knows, or ought to know, that no act is good in its true sense, which
has any, the least, reference to the agent's self. Nor is it necessary
to adduce examples; our object being rather to show that the
recognition of goodness--and we beg that the word be especially
noted--must result, of necessity, in such an emotion as shall partake
of its own character, that is, be entirely devoid of self-interest.
This will no doubt appear to many a startling position. But let it be
observed, that we have not said it will _always_ be recognized.
There are many reasons why it should not be, and is not. We all know
how easy it is to turn away from what gives us no pleasure. A long
course of vice, together with the consciousness that goodness has
departed from ourselves, may make it painful to look upon it. Nay,
the contemplation of it may become, on this account, so painful as to
amount to agony. But that Goodness can be hated for its own sake we do
not believe, except by a devil, or some irredeemable incarnation of
evil, if such there be on this side the grave. But it is objected,
that bad men have sometimes a pleasure in Evil from which they neither
derive nor hope for any personal advantage, that is, simply _because
it is evil_. But we deny the fact. We deny that an unmixed
pleasure, which is purely abstracted from all reference to self, is in
the power of Evil. Should any man assert this even of himself, he is
not to be believed; he lies to his own heart,--and this he may do
without being conscious of it. But how can this be? Nothing more
easy: by a simple dislocation of words; by the aid of that false
nomenclature which began with the first Fratricide, and has
continued to accumulate through successive ages, till it reached
its consummation, for every possible sin, in the French Revolution.
Indeed, there are few things more easy; it is only to transfer to the
evil the name of its opposite. Some of us, perhaps, may have witnessed
the savage exultation of some hardened wretch, when the accidental
spectator of an atrocious act. But is such exultation pleasure? Is it
at all akin to what is recognized as pleasure even by this hardened
wretch? Yet so he may call it. But should we, could we look into his
heart? Should we not rather pause for a time, from mere ignorance of
the true vernacular of sin. What he feels may thus be a mystery to all
but the reprobate; but it is not pleasure either in the deed or the
doer: for, as the law of Good is Harmony, so is Discord that of Evil;
and as sympathy to Harmony, so is revulsion to Discord. And where is
hatred deepest and deadliest? Among the wicked. Yet they often hate
the good. True: but not goodness, not the good man's virtues; these
they envy, and hate him for possessing them. But more commonly the
object of dislike is first stripped of his virtues by detraction; the
detractor then supplies their place by the needful vices,--perhaps
with his own; then, indeed, he is ripe for hatred. When a sinful act
is made personal, it is another affair; it then becomes a _part_
of _the man_; and he may then worship it with the idolatry of
a devil. But there is a vast gulf between his own idol and that of
another.
To prevent misapprehension, we would here observe, that we do not
affirm of either Good or Evil any irresistible power of enforcing
love or exciting abhorrence, having evidence to the contrary in
the multitudes about us; all we affirm is, that, when contemplated
abstractly, they cannot be viewed otherwise. Nor is the fact of
their inefficiency in many cases difficult of solution, when it is
remembered that the very condition to their _true_ effect is
the complete absence of self, that they must clearly be viewed _ab
extra_; a hard, not to say impracticable, condition to the very
depraved; for it may well be doubted if to such minds any act or
object having a moral nature can be presented without some personal
relation. It is not therefore surprising, that, where the condition is
so precluded, there should be, not only no proper response to the
law of Good or Evil, but such frequent misapprehension of their true
character. Were it possible to see with the eyes of others, this might
not so often occur; for it need not be remarked, that few things, if
any, ever retain their proper forms in the atmosphere of self-love;
a fact that will account for many obliquities besides the one in
question. To this we may add, that the existence of a compulsory power
in either Good or Evil could not, in respect to man, consist with his
free agency,--without which there could be no conscience; nor does it
follow, that, because men, with the free power of choice, yet so often
choose wrong, there is any natural indistinctness in the absolute
character of Evil, which, as before hinted, is sufficiently apparent
to them when referring to others; in such cases the obliquitous choice
only shows, that, with the full force of right perception, their
interposing passions or interests have also the power of giving their
own color to every object having the least relation to themselves.
Admitting this personal modification, we may then safely repeat our
position,--that to hate Good or to love Evil, solely for their own
sakes, is only possible with the irredeemably wicked, in other words,
with devils.
We now proceed to the latter clause of our general proposition. And here
it may be asked, on what ground we assume one intuitive universal
Principle as the true source of all those emotions which have just been
discussed. To this we reply, On the ground of their common agreement. As
we shall here use the words _effect_ and _emotion_ as convertible terms,
we wish it to be understood, that, when we apply the epithet _common_ or
_same_ to _effect_, we do so only in relation to _kind_, and for the
sake of brevity, instead of saying the same _class_ of effects; implying
also in the word _kind_ the existence of many degrees, but no other
difference. For instance, if a beautiful flower and a noble act shall be
found to excite a kindred emotion, however slight from the one or deep
from the other, they come in effect under the same category. And this we
are forced to admit, however heterogeneous, since a common ground is
necessarily predicated of a common result. How else, for instance, can
we account for a scene in nature, a bird, an animal, a human form,
affecting us each in a similar way? There is certainly no similitude in
the objects that compose a landscape, and the form of an animal and man;
they have no resemblance either in shape, or texture, or color, in
roughness, smoothness, or any other known quality; while their several
effects are so near akin, that we do not stop to measure even the wide
degrees by which they are marked, but class them in a breath by some
common term. It is very plain that this singular property of
assimilating to one what is so widely unlike cannot proceed from any
similar conformation, or quality, or attribute of mere being, that is,
of any thing essential to distinctive existence. There must needs, then,
be some common ground for their common effect. For if they agree not in
themselves one with the other, it follows of necessity that the ground
of their agreement must be in relation to something within our own
minds, since only _there_ is this common effect known as a fact.
We are now brought to the important question, _Where_ and
_what_ is this reconciling ground? Certainly not in sensation,
for that could only reflect their distinctive differences. Neither can
it be in the reflective faculties, since the effect in question, being
co-instantaneous, is wholly independent of any process of reasoning;
for we do not feel it because we understand, but only because we are
conscious of its presence. Nay, it is because we neither do nor can
understand it, being therefore a matter aloof from all the powers of
reasoning, that its character is such as has been asserted, and, as
such, universal.
Where, then, shall we search for this mysterious ground but in the
mind, since only there, as before observed, is this common effect
known as a fact? and where in the mind but in some inherent Principle,
which is both intuitive and universal, since, in a greater or less
degree, all men feel it _without knowing why?_
But since an inward Principle can, of necessity, have only a potential
existence, until called into action by some outward object, it is also
clear that any similar effect, which shall then be recognized through
it, from any number of differing and distinct objects, can only arise
from some mutual relation between a _something_ in the objects
and in the Principle supposed, as their joint result and proper
product.
And, since it would appear that we cannot avoid the admission of
some such Principle, having a reciprocal relation to certain outward
objects, to account for these kindred emotions from so many distinct
and heterogeneous sources, it remains only that we give it a name;
which has already been anticipated in the term Harmony.
The next question here is, In what consists this _peculiar relation?_ We
have seen that it cannot be in any thing that is essential to any
condition of mere being or existence; it must therefore consist in some
_undiscoverable_ condition indifferently applicable to the Physical,
Intellectual, and Moral, yet only applicable in each to certain kinds.
And this is all that we do or _can_ know of it. But of this we
may be as certain as that we live and breathe.
It is true that, for particular purposes, we may analyze certain
combinations of sounds and colors and forms, so as to ascertain their
relative quantities or collocation; and these facts (of which we shall
hereafter have occasion to speak) may be of importance both in Art and
Science. Still, when thus obtained, they will be no more than mere
facts, on which we can predicate nothing but that, when they are
imitated,--that is, when similar combinations of quantities, &c., are
repeated in a work of art,--they will produce the same effect. But
_why_ they should is a mystery which the reflective faculties do
not solve; and never can, because it refers to a living Power that is
above the understanding. In the human figure, for instance, we can
give no reason why eight heads to the stature please us better than
six, or why three or twelve heads seem to us monstrous. If we say, in
the latter case, _because_ the head of the one is too small and
of the other too large, we give no _reason_; we only state the
_fact_ of their disagreeable effect on us. And, if we make the
proportion of eight heads our rule, it is because of the fact of its
being more pleasing to us than any other; and, from the same feeling,
we prefer those statures which approach it the nearest. Suppose we
analyze a certain combination of sounds and colors, so as to ascertain
the exact relative quantities of the one and the collocation of the
other, and then compare them. What possible resemblance can the
understanding perceive between these sounds and colors? And yet a
something within us responds to both in a similar emotion. And so with
a thousand things, nay, with myriads of objects that have no other
affinity but with that mysterious harmony which began with our being,
which slept with our infancy, and which their presence only seems to
have _awakened_. If we cannot go back to our own childhood, we
may see its illustration in those about us who are now emerging into
that unsophisticated state. Look at them in the fields, among the
birds and flowers; their happy faces speak the harmony within them:
the divine instrument, which these have touched, gives them a joy
which, perhaps, only childhood in its first fresh consciousness can
know. Yet what do they understand of musical quantities, or of the
theory of colors?
And so with respect to Truth and Goodness; whose preëxisting Ideas,
being in the living constituents of an immortal spirit, need but the
slightest breath of some outward condition of the true and good,--a
simple problem, or a kind act,--to awake them, as it were, from their
unconscious sleep, and start them for eternity.
We may venture to assert, that no philosopher, however ingenious,
could communicate to a child the abstract idea of Right, had the
latter nothing beyond or above the understanding. He might, indeed, be
taught, like the inferior animals,--a dog, for instance,--that, if he
took certain forbidden things, he would be punished, and thus do
right through fear. Still he would desire the forbidden thing,
though belonging to another; nor could he conceive why he should not
appropriate to himself, and thus allay his appetite, what was held by
another, could he do so undetected; nor attain to any higher notion of
right than that of the strongest. But the child has something higher
than the mere power of apprehending consequences. The simplest
exposition, whether of right or wrong, even by an ignorant nurse, is
instantly responded to by something _within him_, which, thus
awakened, becomes to him a living voice ever after; and the good and
the true must thenceforth answer its call, even though succeeding
years would fain overlay them with the suffocating crowds of evil and
falsehood.
We do not say that these eternal Ideas of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness
will, strictly speaking, always act. Though indestructible, they may
be banished for a time by the perverted Will, and mockeries of the
brain, like the fume-born phantoms from the witches' caldron in
Macbeth, take their places, and assume their functions. We have
examples of this in every age, and perhaps in none more startling than
in the present. But we mean only that they cannot be _forgotten_:
nay, they are but, too often recalled with unwelcome distinctness.
Could we read the annals which must needs be scored on every
heart,--could we look upon those of the aged reprobate,--who will
doubt that their darkest passages are those made visible by the
distant gleams from these angelic Forms, that, like the Three which
stood before the tent of Abraham, once looked upon his youth?
And we doubt not that the truest witness to the common source of these
inborn Ideas would readily be acknowledged by all, could they return
to it now with their matured power of introspection, which is, at
least, one of the few advantages of advancing years. But, though
we cannot bring back youth, we may still recover much of its purer
revelations of our nature from what has been left in the memory. From
the dim present, then, we would appeal to that fresher time, ere
the young spirit had shrunk from the overbearing pride of the
understanding, and confidently ask, if the emotions we then felt from
the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, did not seem in some way to
refer to a common origin. And we would also ask, if it was then
frequent that the influence from one was _singly_ felt,--if it
did not rather bring with it, however remotely, a sense of something,
though widely differing, yet still akin to it. When we have basked in
the beauty of a summer sunset, was there nothing in the sky that spoke
to the soul of Truth and Goodness? And when the opening intellect
first received the truth of the great law of gravitation, or felt
itself mounting through the profound of space, to travel with the
planets in their unerring rounds, did never then the kindred Ideas of
Goodness and Beauty chime in, as it were, with the fabled music,--not
fabled to the soul,--which led you on like one entranced?
And again, when, in the passive quiet of your moral nature, so predisposed
in youth to all things genial, you have looked abroad on this marvellous,
ever teeming Earth,--ever teeming alike for mind and body,--and have felt
upon you flow, as from ten thousand springs of Goodness, Truth, and
Beauty, ten thousand streams of innocent enjoyment; did you not then
_almost hear_ them shout in confluence, and almost _see_ them gushing
upwards, as if they would prove their unity, in one harmonious fountain?
But, though the preceding be admitted as all true in respect to
certain "gifted" individuals, it may yet be denied that it is equally
true with respect to all, in other words, that the Principle assumed
is an inherent constituent of the human being. To this we reply, that
universality does not necessarily imply equality.
The universality of a Principle does not imply _everywhere_ equal
energy or activity, or even the same mode of manifestation, any more
than do the essential Faculties of the Understanding. Of this we have
an analogous illustration in the faculty of Memory; which is almost
indefinitely differenced in different men, both in degree and mode. In
some, its greatest power is shown in the retention of thoughts, but
not of words, that is, not of the original words in which they were
presented. Others possess it in a very remarkable degree as to forms,
places, &c., and but imperfectly for other things; others, again,
never forget names, dates, or figures, yet cannot repeat a
conversation the day after it took place; while some few have the
doubtful happiness of forgetting nothing. We might go on with a long
list of the various modes and degrees in which this faculty, so
essential to the human being, is everywhere manifested. But this is
sufficient for our purpose. In like manner is the Principle of Harmony
manifested; in one person as it relates to Form, in another to Sound;
so, too, may it vary as to the degrees of truth and goodness. We say
degrees; for we may well doubt whether, even in the faculty of memory,
its apparent absence as to any one essential object is any thing more
than a feeble degree of activity: and the doubt is strengthened by the
fact, that in many seemingly hopeless cases it has been actually, as
it were, brought into birth. And we are still indisposed to admit its
entire absence in any one particular for which it was bestowed on man.
An imperfect developement, especially as relating to the intellectual
and moral, we know to depend, in no slight measure, on the _will_
of the subject. Nay, (with the exception of idiots,) it may safely be
affirmed, that no individual ever existed who could not perceive the
difference between what is true and false, and right and wrong. We
here, of course, except those who have so ingeniously _unmade_
themselves, in order to reconstruct their "humanity" after a better
fashion. As to the "_why_" of these differences, we know nothing;
it is one of those unfathomable mysteries which to the finite mind
must ever be hidden.
Though it has been our purpose, throughout this discourse, to direct
our inquiries mainly to the essential Elements of the subject, it may
not be amiss here to take a brief notice of their collateral product
in those mixed modes from which we derive so large a portion of our
mental gratification: we allude to the various combinations of the
several Ideas, which have just been examined, with each other as well
as with their opposites. To this prolific source may be traced much
of that many-colored interest which we take in their various forms as
presented by the imagination,--in every thing, indeed, which is true,
or even partially true, to the great Principle of Harmony, both in
nature and in art. It is to these mixed modes more especially, that we
owe all that mysterious interest which gives the illusion of life to a
work of fiction, and fills us with delight or melts with woe, whether
in the happiness or the suffering of some imagined being, uniting
goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and
intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in
the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be
virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant
force. Besides, it cannot be expected that _complete_ harmony is
ever to be realized in our imperfect state; we should else, perhaps,
with such expectation, have no pleasures of the kind we speak of:
nor is this necessary, the imagination being always ready to supply
deficiencies, whenever the approximation is sufficiently near to
call it forth. Nay, if the interest felt be nothing more than mere
curiosity, we still refer to this presiding Principle; which is no
less essential to a simple combination of events, than to the higher
demands of Form or Character. But its presence must be felt, however
slightly. Of this we have the evidence in many cases, and, perhaps,
most conclusive where the partial harmony is felt to verge on a
powerful discord; or where the effort to unite them produces that
singular alternation of what is both revolting and pleasing: as in the
startling union of evil passions with some noble quality, or with a
master intellect. And here we have a solution of that paradoxical
feeling of interest and abhorrence, which we experience in such a
character as King Richard.
And may it not be that we are permitted this interest for a deeper
purpose than we are wont to suppose; because Sin is best seen in the
light of Virtue,--and then most fearfully when she holds the torch to
herself? Be this as it may, with pure, unintellectual, brutal evil
it is very different. We cannot look upon it undismayed: we take no
interest in it, nor can we. In Richard there is scarce a glimmer of
his better nature; yet we do not despise him, for his intellect and
courage command our respect. But the fiend Iago,--who ever followed
him through the weaving of his spider-like web, without perpetual
recurrence to its venomous source,--his devilish heart? Even the
intellect he shows seems actually animalized, and we shudder at its
subtlety, as at the cunning of a reptile. Whatever interest may have
been imputed to him should be placed to the account of his hapless
victim; to the first striving with distrust of a generous nature; to
the vague sense of misery, then its gradual developement, then the
final overthrow of absolute faith; and, last of all, to the throes
of agony of the noble Moor, as he writhes and gasps in his accursed
toils.
To these mixed modes may be added another branch, which we shall term the
class of Imputed Attributes. In this class are concerned all those natural
objects with which we connect (not by individual association, but by a
general law of the mind) certain moral or intellectual attributes; which
are not, indeed, supposed to exist in the objects themselves, but which,
by some unknown affinity, they awaken or occasion in us, and which we, in
our turn, impute to them. However this be, there are multitudes of objects
in the inanimate world, which we cannot contemplate without associating
with them many of the characteristics which we ascribe to the human being;
and the ideas so awakened we involuntarily express by the ascription of
such significant epithets as _stately, majestic, grand_, and so on. It is
so with us, when we call some tall forest stately, or qualify as majestic
some broad and slowly-winding river, or some vast, yet unbroken waterfall,
or some solitary, gigantic pine, seeming to disdain the earth, and to hold
of right its eternal communion with air; or when to the smooth and
far-reaching expanse of our inland waters, with their bordering and
receding mountains, as they seem to march from the shores, in the pomp of
their dark draperies of wood and mist, we apply the terms _grand_ and
_magnificent_: and so onward to an endless succession of objects,
imputing, as it were, our own nature, and lending our sympathies, till the
headlong rush of some mighty cataract suddenly thunders upon us. But how
is it then? In the twinkling of an eye, the outflowing sympathies ebb back
upon the heart; the whole mind seems severed from earth, and the awful
feeling to suspend the breath;--there is nothing human to which we can
liken it. And here begins another kind of emotion, which we call Sublime.
We are not aware that this particular class of objects has hitherto
been noticed, at least as holding a distinct position. And, if we
may be allowed to supply the omission, we should assign to it the
intermediate place between the Beautiful and the Sublime. Indeed,
there seems to be no other station so peculiarly proper; inasmuch as
they would thus form, in a consecutive series, a regular ascent from
the sensible material to the invisible spiritual: hence naturally
uniting into one harmonious whole every possible emotion of our higher
nature.
In the preceding discussion, we have considered the outward world
only in its immediate relation to Man, and the Human Being as the
predetermined centre to which it was designed to converge. As the
subject, however, of what are called the sublime emotions, he holds a
different position; for the centre here is not himself, nor, indeed,
can he approach it within conceivable distance: yet still he is drawn
to it, though baffled for ever. Now the question is, Where, and
in what bias, is this mysterious attraction? It must needs be in
something having a clear affinity with us, or we could not feel it.
But the attraction is also both pure and pleasurable; and it has just
been shown, that we have in ourselves but one principle by which
to recognize any corresponding emotion,--namely, the principle of
Harmony. May we not then infer a similar Principle without us, an
Infinite Harmony, to which our own is attracted? and may we not
further,--if we may so speak without irreverence,--suppose our own to
have emanated thence when "man became a living soul"? And though this
relation may not be consciously acknowledged in every instance, or
even in one, by the mass of men, does it therefore follow that it does
not exist? How many things act upon us of which we have no knowledge?
If we find, as in the case of the Beautiful, the same, or a similar,
effect to follow from a great variety of objects which have no
resemblance or agreement with one another, is it not a necessary
inference, that for their common effect they must all refer to
something without and distinct from themselves? Now in the case of
the Sublime, the something referred to is not in man: for the emotion
excited has an outward tendency; the mind cannot contain it; and the
effort to follow it towards its mysterious object, if long continued,
becomes, in the excess of interest, positively painful.
Could any finite object account for this? But, supposing the Infinite,
we have an adequate cause. If these emotions, then, from whatever
object or circumstance, be to prompt the mind beyond its prescribed
limits, whether carrying it back to the primitive past, the
incomprehensible _beginning_, or sending it into the future, to
the unknown _end_, the ever-present Idea of the mighty Author of
all these mysteries must still be implied, though we think not of it.
It is this Idea, or rather its influence, whether we be conscious of
it or not, which we hold to be the source of every sublime emotion. To
make our meaning plainer, we should say, that that which has the power
of possessing the mind, to the exclusion, for the time, of all other
thought, and which presents no _comprehensible_ sense of a whole,
though still impressing us with a full apprehension of such as a
reality,--in other words, which cannot be circumscribed by the forms
of the understanding while it strains them to the utmost,--that we
should term a sublime object. But whether this effect be occasioned
directly by the object itself, or be indirectly suggested by its
relations to some other object, its unknown cause, it matters not;
since the apparent power of calling forth the emotion, by whatever
means, is, _quoad_ ourselves, its sublime condition. Hence, if a
minute insect, an ant, for instance, through its marvellous instinct,
lift the mind of the amazed spectator to the still more inscrutable
Creator, it must possess, as to _him_, the same power. This is,
indeed, an extreme case, and may be objected to as depending on the
individual mind; on a mind prepared by cultivation and previous
reflection for the effect in question. But to this it may be replied,
that some degree of cultivation, or, more properly speaking, of
developement by the exercise of its reflective faculties, is obviously
essential ere the mind can attain to mature growth,--we might almost
say to its natural state, since nothing can be said to have attained
its true nature until all its capacities are at least called into
birth. No one, for example, would refer to the savages of Australia
for a true specimen of what was proper or natural to the human mind;
we should rather seek it, if such were the alternative, in a civilized
child of five years old. Be this as it may, it will not be denied
that ignorance, brutality, and many other deteriorating causes, do
practically incapacitate thousands for even an approximation, not only
to this, but to many of the inferior emotions, the character of
which is purely mental. And this, we think, is quite sufficient to
neutralize the objection, if not, indeed, to justify the application
of the term to all cases where the _immediate_ effect, whether
directly or indirectly, is such as has been described. But, to reduce
this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,--what no one will
deny,--that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but
higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown.
But though the position here advanced must necessarily exclude many
objects which have hitherto, though, as we think, improperly, been
classed with the sublime, it will still leave enough, and more than
enough, for the utmost exercise of our limited powers; inasmuch as, in
addition to the multitude of objects in the material world, not only
the actions, passions, and thoughts of men, but whatever concerns the
human being, that in any way--by a hint merely--leads the mind, though
indirectly, to the Infinite attributes,--all come of right within the
ground assumed.
It will be borne in mind, that the conscious presence of the Infinite
Idea is not only _not_ insisted on, but expressly admitted to be, in
most cases, unthought of; it is also admitted, that a sublime effect is
often powerfully felt in many instances where this Idea could not truly
be predicated of the apparent object. In such cases, however, some kind
of resemblance, or, at least, a seeming analogy to an infinite
attribute, is nevertheless essential. It must _appear_ to us, for the
time, either limitless, indefinite, or in some other way beyond the
grasp of the mind: and, whatever an object may _seem_ to be, it must
needs _in effect_ be to _us_ even that which it seems. Nor does this
transfer the emotion to a different source; for the Infinite Idea, or
something analogous, being thus imputed, is in reality its true cause.
It is still the unattainable, the _ever-stimulating_, yet
_ever-eluding_, in the character of the sublime object, that
gives to it both its term and its effect. And whence the conception of
this mysterious character, but from its mysterious prototype, the Idea
of the Infinite? Neither does it matter, as we have said, whether
actual or supposed; for what the imagination cannot master will master
the imagination. Take, for instance, but a single _passion_, and
clothe it with this character; in the same instant it becomes sublime.
So, too, with a single thought. In the Mosaic words so often quoted,
"Let there be light, and there was light," we have the sublime of
thought, of mere naked thought; but what could more awe the mind with
the power of God? Of like nature is the conjecture of Newton, when he
imagined stars so distant from the sun that their coeval light has not
yet reached us. Let us endeavour for one moment to conceive of this;
does not the soul seem to dilate within us, and the body to shrink
as to a grain of dust? "Woe is me! unclean, unclean!" said the holy
Prophet, when the Infinite Holiness stood before him. Could a more
terrible distance be measured, than by these fearful words, between
God and man?
If it be objected to this view, that many cases occur, having the same
conditions with those assumed in our general proposition, which are
yet exclusively painful, unmitigated even by a transient moment of
pleasure,--in Despair, for instance,--as who can limit it?--to this we
reply, that no emotion having its sole, or circle of existence in
the individual mind itself, can be to that mind other than a
_subject_. A man in despair, or under any mode of extreme
suffering of like nature, may, indeed, if all interfering sympathy
have been removed by time or after-description, be to _another_
a sublime object,--at least in one of those suggestive forms just
noticed; but not to _himself_. The source of the sublime--as all
along implied--is essentially _ab extra_. The human mind is not
its centre, nor can it be realized except by a contemplative act.
Besides, as a mental pleasure,--indeed the highest known,--to
be recognized as such, it must needs be accompanied by the same
_relative character_ by which is tested every other pleasure
coming under that denomination; namely, by the entire absence
of _self_, that is, by the same freedom from all personal
consideration which has been shown to characterize the true effect of
the Three leading Ideas already considered. But if to this also it be
further objected, that in certain particular cases, as of
personal danger,--from which the sublime emotion has often been
experienced,--some personal consideration must necessarily be
involved, as without a sense of security we could not enjoy it; we
answer, that, if it be meant only that the mind should be in such a
state as to enable us to receive an unembarrassed impression, it seems
to us superfluous,--an obvious truism placed in opposition to an
absurd impossibility. We needed not to be told, that no pleasurable
emotion is likely to occur while we are unmanned by fear. The same
might be said, also, in respect to the Beautiful: for who was ever
alive to it under a paroxysm of terror, or pain of any kind? A
terrified person is in any thing but a fit state for such emotion. He
may indeed _afterwards_, when his fear is passed off, contemplate
the circumstance that occasioned it with a different feeling; but the
object of his dismay is _then_ projected, as it were, completely
from himself; and he feels the sublimity in a contemplative state:
he can feel it in no other. Nor is that state incompatible with a
consciousness of peril, though it can never be with personal terror.
And, if it is meant that we should have a positive, present
conviction that we are in no danger, this we must deny, as we find it
contradicted in innumerable instances. So far, indeed, is a sense of
security from being essential to the condition of a sublime emotion,
that the sense of danger, on the contrary, is one of its most exciting
accompaniments. There is a fascination in danger which some persons
neither can nor would resist; which seems, as it were, to disenthral
them of self;--as if the mysterious Infinite were actually drawing
them on by an invisible power.
Was it mere scientific curiosity that cost the elder Pliny his life?
Might it not have been rather this sublime fascination? But we have
repeated examples of it in our own time. Many who will read this may
have been in a storm at sea. Did they never feel its sublimity while
they knew their danger? We will answer for ourselves; for we have been
in one, when the dismasted vessels that surrounded us permitted no
mistake as to our peril; it was strongly felt, but still stronger was
the sublime emotion in the awful scene. The crater of Vesuvius is even
now, perhaps for the thousandth time, reflecting from its lake of fire
some ghastly face, with indrawn breath and hair bristling, bent, as by
fate, over its sulphurous brink.
Let us turn to Mont Blanc, that mighty pyramid of ice, in whose shadow
might repose all the tombs of the Pharaohs. It rises before the
traveller like the accumulating mausoleum of Europe: perhaps he looks
upon it as his own before his natural time; yet he cannot away from
it. A terrible charm hurries him over frightful chasms, whose blue
depths seem like those of the ocean; he cuts his way up a polished
precipice, shining like steel,--as elusive to the touch; he creeps
slowly and warily around and beneath huge cliffs of snow; now he looks
up, and sees their brows fretted by the percolating waters like a
Gothic ceiling, and he fears even to whisper, lest an audible breath
should awaken the avalanche: and thus he climbs and climbs, till the
dizzy summit fills up his measure of fearful ecstasy.
Now, though cases may occur where the emotion in question is attended
with a sense of security, as in the reading or hearing the description
of an earthquake, such as that of 1768 in Lisbon, while we are safely
housed and by a comfortable fire, it does not therefore follow, that
this consciousness of safety is its essential condition. It is merely
an accidental circumstance. It cannot, therefore, apply, either as a
rule or an objection. Besides, even if supported by fact, we might
well dismiss it on the ground of irrelevancy, since a sense of
personal safety cannot be placed in opposition to and as inconsistent
with a disinterested or unselfish state; which is that claimed for
the emotion as its true condition. If there be not, then, a sounder
objection, we may safely admit the characteristic in question; for
the reception of which we have, on the other hand, the weight of
experience,--at least negatively, since, strictly speaking, we cannot
experience the absence of any thing.
But though, according to our theory, there are many things now called
sublime that would properly come under a different classification, such
as many objects of Art, many sentiments, and many actions, which are
strictly human, as well in their _end_ as in their origin; it is not to
be inferred that the exclusion of any work of man is _because_ of _its
apparent origin_, but of its _end_, the end only being the determining
point, as referring to its _Idea_. Now, if the Idea referred to be of
the Infinite, which is _out_ of his nature, it cannot strictly be said
to originate with man,--that is, absolutely; but it is rather, as it
were, a reflected form of it from the Maker of his mind. If we are led
to such an Idea, then, by any work of imagination, a poem, a picture, a
statue, or a building, it is as truly sublime as any natural object.
This, it appears to us, is the sole mystery, without which neither
sound, nor color, nor form, nor magnitude, is a true correlative to the
unseen cause. And here, as with Beauty, though the test of that be
within us, is the _modus operandi_ equally baffling to the scrutiny of
the understanding. We feel ourselves, as it were, lifted from the earth,
and look upon the outward objects that have so affected us, yet learn
not how; and the mystery deepens as we compare them with other objects
from which have followed the same effects, and find no resemblance. For
instance; the roar of the ocean, and the intricate unity of a Gothic
cathedral, whose beginning and end are alike intangible, while its
climbing tower seems visibly even to rise to the Idea which it strives
to embody,--these have nothing in common,--hardly two things could be
named that are more unlike; yet in relation to man they have but one
end: for who can hear the ocean when breathing in wrath, and limit it in
his mind, though he think not of Him who gives it voice? or ascend that
spire without feeling his faculties vanish, as it were with its
vanishing point, into the abyss of space? If there be a difference in
the effect from these and other objects, it is only in the intensity,
the degree of impetus given; as between that from the sudden explosion
of a volcano and from the slow and heavy movement of a rising
thunder-cloud; its character and its office are the same,--in its awful
harmony to connect the created with its Infinite Cause.
But let us compare this effect with that from Beauty. Would the
Parthenon, for instance, with its beautiful forms,--made still more
beautiful under its native sky,--seeming almost endued with the breath
of life, as if its conscious purple were a living suffusion brought
forth in sympathy by the enamoured blushes of a Grecian sunset;--would
this beautiful object even then elevate the soul above its own roof?
No: we should be filled with a pure delight,--but with no longing to
rise still higher. It would satisfy us; which the sublime does not;
for the feeling is too vast to be circumscribed by human content.
On the supernatural it is needless to enlarge; for, in whatever form
the beings of the invisible world are supposed to visit us, they are
immediately connected in the mind with the unknown Infinite; whether
the faith be in the heart or in the imagination; whether they bubble
up from the earth, like the Witches in Macbeth, taking shape at will,
or self-dissolving into air, and no less marvellous, foreknowing
thoughts ere formed in man; or like the Ghost in Hamlet, an
unsubstantial shadow, having the functions of life, motion, will,
and speech; a fearful mystery invests them with a spell not to be
withstood; the bewildered imagination follows like a child, leaving
the finite world for one unknown, till it aches in darkness,
trackless, endless.
Perhaps, as being nearest in station to the unsearchable Author of
all things, the highest example of this would be found in the
Angelic Nature. If it be objected, that the poets have not always so
represented it, it rests with them to show cause why they have not.
Milton, no doubt, could have assigned a sufficient reason in _the
time chosen for his poem_,--that of the creation of the first man,
when his intercourse with the highest order of created beings was not
only essential to the plan of the poem, but according with the express
will of the Creator: hence, he might have considered it no violation
of the _then_ relation between man and angels to assign even the
epithet _affable_ to the archangel Raphael; for man was then
sinless, and in all points save knowledge a fit object of regard, and
certainly a fit pupil to his heavenly instructor. But, suppose the
poet, throughout his work, (as in the process of his story he was
forced to do near the end,)--suppose he had chosen, assuming the
philosopher, to assign to Adam the _altered relation of one of his
fallen posterity_, how could he have endured a holy spiritual
presence? To be consistent, Adam must have been dumb with awe,
incapable of holding converse such as is described. Between sinless
man and his sinful progeny, the distance is immeasurable. And so, too,
must be the effect on the latter, in such a presence; and for this
conclusion we have the authority of Scripture, in the dismay of the
soldiers at the Saviour's sepulchre, on which more directly. If there
be no like effect attending the other angelic visits recorded in
Scripture, such as those to Lot and Abraham, the reason is obvious in
the _special mission_ to those individuals, who were doubtless
_divinely prepared_ for their reception; for it is reasonable
to suppose the mission had else been useless. But with the Roman
soldiers, where there was no such qualifying circumstance, the case
was different; indeed, it was in striking contrast with that of the
two Marys, who, though struck with awe, yet being led there, as
witnesses, by the Spirit, were not so overpowered.
And here, as the Idea of Angels is universally associated with every
perfection of _form_, may naturally occur the question so often
agitated,--namely, whether Beauty and Sublimity are, under any
circumstances, compatible. To us it seems of easy solution. For we see
no reason why Beauty, as the condition of a subordinated object or
component part, may not incidentally enter into the Sublime, as well
as a thousand other conditions of opposite characters, which pertain
to the multifarious assimilants that often form its other components.
When Beauty is not made _essential_, but enters as a mere
contingent, its admission or rejection is a matter of indifference. In
an angel, for instance, beauty is the condition of his mere form; but
the angel has also an intellectual and moral or spiritual nature,
which is essentially paramount: the former being but the condition, so
to speak, of his visibility, the latter, his very life,--an Essence
next to the inconceivable Giver of life.
Could we stand in the presence of one of these holy beings, (if to
stand were possible,) what of the Sublime in this lower world would so
shake us? Though his beauty were such as never mortal dreamed of,
it would be as nothing,--swallowed up as darkness,--in the awful,
spiritual brightness of the messenger of God. Even as the soldiers
in Scripture, at the sepulchre of the Saviour, we should fall before
him,--we should "become," like them, "as dead men."
But though Milton does not unveil the "face like lightning"; and
though the angel Raphael is made to hold converse with man, and the
"severe in youthful beauty" gives even the individual impress to
Zephon, and Michael and Abdiel are set apart in their prowess; there
is not one he names that does not breathe of Heaven, that is not
encompassed with the glory of the Infinite. And why the reader is not
overwhelmed in their supposed presence is because he is a beholder
_through_ Adam,--through him also a listener; but whenever he is
made, by the poet's spell, to forget Adam, and to see, as it were in
his own person, the embattled hosts....
If we dwell upon Form _alone_, though it should be of surpassing
beauty, the idea would not rise above that of man, for this is
conceivable of man: but the moment the angelic nature is touched, we
have the higher ideas of supernal intelligence and perfect holiness,
to which all the charms and graces of mere form immediately
become subordinate, and, though the beauty remain, its agency is
comparatively negative under the overpowering transcendence of a
celestial spirit.
As we have already seen that the Beautiful is limited to no particular
form, but possesses its power in some mysterious _condition_,
which is applicable to many distinct objects; in like manner does the
Sublime include within its sphere, and subdue to its condition, an
indefinite variety of objects, with their distinctive conditions; and
among them we find that of the Beautiful, as well as, to a _certain
degree_, its reverse, so that, though we may truly recognize their
coexistence in the same object, it is not possible that their effect
upon us should be otherwise than unequal, and that the higher law
should not subordinate the lower. We do not deny that the Beautiful
may, so to speak, mitigate the awful intensity of the Sublime; but it
cannot change its character, much less impart its own; the one will
still be awful, the other, of itself, never.
When at Rome, we once asked a foreigner, who seemed to be talking
somewhat vaguely on the subject, what he understood by the Sublime.
His answer was, "Le plus beau"; making it only a matter of degree. Now
let us only imagine (if we can) a beautiful earthquake, or a beautiful
hurricane. And yet the foreigner is not alone in this. D'Azzara,
the biographer of Mengs, speaking of Beauty, talks of "this sublime
quality," and in another place, for certain reasons assigned, he says,
"The grand style is beautiful." Nay, many writers, otherwise of high
authority, seem to have taken the same view; while others who could
have had no such notion, having used the words Beauty and the
Beautiful in an allegorical or metaphorical sense, have sometimes been
misinterpreted literally. Hence Winckelmann reproaches Michael Angelo
for his continual talk about Beauty, when he showed nothing of it
in his works. But it is very evident that the _Bellà_ and
_Bellezza_ of Michael Angelo were never used by him in a literal
sense, nor intended to be so understood by others: he adopted the
terms solely to express abstract Perfection, which he allegorized as
the mistress of his mind, to whose exclusive worship his whole life
was devoted. Whether it was the most appropriate term he could have
chosen, we shall not inquire. It is certain, however, that the literal
adoption of it by subsequent writers has been the cause of much
confusion, as well as vagueness.
For ourselves, we are quite at a loss to imagine how a notion so
obviously groundless has ever had a single supporter; for, if a
distinct effect implies a distinct cause, we do not see why distinct
terms should not be employed to express the difference, or how the
legitimate term for one can in any way be applied to signify a
particular degree of the other. Like the two Dromios, they sometimes
require a conjurer to tell which is which. If only Perfection, which
is a generic term implying the summit of all things, be meant,
there is surely nothing to be gained (if we except _intended_
obscurity) by substituting a specific term which is limited to a few.
We speak not here of allegorical or metaphorical propriety, which is
not now the question, but of the literal and didactic; and we may
add, that we have never known but one result from this arbitrary
union,--which is, to procreate words.
In further illustration of our position, it may be well here to notice
one mistaken source of the Sublime, which seems to have been sometimes
resorted to, both in poems and pictures; namely, in the sympathy
excited by excruciating bodily suffering. Suppose a man on the rack
to be placed before us,--perhaps some miserable victim of the
Inquisition; the cracking of his joints is made frightfully audible;
his calamitous "Ah!" goes to our marrow; then the cruel precision
of the mechanical familiar, as he lays bare to the sight his whole
anatomy of horrors. And suppose, too, the executioner _compelled_
to his task,--consequently an irresponsible agent, whom we cannot
curse; and, finally, that these two objects compose the whole scene.
What could we feel but an agony even like that of the sufferer, the
only difference being that one is physical, the other mental? And this
is all that mere sympathy has any power to effect; it has led us to
its extreme point,--our flesh creeps, and we turn away with almost
bodily sickness. But let another actor be added to the drama in the
presiding Inquisitor, the cool methodizer of this process of torture;
in an instant the scene is changed, and, strange to say, our feelings
become less painful,--nay, we feel a momentary interest,--from an
instant revulsion of our moral nature: we are lost in wonder at the
excess of human wickedness, and the hateful wonder, as if partaking of
the infinite, now distends the faculties to their utmost tension; for
who can set bounds to passion when it seizes the whole soul? It is as
the soul itself, without form or limit. We may not think even of the
after judgment; we become ourselves _justice_, and we award a
hatred commensurate with the sin, so indefinite and monstrous that we
stand aghast at our own judgment.
_Why_ this extreme tension of the mind, when thus outwardly
occasioned, should create in us an interest, we know not; but such is
the fact, and we are not only content to endure it for a time, but
even crave it, and give to the feeling the epithet _sublime_.
We do not deny that much bodily suffering may be admitted with effect
as a subordinate agent, when, as in the example last added, it is made
to serve as a necessary expositor of moral deformity. Then, indeed,
in the hands of a great artist, it becomes one of the most powerful
auxiliaries to a sublime end. All that we contend for is that sympathy
alone is insufficient as a cause of sublimity.
There are yet other sources of the false sublime, (if we may so call
it,) which are sometimes resorted to also by poets and painters; such
as the horrible, the loathsome, the hideous, and the monstrous: these
form the impassable boundaries to the true Sublime. Indeed, there
appears to be in almost every emotion a certain point beyond which we
cannot pass without recoiling,--as if we instinctively shrunk from
what is forbidden to our nature.
It would seem, then, that, in relation to man, Beauty is the extreme
point, or last summit, of the natural world, since it is in that that
we recognize the highest emotion of which we are susceptible from the
purely physical. If we ascend thence into the moral, we shall find its
influence diminish in the same ratio with our upward progress. In the
continuous chain of creation of which it forms a part, the link above
it where the moral modification begins seems scarcely changed, yet the
difference, though slight, demands another name, and the nomenclator
within us calls it Elegance; in the next connecting link, the moral
adjunct becomes more predominant, and we call it Majesty; in the next,
the physical becomes still fainter, and we call the union Grandeur; in
the next, it seems almost to vanish, and a new form rises before us,
so mysterious, so undefined and elusive to the senses, that we turn,
as if for its more distinct image, within ourselves, and there, with
wonder, amazement, awe, we see it filling, distending, stretching
every faculty, till, like the Giant of Otranto, it seems almost to
burst the imagination: under this strange confluence of opposite
emotions, this terrible pleasure, we call the awful form Sublimity.
This was the still, small voice that shook the Prophet on
Horeb;--though small to his ear, it was more than his imagination
could contain; he could not hear it again and live.
It is not to be supposed that we have enumerated all the forms of
gradation between the Beautiful and the Sublime; such was not our
purpose; it is sufficient to have noted the most prominent, leaving
the intermediate modifications to be supplied (as they can readily be)
by the reader. If we descend from the Beautiful, we shall pass in like
manner through an equal variety of forms gradually modified by the
grosser material influences, as the Handsome, the Pretty, the Comely,
the Plain, &c., till we fall to the Ugly.
There ends the chain of pleasurable excitement; but not the chain of
Forms; which, taking now as if a literal curve, again bends upward,
till, meeting the descending extreme of the moral, it seems to
complete the mighty circle. And in this dark segment will be found the
startling union of deepening discords,--still deepening, as it rises
from the Ugly to the Loathsome, the Horrible, the Frightful,[1] the
Appalling.
As we follow the chain through this last region of disease, misery,
and sin, of embodied Discord, and feel, as we must, in the mutilated
affinities of its revolting forms, their fearful relation to this
fair, harmonious creation,--how does the awful fact, in these its
breathing fragments, speak to us of a fallen world!
As the living centre of this stupendous circle stands the Soul of Man;
the _conscious Reality_, to which the vast inclosure is but the
symbol. How vast, then, his being! If space could measure it, the
remotest star would fall within its limits. Well, then, may he tremble
to essay it even in thought; for where must it carry him,--that winged
messenger, fleeter than light? Where but to the confines of the
Infinite; even to the presence of the unutterable _Life_, on
which nothing finite can look and live?
Finally, we shall conclude our Discourse with a few words on the
master Principle, which we have supposed to be, by the will of the
Creator, the realizing life to all things fair and true and good: and
more especially would we revert to its spiritual purity, emphatically
manifested through all its manifold operations,--so impossible
of alliance with any thing sordid, or false, or wicked,--so
unapprehensible, even, except for its own most sinless sake. Indeed,
we cannot look upon it as other than the universal and eternal witness
of God's goodness and love, to draw man to himself, and to testify
to the meanest, most obliquitous mind,--at least once in life, be it
though in childhood,--that there _is_ such a thing as _good
without self_. It will be remembered, that, in all the various
examples adduced, in which we have endeavoured to illustrate the
operation of Harmony, there was but one character to all its effects,
whatever the difference in the objects that occasioned them; that it
was ever untinged with any personal taint: and we concluded thence
its supernal source. We may now advance another evidence still more
conclusive of its spiritual origin, namely, in the fact, that it
cannot be realized in the Human Being _quoad_ himself. With the
fullest consciousness of the possession of this principle, and with
the power to realize it in other objects, he has still no power in
relation to himself,--that is, to become the object to himself.
Now, as the condition of Harmony, so far as we can know it through its
effect, is that of _impletion_, where nothing can be added or
taken away, it is evident that such a condition can never be realized
by the mind in itself. And yet the desire to this end is as evidently
implied in that incessant, yet unsatisfying activity, which, under all
circumstances, is an imperative, universal law of our nature.
It might seem needless to enlarge on what must be generally felt as an
obvious truth; still, it may not be amiss to offer a few remarks, by
way of bringing it, though a truism, more distinctly before us. In all
ages the majority of mankind have been more or less compelled to some
kind of exertion for their mere subsistence. Like all compulsion, this
has no doubt been considered a hardship. Yet we never find, when by
their own industry, or any fortunate circumstance, they have been
relieved from this exigency, that any one individual has been
contented with doing nothing. Some, indeed, before their liberation,
have conceived of idleness as a kind of synonyme with happiness; but a
short experience has never failed to prove it no less remote from that
desirable state. The most offensive employments, for the want of
a better, have often been resumed, to relieve the mind from the
intolerable load of _nothing_,--the heaviest of all weights,--as
it needs must be to an immortal spirit: for the mind cannot stop,
except it be in a mad-house; there, indeed, it may rest, or rather
stagnate, on one thought,--its little circle, perhaps of misery. From
the very moment of consciousness, the active Principle begins to
busy itself with the things about it: it shows itself in the infant,
stretching its little hands towards the candle; in the schoolboy,
filling up, if alone, his play-hour with the mimic toils of after age;
and so on, through every stage and condition of life; from the wealthy
spend-thrift, beggaring himself at the gaming-table for employment, to
the poor prisoner in the Bastile, who, for the want of something to
occupy his thoughts, overcame the antipathy of his nature, and found
his companion in a spider. Nay, were there need, we might draw out the
catalogue till it darkened with suicide. But enough has been said to
show, that, aside from guilt, a more terrible fiend has hardly been
imagined than the little word Nothing, when embodied and realized as
the master of the mind. And well for the world that it is so; since to
this wise law of our nature, to say nothing of conveniences, we owe
the endless sources of innocent enjoyment with which the industry and
ingenuity of man have supplied us.
But the wisdom of the law in question is not merely that it is a
preventive to the mind preying on itself; we see in it a higher
purpose,--no less than what involves the developement of the human
being; and, if we look to its final bearing, it is of the deepest
import. It might seem at first a paradox, that, the natural condition
of the mind being averse to inactivity, it should still have so
strong a desire for rest; but a little reflection will show that this
involves no real contradiction. The mind only mistakes the _name_
of its object, neither rest nor action being its real aim; for in a
state of rest it desires action, and in a state of action, rest. Now
all action supposes a purpose, which purpose can consist of but one
of two things; either the attainment of some immediate object as its
completion, or the causing of one or more future acts, that shall
follow as a consequence. But whether the action terminates in an
immediate object, or serves as the procreating cause of an indefinite
series of acts, it must have some ultimate object in which it
ends,--or is to end. Even supposing such a series of acts to be
continued through a whole life, and yet remain incomplete, it would
not alter the case. It is well known that many such series have
employed the minds of mathematicians and astronomers to their last
hour; nay, that those acts have been taken up by others, and continued
through successive generations: still, whether the point be arrived at
or no, there must have been an end in contemplation. Now no one can
believe that, in similar cases, any man would voluntarily devote all
his days to the adding link after link to an endless chain, for
the mere pleasure of labor. It is true he may be aware of the
wholesomeness of such labor as one of the means of cheerfulness; but,
if he have no further aim, his being aware of this result makes an
equable flow of spirits a positive object. Without _hope_,
uncompelled labor is an impossibility; and hope implies an object. Nor
would the veriest idler, who passes a whole day in whittling a stick,
if he could be brought to look into himself, deny it. So far from
having no object, he would and must acknowledge that he was in
fact hoping to relieve himself of an oppressive portion of time by
whittling away its minutes and hours. Here we have an extreme instance
of that which constitutes the real business of life, from the most
idle to the most industrious; namely, to attain to a _satisfying
state_.
But no one will assert that such a state was ever a consequence of the
attainment of any object, however exalted. And why? Because the motive
of action is left behind, and we have nothing before us.
Something to desire, something to look forward to, we _must_
have, or we perish,--even of suicidal rest. If we find it not here in
the world about us, it must be sought for in another; to which, as we
conceive, that secret ruler of the soul, the inscrutable, ever-present
spirit of Harmony, for ever points. Nor is it essential that the
thought of harmony should even cross the mind; for a want may be
felt without any distinct consciousness of the form of that which is
desired. And, for the most part, it is only in this negative way that
its influence is acknowledged. But this is sufficient to account
for the universal longing, whether definite or indefinite, and the
consequent universal disappointment.
We have said that man cannot to himself become the object of
Harmony,--that is, find its proper correlative in himself; and we have
seen that, in his present state, the position is true. How is it,
then, in the world of spirit? Who can answer? And yet, perhaps,--if
without irreverence we might hazard the conjecture,--as a finite
creature, having no centre in himself on which to revolve, may it not
be that his true correlative will there be revealed (if, indeed, it be
not before) to the disembodied man, in the Being that made him? And
may it not also follow, that the Principle we speak of will cease to
be potential, and flow out, as it were, and harmonize with the
eternal form of Hope,--even that Hope whose living end is in the
unapproachable Infinite?
Let us suppose this form of hope to be taken away from an immortal
being who has no self-satisfying power within him, what would be
his condition? A conscious, interminable vacuum, were such a thing
possible, would but faintly image it. Hope, then, though in its nature
unrealizable, is not a mere _notion_; for so long as it continues
hope, it is to the mind an object and an object _to be_ realized;
so, where its form is eternal, it cannot but be to it an ever-during
object. Hence we may conceive of a never-ending approximation to what
can never be realized.
From this it would appear, that, while we cannot to ourselves become
the object of Harmony, it is nevertheless certain, from the universal
desire _so_ to realize it, that we cannot suppress the continual
impulse of this paramount Principle; which, therefore, as it seems to
us, must have a double purpose; first, by its outward manifestation,
which we all recognize, to confirm its reality, and secondly, to
convince the mind that its true object is not merely out of, but
above, itself,--and only to be found in the Infinite Creator.
Art.
In treating on Art, which, in its highest sense, and more especially
in relation to Painting and Sculpture, is the subject proposed for
our present examination, the first question that occurs is, In
what consists its peculiar character? or rather, What are the
characteristics that distinguish it from Nature, which it professes to
imitate?