It has now been seen that beauty results from the perfection, chiefly of external forms, and the correspondence of that perfection with superiority of internal functions; on the more or less perfect perception of which, love, intermarriage, and the condition of our race, are dependant.
This mode of considering the elements, the nature, and the consequences of beauty, is equally applicable to the two sexes; but, in woman, the form of the species presents peculiar modifications.
In this work, it is the form of woman which is chosen for examination, because it will be found, by the contrast which is perpetually necessary, to involve a knowledge of the form of man, because it is best calculated to ensure attention from men, and because it is men who, exercising the power of selection, have alone the ability thus to ensure individual happiness, and to ameliorate the species; which are the objects of this work.
Let it not be imagined that the views now taken are less favorable to woman than to man.Whatever ensures the happiness of one ensures that of the other; and as the variety of forms and functions in man requires as many varieties in woman, it is not to exclusion or rejection with regard to woman that this work tends, but to a reasoned guidance in man’s choice, to the greater suitableness of all intermarriages, and to the greater happiness of woman as well as man, both in herself and in her progeny.
But notwithstanding the importance of any work which is in any degree calculated to promote such an object, some will tell us that the analysis of female beauty, on which it can alone be founded, is indelicate.—I shall, on the contrary, show that decency demands this analysis; that the interests of nature, of truth, of the arts, and of morality, demand it.
Our present notions of sexual decency belong more to art than to nature, and may be divided into artificial and artful decencies.
Artificial decencies are illustrated in the habits of various nations. They have their origin in cold countries, where clothing is necessary, and where a deviation from the degree or mode of clothing constitutes indecency. They could not exist in hot climates, where clothing is scarcely possible.
In hot climates, natural decency can alone exist; and there is not, I believe, one traveller in such countries whose works do not prove that natural decency there exists as much as in cold countries. In exemplification of this, I make a single quotation: it would be easy to make thousands.Burchell, speaking of the Bushmen Hottentots, says: “The natural bashful reserve of youth and innocence is to be seen as much among these savages, as in more polished nations; and the young girls, though wanting but little of being perfectly naked, evinced as just a sense of modesty as the most rigid and careful education could have given them.â€
In mild climates, the half-clothed or slightly-clothed people appear to be somewhat at a loss what to do. Fond of decorations, like all savage or half-civilized people, they seem to be divided between the tatooing and painting of hot climates, and the clothing of cold ones; and when they adopt the latter, they do not rightly know what to conceal.
The works of all travellers afford the same illustrations of this fact. I quote one. Kotzebue describes the custom among the Tartar women of Kasan, of flying or of concealing their countenance from the sight of a stranger. The necessity of conforming to this custom threw into great embarrassment a young woman who was obliged to pass several times before the German traveller. She at first concealed her face with her hands; but, soon embarrassed by that attitude, she removed the veil which covered her bosom, and threw it over her face. “That,†adds Kotzebue, “was, as we say, uncovering Paul to cover Jacques: the bosom remained naked. To cover that, she next showed what should have been concealed; and if anything escaped from her hands, she stooped, andthen,†says Kotzebue, “I saw both one and the other.â€
In colder or more uncertain climates, the greatest degree of covering constitutes the greatest degree of artificial decency: fashion and decency are confounded. Among old-fashioned people, of whom a good example may be found in old countrywomen of the middle class in England, it is indecent to be seen with the head unclothed; such a woman is terrified at the chance of being seen in that condition; and if intruded on at such a time, she shrieks with terror and flies to conceal herself. In the equally polished dandy of the metropolis, it is indecent to be seen without gloves. Which of these respectable creatures is the most enlightened, I do not take upon me to say; but I believe that the majority of suffrages would be in favor of the old woman.
So entirely are these decencies artificial, that any number of them may easily be created, not merely with regard to man or woman, but even with regard to domesticated animals. If it should please some persons partially to clothe horses, cows, or dogs, it would ere long be felt that their appearing in the streets without trowsers or aprons was grossly indecent. We might thus create a real feeling of indecency, the perception of a new impurity, which would take the place of the former absence of all impure thought, and once established, the evil would be as real as our whims have made it in other respects.
Moral feeling is deeply injured by this substitutionof impure thoughts, however fancifully founded, for pure ones, or rather for the entire absence of thought about worthless things. Artificial crimes are thus made, which are not the less real because artificial; for if aught of this kind is believed to be right, there is weakness or wrong in its violation. But violated it must be, if it were but accidentally.
To corrupt minds, this very violation of artificial decency in the case of woman affords the zest for the sake of which many of these decencies seem to have been instituted; and thus are created the artful decencies.
The purpose and the zest of artful decency are well illustrated by coquetry. Coquetry adopts a general concealment, which it well knows can alone give a sensual and seductive power to momentary exposure. Coquetry eschews permanent exposure as the bane of sensuality and seduction; and where these are great, as among the women of Spain, the concealment of dress is increased, even in warm climates. Nothing can throw greater light than this does on the nature of these decencies.
That coquetry has well calculated her procedure, does not admit of a doubt. She appeals to imagination, which she knows will spread charms over even ugly forms; she seeks the concealment under which sensuality and lust are engendered; and, in marriage, she at last lifts the veil which gratifies, only to disgust, and repays a sensual hallucination by years of misery.
Ought religion to claim the right of saying grace to such unveiling of concealment and the nuptial rites that follow it? Ought religion to profit by the impurities of sexual association? Marriage is a civil ceremony in other countries, even in Scotland. Such profane and profitable sanctions have nothing to do with primitive Christianity: they are abhorrent to its letter as well as to its spirit. But worldly and profitable religion is connected in business with government, under the firm of Church and State, and drives a thriving trade, in which the junior partner is contented with the profit arising from the common acts of life, while the senior one draws much of his living from other rites.[2]
What is said here, is no argument for living nudity: that, our climate and our customs forbid; and, in so doing, we can only regret that they are unfavorable to natural purity; while perfect familiarity with the figure ensures that feeling in the highest degree.
A distinguished artist informs me that greater modesty is nowhere to be seen than at the Life academy; and it was an observation of the great Flaxman, that “the students, in entering the academy, seemed to hang up their passions with their hats.†I can, from personal experience, give the same testimony in behalf of medical students at the dissecting-rooms. The familiarity of both theseclasses with natural beauty leads them only to seek to inform their minds and to purify their taste.[3]
Sinibaldi observes, that “nothing is more injurious to morals and to health, than the incitements of the women who in such numbers walk our streets,†and that “the laws as to offences against morals ought certainly to affect them the moment their language or actions can be deemed offensive.†But it is not to those who are critically conversant with the highest beauty of the human figure, that defective forms, ill-painted skins, rude manners, and contagious diseases, are at all seductive.
Nothing, then, can be more favorable to virtue than the decoration of every house with the beautiful copies of the glorious works of ancient Greece; and it is only humiliating to think that what has been so extensively done in this respect in the best houses, is less owing to our own taste than to the poor wanderers from Lucca or Barga. Experiment on this subject is peculiarly easy in London: let any one spend an hour in the shop of the very able Mr. Sarti, of Dean street, where he will meet the most liberal attention, and let him ask himself, in coming out, whether his moral feeling, as well as his taste, is not improved.
Those who cannot make this experiment, will perhaps be satisfied with the assurance of Hogarth, who says: “The rest of the body, not having advantages in common with the face, would soonsatiate the eye, were it to be as constantly exposed, nor would it have more effect than a marble statue.†Surely this is decisive enough in its way! Now let them mark what follows. “But,†he continues, “when it is artfully clothed and decorated, the mind at every turn resumes its imaginary pursuits concerning it. Thus, if I may be allowed a simile, the angler chooses not to see the fish he angles for, until it is fairly caught.†He meant of course—“thefishchooses not to see theangler, until it is fairly caught!â€
Be it known then to all, even the most aristocratic as to sexual association—I say the most aristocratic, and not the most religious, because religion is in some countries made the pander to aristocracy—be it known that the critical judgment and pure taste for beauty are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.
Home observes that “the sense of beauty does not tend to advance the interests of society, but when in a due mean with respect to strength. Love in particular arising from a sense of beauty, loses, when excessive, its sociable character: the appetite for gratification, prevailing over affection for the beloved object, is ungovernable, and tends violently to its end, regardless of the misery that must follow. Love in this state is no longer a sweet agreeable passion: it becomes painful, like hunger or thirst, and produces no happiness but in the instant of fruition. This discovery suggests a most important lesson, that moderation in our desires and appetites, which fits us for doing our duty, contributesat the same time the most to happiness: even social passions, when moderate, are more pleasant than when they swell beyond proper bounds.†Payne Knight says: “When, at the age of puberty, animal desire obtrudes itself on a mind already qualified to feel and enjoy the charms of intellectual merit, the imagination immediately begins to form pictures of perfection, by exaggerating and combining in one hypothetic object every excellence that can possibly belong to the whole sex; and the first individual that meets the eye, with any exterior signs of any of these ideal excellences, is immediately decorated with them all, by the creative magic of a vigorous and fertile fancy. Hence, she instantaneously becomes the object of the most fervent affection, which is as instantaneously cooled by possession: for, as it was not the object herself, but a false idea of her raised in heated imagination, that called forth all the lover’s raptures, all immediately vanish at the detection of his delusion; and a degree of disgust proportioned to the disappointment, of which it is the inevitable consequence, instantly succeeds. Thus it happens that what are called love-matches are seldom or ever happy.â€
Now, nothing can more effectually prevent even the existence of the mania described by these two philosophers than a critical judgment and a pure taste for beauty, which again therefore are the sole protection against low and degrading connexions.
A just sense of this truth will give high encouragement to sculpture and painting—arts which may everywhere be looked upon as the best tests, aswell as the best records, of civilization. Such encouragement they need in truth; for the monstrous monopoly of landed property and the accumulation of wealth in few hands—the great aim of our political economy—renders art poor, indeed.
I am aware that the vulgar among artists think otherwise; from the few rich they obtain employment; and, like the dog with his master, they look not beyond the hand that doles out their pittance. But the rich are few; and their palaces are already filled. A diffusion of wealth alone can give encouragement to art; nor can this ever be while British industry is crushed under the weight of enormous taxation.
Having removed some objections to art, I would add a few words to artists on the cause of the fine arts in Greece, from a paper I, two years ago, contributed to a monthly periodical.[4]
That the mythology of Greece had an influence over its arts, is generally granted; but I am not aware, that it has either been shown to be exclusively their cause, or that its mode of operation has ever been explained.
Religion, I may observe, is as natural to man as his weakness and helplessness. There is not one of its systems, not even the vilest, which has not afforded him consolation. Of its higher and better systems, some are equally admirable for the grandeur and the beauty of the truths on which they arefounded, the simplicity and the elegance of their ostensible forms, the power and applicability of their symbols, and their sympathy with, and control over, the affections and the imagination.
These high characteristics peculiarly distinguished the religion of ancient Greece.
By bigots, we are indeed told, that, though Homer is our model in epic, Anacreon in lyric, and Æschylus in dramatic poetry—though the music of Greece doubtless corresponded to its poetry in beauty, pathos, and grandeur—though the mere wreck of her sculpture is never overlooked in modern war and negotiation—though the mere sight of her ruined Parthenon is more than a reward for the fatigue or the peril of a journey to the Eternal city—though these products of art are the test of the highest civilization which the world has witnessed—though to these chiefly Rome owed the little civilization of which she was capable, and we ourselves the circumstance that, at this hour, we are not, like our ancestors, covered only with blue paint or the skins of brutes—though all this is true as to the arts of Greece, we are told that, by the strangest exception, the religion of Greece was a base superstition.
That religion, however, was the creator of these arts. They not only could not have existed without it, but they probably could never have been called into existence by any other religion.
The personification ofsimpleBeauty, Valor, Wisdom, or Omnipotence, in Venus, Mars, Minerva, or Jupiter, respectively, was essential to thepurityand thepowerof expression of these attributes in the worship of the deities to whom they respectively belonged. The union of absolute beauty and valor in one being, is not more impossible than their union in one expression of homage and admiration. Delicacy, elegance, and grace, were as characteristic of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the goddess of beauty, as attributes nearly opposite to these were of the statue, the worship, and the temple, of the god of war. Thus, were the fine arts in Greece created by the personification ofsimpleattributes or virtues as objects of adoration; and thus is excellence in these fine arts incapable of being elicited by any system of religion in which more than one attribute is ascribed to the god.
They must be ignorant, indeed, of the wonderful people of whom I now speak, who allege, that the Greeks worshipped the mere statue of the god and not the personified virtue. Even the history of their religion proves the reverse. It was the tomb which became the altar, and retained nearly its form. It was the expression of love, of regret, and of veneration for departed virtue, which became divine adoration; and, as individual acts and even individual names were ultimately lost in one transcendent attribute, so were individual forms and features, in its purified and ideal representation. Here, then, instead of finding the worship of men or of their representations, we discover a gradual advance from beings to attributes—from mortal man to eternal virtue—and a corresponding andsuitable advance from simple veneration to divine adoration.
When, in great emergencies of the state, the sages and the soldiers of Athens, in solemn procession repaired to the temple of Minerva, turned their faces toward the statue of the goddess, and prostrated themselves in spirit before her—let the beautiful history of Grecian science tell, whether in the statue they worshipped the mere marble structure, or, in its forms and attributes, beheld and adored a personification of eternal truth and wisdom, and so prepared the mind for deeds which have rendered Greece for ever illustrious. Or, when returning from a Marathon, or a Salamis, the warriors of Athens, followed by trains of maidens, and matrons, and old men, returned thanks to the god of victories—let the immortal record of the long series of glorious achievements which succeeded these, tell, whether gratitude to their heroes was not there identified with homage to the spirit or the divinity that inspired them.
True it is, that, whenever physical or moral principles are personified, the ignorant may be led to mistake the sign for that which is signified; but one of the most admirable characteristics of the Grecian religion is, that, with little effort, every external form may be traced to the spirit which it represents, and every fable may be resolved into a beautiful illustration of physical or moral truth. So that when mystic influences, with increasing knowledge, ceased to sway the imagination, all-powerful truths directed the reason.
The natural and poetical religion of Greece, therefore, differed from false and vulgar religions in this, that it was calculated to hold equal empire over the minds of the ignorant and the wise; and the initiations of Eleusis were apparently the solemn acts by which the youths and maidens of Greece passed from ignorance and blind obedience to knowledge and enlightened zeal. Thus, in that happy region, neither were the priests knaves, nor the people their dupes.[5]
And what has been the result of this fundamental excellence?—that no interpolated fooleries have been able to destroy it;—that the religion of Greece exists, and must ever exist, the religion of nature, genius, and taste;—and that neither poetry nor the arts can have being without it. Schiller has well expressed this truth in the following lines:—
“The intelligible forms of ancient poets,The fair humanities of old religion,The power, the beauty, and the majesty,That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountains,Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,Or chasms, and watery depths—all these have vanished;They live no longer in the faith of reason;But still the heart doth need a language; stillDoth the old instinct bring back the old names;* * And even, at this day,’Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great,And Venus who brings everything that’s fair.â€
In relation toearlysexual association, it cannot be doubted, that, when the instinct of reproduction begins to be developed, the reserve which parents, relatives, and instructers, adopt on this subject, is often the means of producing injurious effects; because, a system of concealment on this subject, as observed in the preceding chapter, is quite impracticable. Discoveries made by young persons in obscene books, the unguarded language or shameless conduct of grown-up persons, even the wild flights of an imagination which is then easily excited, will have the most fatal consequences.
Parents or instructers ought, therefore, at that critical period, to give rational explanations as to the nature and the object of the propensity, the mechanism of reproduction in various vegetable and animal beings, and the fatal consequences to which this propensity may lead. Such procedure, if well conducted, cannot but have the most beneficial results; because, in order that a sane person should avoid any danger, it is only necessary that he should see it distinctly.
The advantage, it has been observed, which the parent, relative, or instructer, derives, from himself in forming the adolescent in the new faculty which is developed in him, is to prevent his choosing, among corrupt servants or ignorant youths of his own age, the confidants of his passion. The parent or instructer, moreover, is then justly entitled to, and has gratefully given to him, the entire confidence of the adolescent; and he is thereby enabled exactly to appreciate the degree of power of the propensity which he desires to divert or to guide.
Such being the case, it is the business of the parent to present a true picture of the effects of too early association of this kind, on the stature, the various development of the figure, the muscular power, the quality of the voice, the health, the moral sense, and especially on the acuteness, the power, the dignity, and the courage, of the mind.
In doing this, it would be as stupid as injurious to employ the slightest degree of false representation, of unjust reprimand, or too much of what is called moralizing, which is often only the contemptible cant of a being who cannot reason, especially when it takes the place of a simple and powerful statement of facts. All of these would only render the young man a dissembler, and would compel him to choose another confidant.
Among other considerations, varying according to the circumstances of the case, those stated below may with advantage be presented.
At a certain period in the life both of plants and animals, varying according to their kind and theclimate they live in, they are fit for and disposed to the reproduction of their species. The sexes in both are then attracted to each other. In plants, the powder termed pollen, in animals a peculiar liquid which, deriving its name by analogy from the seeds of plants, is termed seminal, is secreted by the male plant or animal, and, by organs differently formed in each kind, is cast upon ova or eggs either contained within, or deposited by, the female. The details of this process are among the most beautiful and interesting of the living economy. In mankind, the attainment of this period is termed puberty.
It is with this critical period, and his conduct during it, that all that the youth deems most valuable, all that can decide his fortunes and his happiness in the world, his stature, figure, strength, voice, health, and mental powers, are most intimately connected.
In regard to stature, the body appears to complete its increase in height chiefly at the age of puberty, and during the first years which succeed that age. To be assured of the powerful influence of his own conduct, at this period, upon his stature, the youth has only to compare the tall men and women of the country as in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and the Scottish borders, where they have not been overworked, with the stunted and dwarfed creatures of the metropolis, where a stranger, when he first enters it, is apt to think he sees so many ugly boys and girls, whereas, they are full-grown London men and women.Half the population of the metropolis is affected in this way; and it is the obvious consequence of the acceleration of puberty by confinement, stimulating food, indecent plays, and sexual association.
In regard to the perfect development and beauty of the figure, the youth is probably aware that the most beautiful races of horses and dogs rapidly deteriorate, if men do not carefully maintain them by continence as well as by crossing. The too early employment, the depraved abuses, the injury, or the removal, of the sexual organs, are all of them causes still more certain of deformity. The latter of these causes acts, of course, most obviously; and it is evidenced in the almost universal malformation of eunuchs, geldings, &c.
That, in regard to bodily strength, sexual continence adds energy to the muscular fibre, is clearly seen by observing the most ardent quadrupeds previous to the time of the union of their sexes. But, this being past, precisely in the same proportion does the act of reproduction debilitate and break down the strongest animal. Many male animals even fall almost exhausted by a single act of union with the opposite sex.
Every classical student has read the beautiful allegory of Hercules, who, having spun at the knees of Omphale (ομφαλὸςthe navel, here put for the most essential part of the female generative organ), thereby lost his strength: this beautifully expresses the abasement of power amid the indulgences of love. Euripides also depicts the terrible Achilles as timid before women, and respectful withClytemnestra and Iphigenia. Hence, when a foolish lord reproached the poet Dryden with having given too much timidity toward women to a personage in one of his tragedies, and added that he knew better how to employ his time with the ladies, the poet answered: “You now acknowledge that you are no hero, which I intended that personage to be.â€
As to voice, which depends on the muscles of respiration, and more immediately on those of the mouth and throat, as general strength does on the muscles of the whole body, both merely affording expressions of the mind, the influence of the sexual union upon it is prodigious. How entirely it is altered by the removal of the testes in eunuchs is known to every one: in corresponding proportion, is it altered by every act of the generative organs, but especially by sexual indulgence during puberty. The horrible voice of early libertines and prostitutes presents an alarming example of this. To those who value voice in conversation, in the delightful and humanizing exercise of music, or in the grander efforts of public speaking, nothing more need be said.
As to health, the less we are prodigal of life, the longer we preserve it. Every one capable of observing may see that the stag loses his horns and his hair after procreation; that birds fall into moulting and sadness; and that male insects even perish after this effort, as if they yielded their individual life to their progeny. Indeed, everything perishes so much the more readily, as it has thustransmitted life to its descendants, or has cast it away in vain pleasures.
In mankind, as in other animals, to procreate is in effect to die to one’s self, and to leave one’s life to posterity; especially, if this takes place in early life. It is then that man becomes bald and bent; and that the charms of woman fade. Even in advanced age, epicures are so well aware of this, that they are known to abstain from amorous excess, as the acknowledged cause of premature death.
In relation to mind—as the generative power is the source of several characteristics of genius, the exhaustion of that power at an early age must take away these characteristics. Genius as surely languishes and is extinguished amid early sexual indulgence, as do the faculties of voice and locomotion, which are merely its signs and expressions.
It is thus with all our faculties, locomotive, vital, mental, at an early age. They are strengthened by all that they do not dissipate; and that which their organs too abundantly dispense is not only taken immediately from their own power, and mediately from that of the other organs, but it ensures the permanent debility of the whole.
It is true that the strong passions which are modified or characterized by the sexual impulse, excite the imagination and impel the mind to sublime exertions; but the sole means of either obtaining or preserving such impulsion is, to shun the indulgence of pleasure in early life, and its waste at later periods.
It has accordingly been observed, that the passion of love appears to be most excessive in animals which least excel in mental faculties. Thus the beasts which are the most lascivious, the ass, the boar, &c., are also the most stupid; and idiots and cretins display a sensuality which brutifies them still more. Hence, the Homeric fable that Circe transformed men into beasts.
It would also appear that the most stupid animals, swine, rabbits, &c., in general produce the greatest number of young; while men of genius have engendered the fewest. It is remarked that none of the greatest men of antiquity were much given to sexual pleasure.
It is, then, of the greatest importance to young men who are ambitious of excellence, to mark well this truth, that the most powerful and distinguished in mental faculties, other things being equal, will be he who wastes them least in early life by sexual indulgence—who most economizes the vital stimulant, in order to excite the mental powers on great occasions. By such means may a man surely surpass others, if he have received from his parents proportional mental energy.
Beside the means already indicated, there is one proposed by an able writer, as serving to divert the instinct of propagation when too early and excessive, and consequently dangerous: that is, the sentiment of love. To employ this means, he observes, “it is necessary to search early, after knowing the character of the adolescent whom it is wished to direct, for a young woman whose beauty and goodqualities may inspire him with attachment. This means will serve, more than can easily be imagined, to preserve the adolescent both from the grosser attractions of libertinism and the disease it entails, and fromthe more dangerous snares of coquetry. It is,†he adds, “a virtuous young woman and a solid attachment that are here spoken of.â€â€”At some future period I shall probably show how wise this recommendation is, as well as the necessity and the advantages of early marriages, under favorable circumstances.
Having now shown the evils of early sexual association, I may briefly notice those of later libertinism.
If, even in more advanced life, and when the constitution is stronger, the instinct of propagation be not restrained within just limits, it degenerates into inordinate lewdness or real mania: “Repperit obscænas veneres vitiosa libido.†By such depravation, nobleness of character is utterly destroyed.
This scarcely evitable consequence of great fortune and of the facility of indulgence, it has been justly observed, will ever be the ruin of the rich, and a mode of enervating the most vigorous branches of the most powerful house.
The libertine, then, owing to exhaustion, by sexual indulgence, is characterized by physical and moral impotence, or has a brain as incapable of thinking, as his muscles are of acting.
As libertines are enfeebled by indulgence, it follows that they are proportionally distinguished byfear and cowardice. Nothing, indeed, destroys courage more than sexual abuses.
But, from cowardice, spring cunning, duplicity, lying, and perfidy. These common results of cowardice are uniformly found in eunuchs, slaves, courtiers, and sycophants; while boldness, frankness, and generosity, belong to virtuous, free, and magnanimous men.
Again, cowardice, artifice, falsehood, and perfidy, are the usual elements of cruelty. Men feel more wounded in self-love, as they are conscious of being more contemptible; and they avenge themselves with more malignity upon their enemy, as they find themselves more weak and worthless, and as they consequently dread him more.
These are the causes of that malignant revenge which princes have often shown, as, in ancient times, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Heliogabalus, &c. In later times, Catharine de Medici solicited the massacre of the Protestants; Paul, Constantine, and Nicholas, of Russia, were happy only when they wallowed in blood; Charles X., equally effeminate and bigoted, perpetrated the massacre of the Parisians; Don Miguel covered Portugal with his assassinations; and nearly all the sovereigns and sycophants in Europe upheld or palliated his atrocities.[7]
The strong and brave man, on the contrary, scarcely feels hurt, and scorns revenge.
It is not cruelty only with which we mayreproach these effeminate individuals: it is every vice which springs from baseness of character.
Libertinism, moreover, is not hurtful only to the health and welfare of these individuals: it is so also to those of their posterity.
Finally, the results of libertinism have constantly marked, not merely the ruin of families, but the degeneration of races, and the decay of empires. The delights of Capua caused the ruin of Hannibal; and the Roman, once so proud before kings, finally transformed himself into the wretched slave of monsters degraded far below the rank of humanity.
So little, however, do men look to remote consequences that perhaps the most frightful punishments of libertinism are the diseases which it inflicts. Man may, then, be said to meet only death on the path of life.
The dangers of promiscuous love are, indeed, far beyond what young men will easily believe. I do not exaggerate when I state, that, out of every three women, and those the least common of the promiscuous, two at least are certainly in a state of disease capable of the most destructive infection. A surgeon in the habit of receiving foul patients at a public hospital tells me, I might safely say that nine out of every ten are in this state.[8]
While writing this, Sir Anthony Carlisle observes to me, that, “the special disease which appears to be a punishment for sexual profligacy, is not only malignant, painful, and hideous, in every stage ofit, but the only remedy known for its cure, mercury, is a poison which generally leaves its own evils for the venom which it destroys. This frightful disease has no natural termination but in a disgusting disgraceful death, after disfiguring the countenance, by causing blindness, loss of the nose, the palate and teeth, and by the spoliation of the sinning organs. The miserables, who thus perish in public hospitals, are so offensive to the more respectable patients, that they are confined to appointed rooms, termed foul wards, where they linger and die in the bloom of life, either of the penalty inflicted by their profligacy, of the poison administered to them, or of incurable consequent diseases, such as consumption, palsy, or madness.â€
Hence, it has been observed, that, if we have to deal with a young man incapable of guidance by the nobler motives, of feeling contempt for vice, and horror for debauchery, there yet remain means to be employed. Let him be conducted to the hospital, where he will find collected the poor victims of debauchery—the unhappy women whom, even the day before, he may have seen in the streets, with faces dressed in smiles, amid the torments, the corrosion, and the contagion of disease. This may leave an impression sufficiently deep. But let him also know that these unhappy creatures are a thousand times more pitiable than the libertine who destroys them, and who forfeits the only good we cannot refuse to other wretches, compassion for the misery he endures.[9]
In this chapter, my aim is to show that there is more than one kind of beauty, and that much confusion has arisen among writers, from not clearly distinguishing the characteristics of these kinds.
An essential condition, then, of all excitement and action in animal bodies, is a greater or less degree of novelty in the objects impressing them—even if this novelty should arise only from a previous cessation of excitement.
Now, objects of greater or less novelty are the causes of excitement, pleasurable or painful, by means of their various relations.
The lowest degree of bodily pleasure (though, owing to its constancy, immense in its total amount) is that which arises, during health, from those relations of bodies and that excitement which cause the mere local exercise of the organs—a source of pleasure which is seldom the object of our voluntary attention, but which seems to me to be the chief cause of attachment to life amid its more definite and conspicuous evils.
All higher mental emotions consist of pleasure or pain superadded to more or less definite ideas.Pleasurable emotions arise from the agreeable relations of things; painful emotions, from the disagreeable ones.
The term by which we express the influence which objects, by means of their relations, possess of exciting emotions of pleasure in the mind, isBEAUTY.
Beauty, when founded on the relations of objects, or of the parts of objects, to each other, forms a first class, and may be termedintrinsic beauty.
When beauty is farther considered in relation to ourselves, it forms a second class, and may be termedextrinsicbeauty.
We are next led (hitherto this has apparently been done without analyzing or defining the operation) to a division of the latter into two genera; namely, theminor beauty, of which prettiness, delicacy, &c., are modifications, and that which is calledgrandeurorsublimity.
The characters of the minor beauty or prettiness, with relation to ourselves, are smallness, subordination, and subjection. Hence female beauty, in relation to the male.
The characters of grandeur or sublimity, with relation to ourselves, are greatness, superordination, and power. Hence male beauty, in relation to the female.
By the preceding brief train of analysis and definition, is, I believe, answered the question—“whether the emotion of grandeur make a branch of the emotion of beauty, or be entirely distinct from it.â€
Having, by this concise statement of my own views on these subjects, made the reader acquainted with some of the materials of future consideration here employed, I may now examine the opinions of some philosophers, in order to see how far they accord with these first principles, and what answer can be given to them where they differ.
Thatbeauty,generally considered, has nothing to do with particular size, is very well shown by Payne Knight, who, though he argues incorrectly about it in many other respects, here truly says: “All degrees of magnitude contribute to beauty in proportion as they show objects to be perfect in their kind. The dimensions of a beautiful horse are very different from those of a beautiful lapdog; and those of a beautiful oak from those of a beautiful myrtle; because, nature has formed these different kinds of animals and vegetables upon different scales.
“The notion of objects being rendered beautiful by being gradually diminished, or tapered, is equally unfounded; for the same object, which is small by degrees, and beautifully less, when seen in one direction, is large by degrees, and beautifully bigger, when seen in another. The stems of trees are tapered upward; and the columns of Grecian architecture, having been taken from them, and therefore retaining a degree of analogy with them, were tapered upward too: but the legs of animals are tapered downward, and the inverted obelisks, upon which busts were placed, having a similar analogy to them, were tapered downward also; whilepilasters, which had no analogy with either, but were mere square posts terminating a wall, never tapered at all.â€
Speaking of beauty generally, and without seeing the distinctions I have made above, Burke, on the contrary, states the first quality of beauty to be comparative smallness, and says: “In ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love;†and “in most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets.â€
This is evidently true only of the objects ofminororsubordinate beauty, which Burke confusedly thought the only kind of it, though he elsewhere grants, that beauty may be connected with sublimity! It shows, however, that relative littleness is essential to that first kind of beauty.
With greater knowledge of facts than Burke possessed, and with as feeble reasoning powers, but with less taste, and with a perverse whimsicality which was all his own, Payne Knight similarly, making no distinction in beauty, considered smallness as an accidental association, failed to see that it characterized a kind of beauty, and argued, that “if we join the diminutive to a term which precludes all such affection, or does not even, in some degree, express it, it immediately converts it into a term of contempt and reproach: thus, a bantling, a fondling, a darling, &c., are terms of endearment; but a witling, a changeling, a lordling, &c., are invariably terms of scorn: so in French, ‘mon petit enfant,’ is an expression of endearment; but ‘monpetit monsieur,’ is an expression of the most pointed reproach and contempt.â€
Now, this chatter of grammatical termination and French phrase, though meant to look vastly clever, is merely a blunder. There is no analogy in the cases compared: a “darling†or little dear unitesdear, an expression of love, withlittle, implying that dependance which enhances love; while “witling†or little wit uniteswit, an expression of talent, withlittle, meaning the small quantity or absence of the talent alluded to; and it is because the latter term means, not physical littleness, which well associates with love, but moral littleness and mental degradation, that it becomes a term of contempt.
Even from the little already said, it seems evident that much of the confusion on this subject has arisen from not distinguishing the two genera of beauty, and not seeing that “the emotion of grandeur†is merely “a branch of the emotion of beauty.â€
The other genus of beauty,grandorsublime beauty, is well described by the names given to it, grandeur or sublimity. Some have considered sublimity as expressing grandeur in the highest degree: it would perhaps be as well to express the cause of the emotion by grandeur, and the emotion itself by sublimity.
Nothing is sublime that is not vast or powerful, or that does not make him who feels it sensible of its physical or moral superiority.
The simplest cause of sublimity is presented by all objects of vast magnitude or extent—aseemingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c.; and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion—height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active.
Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in asserting comparative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty.
Hence, in one place, Burke says: “As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities that constitutebeautymaypossiblybe united to things ofgreater dimensions[that is, littleness may be united with bigness!]; when they are so united they constitutea species something different both from the sublime and beautiful, which I have before called, Fine.â€
So also he says: “Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror.â€
Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other writers, when they say that “exactproportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime.†It is a fact, that exactly in proportion as ugliness is substituted for beauty in vast objects, is sublimity taken away, until at last it is utterly lost in the terrible.
Even Blair shows that sublimity may exist without terror or pain. “The proper sensation of sublimity appears,†he observes, “to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral dispositions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, is exceedingly terrible, but is destitute of all claim whatever to sublimity.â€
Payne Knight shows that terror is even opposed to sublimity: “All the great and terrible convulsions of nature; such as storms, tempests, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, &c., excite sublime ideas, and impress sublime sentiments by the prodigious exertions of energy and power which they seem to display: for though these objects are, in their nature, terrible, and generally known to be so, it is not this attribute of terror that contributes, in the smallest degree to render them sublime.... Timid women fly to a cellar, or a darkened room, to avoid the sublime effects of a thunder-storm;because to them they are not sublime, but terrible. To those only are they sublime, ‘qui formidine nulla imbuti spectant,’ who behold them without any fear at all; and to whom, therefore, they are in no degree terrible.â€
This farther confirms the distinction which I made of beauty into minor or subordinate, and grand or sublime beauty, although Knight adopted other principles, if principles they may be called, and neglected such distinction.
There is but one other error on this subject which I need to notice. Burke says: “To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger.... Those despotic governments which are founded on the passions of men, and principally upon the passion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark.â€
From what has already been said, it is evident that all this contributes to terror, not to sublimity; and that the same error is made by Blair when he says, “As obscurity, so disorder, too, is very compatible with grandeur, nay, frequently heightens it.â€
To expose the weakness and to destroy the authority of some writers on this subject, can onlyset the mind free for the investigation of truth. I may, therefore, conclude this chapter by quoting the shrewd remarks of Knight on some of the principles of Burke. I shall afterward be forced critically to examine the notions of Knight in their turn.
Burke states that the highest degree of sublime sensation is astonishment; and the subordinate degrees, awe, reverence, and respect; all which he considers as modes of terror. And Knight observes that this graduated scale of the sublime, from respect to astonishment, cannot, perhaps be better illustrated than by applying it to his own character.
“He was certainly,†says Knight, “a very respectable man, and reverenced by all who knew him intimately. At one period of his life, too, when he became the disinterested patron of remote and injured nations, who had none to help them, his character was truly sublime; but, unless upon those whom he so ably and eloquently arraigned, I do not believe that it impressed any awe.... If, during this period, he had suddenly appeared among the managers in Westminster Hall without his wig and coat, or had walked up St. James’s street without his breeches, it would have occasioned great and universal astonishment; and if he had, at the same time, carried a loaded blunderbuss in his hands, the astonishment would have been mixed with no small portion of terror: but I do not believe that the united effects of these two powerful passions would have produced any sentimentor sensation approaching to sublime, even in the breasts of those who had the strongest sense of self-preservation and the quickest sensibility of danger.â€
Thus, I believe, it now appears that novelty[10]is the exciting cause of pleasurable emotion, and of the consequent perception of beauty in the relations of things, and that the two genera of beauty—the minor or subordinate beauty, and grandeur or sublimity—have distinct characteristics, the confounding of which by writers has led to the obscurity of this part of the subject.
The expression, “standard of taste,†is used to signify the basis or foundation of our judgments respecting beauty and deformity, and their consequent certainty.
Setting aside such objection as might be raised to a standard of taste on the doctrine of Berkeley (which I refuted in 1809, and which I need not enter into here), this matter was long ago settled by David Hume; and I have nothing new to say upon the subject (there is probably enough of novelty in other chapters, whatever its worth may be), except that Burke appears to have borrowed all he knew about it from that incomparably more profound philosopher.
As I ought not, however, to omit here a view of the subject, I cannot do better than transcribe the words of Hume and Burke respectively. While this will put the reader in possession of all that I think necessary upon this subject, it will farther tend to show in what Burke’s ability as a philosopher consisted.
I must first, however, observe that the word “taste,†as expressing our judgment of beauty, isa metaphor whimsically borrowed from the lowest of our senses, and is applied to our exercise of that faculty, as regards both natural objects, and the fine arts which imitate these.
It is not wonderful that the variety and inconstancy of tastes respecting the attributes and the characters of beauty, should have led many philosophers to deny that there exist any certain combinations of forms and of effects to which the term beauty ought to be invariably attached.
In his “Philosophical Dictionary,†Voltaire, after quoting some nonsense from the crazy dreamer who did so much injury to Greek philosophy, says: “I am willing to believe that nothing can be more beautiful than this discourse of Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of the beautiful. Ask of a toad what is beauty, pure beauty, theτο καλον; he will answer you that it is his female, with two large round eyes projecting from her little head, a large and flat throat, a yellow belly, and a brown back. Ask the devil, and he will tell you that the beautiful is a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Consult, lastly, the philosophers, and they will answer you by rigmarole: they want something conformable to the archetype of the beautiful in essence, to theτο καλον.†This is wit, not reason: let us look for that to a deeper thinker—as proposed above.
David Hume says: “It appears that, amid all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operationsof the mind. Some particular forms or qualities from the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease.... If they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparentdefector imperfection in the organ.
“In each creature there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment. If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like manner as the appearance of objects in daylight, to the eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and real color.â€
To the same purpose writes Burke, after some preliminary observations:—
“All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses, the imagination, and the judgment.
“First, with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that, as the conformations of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference.
“As there will be little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, while it operates naturally, simply, and by its proper powers only.
“Custom, and some other causes, have made many deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last.
“There is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it.
“Suppose one who had so vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points.â€
In the same manner, Payne Knight observes that “things, naturally the most nauseous, become most grateful; and things, naturally most grateful, most insipid.
“This extreme effect, however, only takes place where the palate has become morbid and vitiated by continued, and even forced gratification; and even when the metaphors taken from this sense, and employed to express intellectual qualities, show that it is always felt and considered as a corruption,even by those who are most corrupted: for though there are many who prefer port wine to malmsey, and tobacco to sugar, yet no one ever spoke of a sour or bitter temper as pleasant, or of a sweet one as unpleasant.†By this concession, Knight answers several of his own objections.
“When it is said,†farther observes Burke, very properly, “taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find from the taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but we may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we must draw our conclusions from those.â€
Hume proceeds to a second point, by observing that “one obvious cause, why many feel not the proper sentiment of beauty, is the want of thatdelicacyof imagination which is requisite to convey a sensibility of those finer emotions.
“Where the organs are so fine, as to allow nothing to escape them, and at the same time so exact, as to perceive every ingredient in the composition; this we call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the literal or metaphorical sense.â€
Burke enlarges on this, after preliminary observing that “the power of the imagination is incapable of producing anything absolutely new; it can only vary the disposition of those ideas which it hasreceived from the senses. Now, the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with them.
“Since the imagination is only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men.
“There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives. Upon such persons, the most striking objects make but a faint and obscure impression. There are others so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of honors and distinction, that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these happen to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness, or with these qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the same principle.â€
On a third point, Hume says: “But though there be naturally a wide difference in point of delicacybetween one person and another, nothing tends farther to increase and improve this talent, thanpracticein a particular art, and the frequent survey or contemplation of a particular species of beauty.
“So advantageous is practice to the discernment of beauty, that, before we can give judgment on any work of importance, it will even be requisite that that very individual performance be more than once perused by us, and be surveyed in different lights with attention and deliberation.â€
This is well illustrated by Burke, who observes: “It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved exactly as we improve our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.
“To illustrate this—(that there is a difference, not in the causes, nor in the manner of men’s being affected, but in the degree, owing to natural sensibility, or greater attention to the object)—to illustrate this by the procedure of the senses in which the same difference is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble-table to be set before two men; they both perceive it to be smooth, and they are both pleased with it because of this quality. So far they agree.
“But suppose another, and after that another table, the latter still smoother than the former, to be set before them. It is now very probable that these men, who are so agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure thence, will disagree when they come to settle which table has the advantage in point of polish.... Nor is it easy, when such adifference arises, to settle the point, if the excess or diminution be not glaring.
“In these nice cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine the most accurately.
“In the imagination, beside the pain or pleasure arising from the properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from the resemblance which the imitation has to the original.
“All men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their knowledge of the things represented or compared extends.
“The principle of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends upon experience and observation, and not on the strength or weakness of any natural faculty; and it is from this difference in knowledge that what we commonly, though with no great exactness, call a difference in taste, proceeds.
“A man to whom sculpture is new sees a barber’s block, or some ordinary piece of statuary; he is immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like a human figure; and entirely taken up with this likeness, he does not at all attend to its defects. No person, I believe, at the first time of seeing a piece of imitation, ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more artificial work of the same nature; he begins to look with contempt on what he admired at first; not that he admired it even then for itsunlikeness to a man, but for that general though inaccurate resemblance which it bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in these so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his knowledge is improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arose from his inexperience; but he may be still deficient, from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with sufficient accuracy on the human figure, to enable them to judge properly of an imitation of it.â€
On other points, Hume makes the following observations:—
“Without being frequently obliged to formcomparisonsbetween the several species and degrees of excellence, and estimating their proportion to each other ... a man is indeed totally unqualified to pronounce an opinion with regard to any object presented to him. By comparison alone, we fix the epithets of praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree of each.
“But to enable a critic more fully to execute this undertaking, he must preserve his mind free from allprejudiceand allow nothing to enter into his consideration, but the very object which is submitted to his examination.
“It is well known, that, in all questions submittedto the understanding, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and perverts all operations of the intellectual faculties: it is no less contrary to good taste; nor has it less influence to corrupt our sentiments of beauty. It belongs togood senseto check its influence in both cases; and in this respect, as well as in many others, reason, if not an essential part of taste, is at least requisite to the operations of this latter faculty. In all the nobler productions of genius, there is a mutual relation and correspondence of parts; nor can either the beauties or blemishes be perceived by him whose thought is not capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, and compare them with each other, in order to perceive the consistence and uniformity of the whole. Every work of art has also a certain end or purpose for which it is calculated; and is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less fitted to attain this end.â€
To a repetition of this, Burke adds some useful remarks:—
“As many of the works of imagination are not confined to representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon the passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the characters, the actions, and designs of men, their relations, their virtues and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by attention and by the habit of reasoning.
“The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise from a natural weakness of understanding (in whatever the strength of thatfaculty may consist), or which is much more commonly the case, it may arise from a want of proper and well-directed exercise, which alone can make it strong and ready. Beside that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity, obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices which pervert the judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more refined and elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon everything which is an object of the understanding, without inducing us to suppose, that there are no settled principles of reason.
“A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste, does in a great measure depend upon sensibility; because, if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a competent knowledge in them. But though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of pleasure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater complexional sensibility, is more affected by a poor piece, than the best judge by the most perfect; for as everything new, extraordinary, grand, or passionate, is well calculated to affect such a person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure and unmixed.
“In the morning of our days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty freshupon all the objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things!
“Every trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion: his appetite is to keen to suffer his taste to be delicate.... One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet calls ‘elegans formarum spectator.’
“The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these arts even in their rudest condition; and he is not skilful enough to perceive the defects. But as arts advance toward their perfection, the science of criticism advances with equal pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are discovered in the most finished compositions.â€
The chief idea above expressed, is again repeated by Sir J. Reynolds, who says: “The principles of these (the imagination and the passions) are as invariable as the former (the senses), and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal tocommon sensedeciding upon the common feelings of mankind.â€