of all our false theories, in morals, in philosophy, and in religion. A leading, fundamental error, must necessarily affect all the subdivisions of the theory that arise from it, as they must owe their truth or falsehood to the principle from which they arise, and on which they are founded. It will not, therefore, be amiss, that I should first make some observations on the opinion which former writers seem to have entertained of Taste, as these observations will not only give us a more correct idea of its nature and office, but they will afford us an opportunity of perceiving the process by which it is cultivated. They will also shew, that the erroneous definitions of taste which have been adopted by former writers, have, unavoidably, led them into many inconsistencies on the subject. Dr. Blair, in his Essay on Taste, defines it to be "a power of receiving pleasure from the beauties of nature and of art;" a definition which seems to be borrowed from the following passage in Akenside: What, then, is taste but those internal powers, According to this definition, which makes taste consist, not in a knowledge or perception of the qualities of beauty in an object, but in a passive faculty of being pleased at their presence, it is possible to have a perfect knowledge of beauty |