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beautiful song; and the painter discovers beauty in the design and in the colouring of his pictures. We also apply the term beauty to experiments in the different departments of physics, especially when the experiment is simple, and results in deciding a point which has occasioned doubt and dispute. We speak of it, and, as we suppose, with a degree of propriety, as a beautiful experiment.

So that all nature, taking the word in a wide sense, is the province of beauty; the intellectual and the sensitive, as well as the material world. We do not, however, mean by this to descend into particulars, and to say that everything which exists within the range of these departments is beautiful, but merely that from none of the great departments of nature are the elements of beauty excluded.

23. All objects not equally fitted to cause these emotions.

From what has been said, it must be evident that there is a correspondence between the mind and the outward objects which are addressed to it. This has already been clearly seen in respect to the sensations and external perceptions, and it is not less evident in respect to that part of our nature which we are now attending to. The mind, and the external world, and the external circumstances of our situation, are reciprocally suited to each other. Hence, when we ascribe the quality of beauty to any object, we have reference to this mutual adaptation. An object is ordinarily called beautiful when it has agreeable qualities; in other words, when it is the cause or antecedent of the emotion of beauty. However it might appear to other beings, it would not have the character of beauty to us if there were not a sort of correspondence, an adaptedness to each other, between our mental constitution and such outward object.

But no one can be ignorant that not all objects cause the emotions in question; and of those which possess this power, some have it in a greater and some in a less degree. This brings us to a very important inquiry. It is no unreasonable curiosity which wishes to know why the effect is so limited, and why all objects are not em

braced in it. Why different objects cause the same emotion in different degrees. And why the same objects produce a diversity of emotions in different individuals, and even in the same individual at different times.

§ 24. A susceptibility of emotions of beauty an ultimate principle of our mental constitution.

In answering these questions, something must be taken for granted; there must be some starting-point; otherwise all that can be said will be involved in inextricable confusion. That is, we must take for granted that the mind has an original susceptibility of such emotions. Nor can we suppose there can be any objection to a concession which is warranted by the most general experience. We all know that we are created with this susceptibility, because we are all conscious of having had those emotions which are attributed to it. And if we are asked how, or why it is, that the susceptibility at the bottom of these feelings exists, we can only say, that such was the will of the Being who created the mind; and that this is one of the original or ultimate elements of our nature.

Although the mind, therefore, is originally susceptible of emotions of beauty, as every one knows, still it is no less evident, from the general arrangements we behold, both in physical and intellectual nature, that these emotions have their fixed causes or antecedents. We have seen that these causes are not limited to one class or kind, but are to be found under various circumstances; in the exercises of reasoning, in the fanciful creations of poetry, in musical airs, in the experiments of physics, in the forms of material existence, and the like. Perhaps we may assert as a general statement (that is to say, in a great number or majority of cases), these objects cannot be presented to the mind, and the mind be unmoved by it; it contemplates them, and it necessarily has a feeling of delight, of a greater or less degree of strength, which authorizes us in characterizing them as beautiful.

In asserting that this is correct as a general statement, it is implied that some objects do not originally cause these emotions. And hence we are led to enter into more

purpose

particular inquiries, having reference to this difference in what may be called, in the phraseology of some recent writers, the ÆSTHETIC power of objects. Accordingly, our in the remarks which are to follow, is to point out some of those objects, and forms and qualities of objects, which seem from their very nature, and in distinction from other objects which do not have this power, fitted to create within us the feelings under consideration.

§ 25. Remarks on the beauty of forms.-The circle.

In making that selection of those objects and qualities of objects which we suppose to be fitted, in the original constitution of things, to cause within us pleasing emotions of themselves, independently of any extraneous aid, we cannot profess to speak with certainty. The appeal is to the general experience of men; and all we can do is to give, so far as it seems to have been ascertained, the results of that experience. Beginning, therefore, with material objects, we are justified by general experience in saying that certain dispositions or forms of matter are beautiful; for instance, the CIRCLE.

We rarely look upon a winding or serpentine form without experiencing a feeling of pleasure, and on seeing a circle this pleasure is heightened. Hence Hogarth, who, both by his turn of mind and by his habits of life, has claims to be regarded as a judge, expressly lays it down in his Analysis of Beauty, that those lines which have most variety in themselves, contribute most towards the production of beauty; and that the most beautiful line by which a surface can be bounded is the waving or serpentine, or that which constantly, but imperceptibly, deviates from the straight line. This, which we frequently find in shells, flowers, and other pleasing natural productions, he calls the line of beauty.

Without entering into the question whether the circular form has absolutely, all other things being equal, more beauty than any other form, it can certainly be said, without hesitation, that it possesses the power of exciting this emotion, at least in a considerable degree. We might safely refer it to almost any man's experience, whatever his mental character or situation in life, and let him say,

when he contemplates the waving features of numberless flowers, when he gathers on the seashore wreathed and variegated shells, or beholds through distant meadows the winding stream, or pauses in the pathless wood to gaze on the constantly-changing position of its branches, whether he does not at once feel within him a spontaneous movement of delight. Is not the object, which is directly before him, in itself a source of this feeling? Although he may have a superadded pleasure from some other source, as we shall have occasion to see; still, considering the subject particularly in reference to the object before him, may not the true philosophy be summed up in the single assertion that he sees and he feels; he beholds and he admires; the intellect, through the instrumentality of the eye, has a knowledge of the object, and the awakened heart expands with the homage of its voluntary joy.

§ 26. Original or intrinsic beauty.—The circle.

It is necessary, in examining the subject of beauty, to look at it in two points of view, viz., as Intrinsic and as Associated. In the remarks which we may have occasion to make in this chapter, we have reference exclusively to what may be denominated Original or Intrinsic beauty; by which we mean that which is founded in the nature of the object, independently of accidental or merely accessory circumstances.-Accordingly, in view of the remark at the close of the last section, it seems to result from the common experience of mankind, that objects which are circular, or approach that form, exhibiting a constantly varying outline, have in themselves, and on account of this configuration, a degree, and not unfrequently a high degree, of beauty. The bending stem of the tulip, the curve of the weeping willow, the windings of the ivy, the vine wreathing itself around the elm, the serpentine river, are highly pleasing. The vast circular expanse of the visible sky, when seen in a cloudless night, is a beautiful object, independently of the splendour that is spread over it by its brilliant troops of stars. The arch of the rainbow, expanding its immense curve over our heads, could hardly fail to be regarded as an object of great beauty, even if nothing but the form and outline

were presented to our vision, without the unrivalled lustre of its colours. And the same of other instances, scattered in profusion through the works of nature, but too numerous to be mentioned here.

On this question, as on many others in mental philosophy, we appeal to the common feelings of mankind. And it is on this account that what we now say on the subject of the intrinsic beauty of some objects and combinations of objects, we take to be no "fable of man's device," no tinkering of an earthly philosophy; but the response of a higher oracle, the voice of nature, the announcement of the universal heart of humanity. We are aware that some may object to such an appeal; they perhaps regard it as below the dignity of science; but no one is ignorant that philosophers, who were not wanting in sagacity, have frequently made it. Their great inquiry on subjects of this nature is, what men generally have thought and felt. "I never remember," says Mr. Burke, "that anything beautiful, whether a man, a beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever shown, though it were to a hundred people, that they did not all immediately agree that it was beautiful, though some might have thought that it fell short of their expectation, or that other things were still finer. I believe no man thinks a goose to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that what they call a Friezland hen excels a peacock."

27. Of the beauty of straight and angular forms.

Although the circular or constantly varying outline is thought, more than any other, to excite the delightful emotions under consideration, we are not to suppose that the power of beauty is excluded from other forms. In examining the works of nature, it is hardly necessary to say that we find numerous instances of straight and angular forms, as well as of the serpentine and winding, although perhaps less frequently. It can hardly be doubted that these forms, as they are operated upon and moulded in nature's hands, possess more or less beauty. It is almost a matter of supererogation to attempt to illustrate this statement to those who have a heart and eye open to the great variety of her works, which on every side

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