disturbing influence is interposed, in every other case, showing not only the intimate but proximate connexion between the emotions and the intellective acts, and the dependence of the former on the latter.

§ 16. Emotions characterized by rapidity and variety. When we assert that the position of the emotions is between intellections on the one hand, and desires and obligations on the other, we imply, of course, that there is a real and marked distinction between them and the latter mental states. And this distinction exists. If consciousness gives us a knowledge of emotions, the same consciousness can hardly fail to give us a knowledge of the mental states that are subsequent to them; and the difference of knowledge resulting from these different acts of consciousness involves necessarily a difference in the things known. Among other things, if we consult our consciousness for the purpose of ascertaining the comparative nature of the mental states in question, we shall undoubtedly be led to notice that the emotions, as compared with the others, are generally more prompt and rapid in their origin, as well as more evanescent. They arise and depart on the surface of the mind, swelling and sinking almost instantaneously, like the small waves and ripples that play upon the scarcely agitated surface of a summer's lake, and which have no sooner arrested the eye of the beholder than they are gone. The desires and feelings of obligation not only arise subsequently and more slowly, but obviously possess a greater tenacity and inflexibility of nature. When a strong desire or a decided sentiment of duty has once intrenched itself in the soul, it is well known that it is comparatively difficult to dislodge it.

There is another circumstance involved in the distinction between them. The emotions have less unity in kind; in other words, are more various. Desires and obligations, although liable, like other mental states, to be modified by peculiar circumstances, are, in themselves considered, always one and the

same.

But of emotions we find many varieties, such as the emotions of cheerfulness and joy, of melancholy and sorrow, of shame, of surprise, astonishment, and wonder. We have furthermore the emotions, differing from all others, of the ludicrous, the emotions of beauty and sublimity, also the moral emotions of approval and disapproval, and some others.

If the reader will bear these statements in mind, taken in connexion with some things to be said hereafter, he will feel less objection than he might otherwise have felt to the general and subordinate classifications which we have thought ourselves authorized to make. These divisions we hold to be fundamental. They are necessarily involved, as we apprehend, in a thorough and consistent knowledge of the mind. Important points, for instance, in the doctrine of the Will, will be found to depend upon distinctions which are asserted to exist in the sensibilities. It is desirable, therefore, that the grounds of such distinctions should be understood, so that they may not only be above rejection, but above doubt.

CHAPTER II.

ÆSTHETIC EMOTIONS.- -EMOTIONS OF BEAUTY.

§ 17. Characteristics of emotions of beauty.

WE do not profess to enter into an examination of every possible emotion. They are so various and multiplied it would be difficult to do it; nor would any important object be answered. Proceeding on the principle of selecting those which, either in themselves or by reason of their relation to the arts and to human conduct, appear to be most interesting and important, we shall begin with emotions of Taste or Esthetic emotions.

The doctrine of the Esthetic emotions has a close connexion with the fine arts, as well as with the effects which certain objects in nature have upon us. If there were not in men an Emotivity or Emotive

nature, a susceptibility of feeling added to that of perceiving, there would be no possibility of explaining the power which the fine or liberal arts exercise over the human mind. The epithet aesthetic, if we were governed in our use of it by its etymology alone, might be regarded as applicable to and embracing all the emotive states; but the recognized and popular application of the term, which is not always guided by etymological intimations, restricts it to what are sometimes called "emotions of taste," particularly those of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity.

We begin with emotions of beauty. We have already had occasion to remark that all emotions are undefinable, and of course the aesthetic emotions do not form an exception. Of the emotions of beauty it will be as difficult to give a definition, so as to make them clearer to any one's comprehension than they really are, as to define the simple sensations of color, sound, or taste. We find in them, however, these two characteristics.

(1.) The emotion of beauty, in the first place, is always a pleasing one. We never give the name to one which is painful, or to any feeling of disgust. Whenever, therefore, we speak of an emotion of beauty, we imply, in the use of the terms, some degree of satisfaction or pleasure. All persons, the illiterate as well as the scientific, use the phrase with this import.(2.) We never speak of emotions of beauty, to whatever degree may be our experience of inward satisfaction, without referring such emotions to something external. The same emotion, which is called satisfaction, or delight of mind, when it is wholly internal, we find to be termed an emotion of beauty, if we can refer it to something without, and can spread its charms around any external object. We do not, however, mean by this that the objects must necessarily be material; but that, whether material or immaterial, they must be external or outside, considered in relation to our own emotive susceptibility. But this will appear more clearly hereafter.

§ 18. Of what is meant by beautiful objects.

There are many objects which excite the emotion of beauty; that is, when the objects are presented, this emotion, in a greater or less degree, immediately exists. These objects we call beautiful.-There are other objects which, so far from exciting pleasant emotions within us, are either indifferent, or cause feelings of a decidedly opposite character, so that we speak of them as deformed or disgusting. If there were no emotions, pleasant or unpleasant, excited by either of these classes, or if the emotions which they cause were of the same kind, we should apply to them the same epithets. So that the ground of distinction, which, in speaking of these different objects, we never fail to make, appears to exist in our own feelings. In other words, we call an object BEAUTIFUL because it excites within us pleasant emotions, which, in the circumstances of the case, we cannot well ascribe to any other cause. And when we prefer to say, in other terms, that an object has beauty, we obviously mean the same thing, viz., that the object has a trait or quality (perhaps we may find it difficult to explain precisely what it is) which causes these emotions.

§ 19. Of the distinction between beautiful and other objects. In view of what has been said, we may venture to make two remarks.—(I.) Every beautiful object has something in itself which truly discriminates it from all other objects. This something, this peculiar trait, whatever it is, lays the foundation for those results in the human mind, which, on being experienced, authorize us to speak of the object as beautiful. This is clear, not only from what, on a careful examination, we shall frequently find in the objects themselves, but also from the fact that the operations of the mind always have their appropriate causes. the mind experiences a pleasant emotion in view of a certain object, it is because there is something in the object which has a determinate and permanent relation to that particular mental state which distinguish

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es it from other objects. If it were not for that distinctive trait in the object, the human mind is so constituted that it could not have experienced the corresponding emotion.

(II.) Beautiful objects are distinguished from all others, not only by something in themselves, certain original and inherent traits characteristic of them, but also, and perhaps still more, by a superadded trait, a species of borrowed effulgence, derived and reflected back from the mind itself. When we contemplate a beautiful object, we are pleased; we are more or less happy. We naturally connect this emotion of pleasure with the object which is its cause; and we have been in the habit of doing this, no doubt in most instances unconsciously to ourselves, from early life. The consequence is, the association between the inward delight and the outward cause becomes so strong that we are unable to separate them; and the objects, additional to their own proper qualities, appear to be surrounded and to beam out with an effulgence which comes from the mind.

These remarks will be found to have an application to certain speculations which have sometimes been promulgated on the subject of beauty. In accordance with what has just been said, we do not feel at liberty to deny absolutely and without qualification, as the philosophy of some writers seems to authorize them to do, that there is actually beauty in the objects which are generally considered as possessing it; in the rising or setting sun, in the moon walking in her majesty, and in the multitude of stars that rejoice in her presence. On the contrary, we have already intimated that there is something in all these cases, as there is in blossoms, and flowers, and waving trees, and falling cascades, which distinguishes them from other objects that are not beautiful. God has made them glorious in themselves. But, at the same time, we have no doubt that they are invested, in the eye of the beholder, with a new and additional radiance, which flows out from his own bosom. The mind