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No. 411. Saturday, June 21, 1712. Addison.
'Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;
Atque haurire:--'
Lucr.
Our Sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our Senses. It
fills the Mind with the largest Variety of Ideas, converses with its
Objects at the greatest Distance, and continues the longest in Action
without being tired or satiated with its proper Enjoyments. The Sense of
Feeling can indeed give us a Notion of Extension, Shape, and all other
Ideas that enter at the Eye, except Colours; but at the same time it is
very much streightned and confined in its Operations, to the number,
bulk, and distance of its particular Objects. Our Sight seems designed
to supply all these Defects, and may be considered as a more delicate
and diffusive kind of Touch, that spreads it self over an infinite
Multitude of Bodies, comprehends the largest Figures, and brings into
our reach some of the most remote Parts of the Universe.
It is this Sense which furnishes the Imagination with its Ideas; so that
by the Pleasures of the Imagination or Fancy (which I shall use
promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible Objects, either
when we have them actually in our View, or when we call up their Ideas
in our Minds by Paintings, Statues, Descriptions, or any the like
Occasion. We cannot indeed have a single Image in the Fancy that did not
make its first Entrance through the Sight; but we have the Power of
retaining, altering and compounding those Images, which we have once
received, into all the varieties of Picture and Vision that are most
agreeable to the Imagination; for by this Faculty a Man in a Dungeon is
capable of entertaining himself with Scenes and Landskips more beautiful
than any that can be found in the whole Compass of Nature.
There are few Words in the English Language which are employed in a more
loose and uncircumscribed Sense than those of the Fancy and the
Imagination. I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the
Notion of these two Words, as I intend to make use of them in the Thread
of my following Speculations, that the Reader may conceive rightly what
is the Subject which I proceed upon. I must therefore desire him to
remember, that by the Pleasures of the Imagination, I mean only such
Pleasures as arise originally from Sight, and that I divide these
Pleasures into two Kinds: My Design being first of all to Discourse of
those Primary Pleasures of the Imagination, which entirely proceed from
such Objects as are [before our [1]] Eye[s]; and in the next place to
speak of those Secondary Pleasures of the Imagination which flow from
the Ideas of visible Objects, when the Objects are not actually before
the Eye, but are called up into our Memories, or formed into agreeable
Visions of Things that are either Absent or Fictitious.
The Pleasures of the Imagination, taken in the full Extent, are not so
gross as those of Sense, nor so refined as those of the Understanding.
The last are, indeed, more preferable, because they are founded on some
new Knowledge or Improvement in the Mind of Man; yet it must be confest,
that those of the Imagination are as great and as transporting as the
other. A beautiful Prospect delights the Soul, as much as a
Demonstration; and a Description in Homer has charmed more Readers than
a Chapter in Aristotle. Besides, the Pleasures of the Imagination have
this Advantage, above those of the Understanding, that they are more
obvious, and more easie to be acquired. It is but opening the Eye, and
the Scene enters. The Colours paint themselves on the Fancy, with very
little Attention of Thought or Application of Mind in the Beholder. We
are struck, we know not how, with the Symmetry of any thing we see, and
immediately assent to the Beauty of an Object, without enquiring into
the particular Causes and Occasions of it.
A Man of a Polite Imagination is let into a great many Pleasures, that
the Vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a Picture,
and find an agreeable Companion in a Statue. He meets with a secret
Refreshment in a Description, and often feels a greater Satisfaction in
the Prospect of Fields and Meadows, than another does in the Possession.
It gives him, indeed, a kind of Property in every thing he sees, and
makes the most rude uncultivated Parts of Nature administer to his
Pleasures: So that he looks upon the World, as it were in another Light,
and discovers in it a Multitude of Charms, that conceal themselves from
the generality of Mankind.
There are, indeed, but very few who know how to be idle and innocent, or
have a Relish of any Pleasures that are not Criminal; every Diversion
they take is at the Expence of some one Virtue or another, and their
very first Step out of Business is into Vice or Folly. A Man should
endeavour, therefore, to make the Sphere of his innocent Pleasures as
wide as possible, that he may retire into them with Safety, and find in
them such a Satisfaction as a wise Man would not blush to take. Of this
Nature are those of the Imagination, which do not require such a Bent of
Thought as is necessary to our more serious Employments, nor, at the
same time, suffer the Mind to sink into that Negligence and Remissness,
which are apt to accompany our more sensual Delights, but, like a gentle
Exercise to the Faculties, awaken them from Sloth and Idleness, without
putting them upon any Labour or Difficulty.
We might here add, that the Pleasures of the Fancy are more conducive to
Health, than those of the Understanding, which are worked out by Dint of
Thinking, and attended with too violent a Labour of the Brain.
Delightful Scenes, whether in Nature, Painting, or Poetry, have a kindly
Influence on the Body, as well as the Mind, and not only serve to clear
and brighten the Imagination, but are able to disperse Grief and
Melancholy, and to set the Animal Spirits in pleasing and agreeable
Motions. For this Reason Sir Francis Bacon, in his Essay upon Health,
has not thought it improper to prescribe to his Reader a Poem or a
Prospect, where he particularly dissuades him from knotty and subtile
Disquisitions, and advises him to pursue Studies that fill the Mind with
splendid and illustrious Objects, as Histories, Fables, and
Contemplations of Nature.
I have in this Paper, by way of Introduction, settled the Notion of
those Pleasures of the Imagination which are the Subject of my present
Undertaking, and endeavoured, by several Considerations, to recommend to
my Reader the Pursuit of those Pleasures. I shall, in my next Paper,
examine the several Sources from whence these Pleasures are derived. [2]