OF PURITY, OR THE TYPE OF DIVINE ENERGY.
Sec. 1. The influence of light as a sacred symbol.
It may at first appear strange that I have not in my enumeration of the
types of Divine attributes, included that which is certainly the most
visible and evident of all, as well as the most distinctly expressed in
Scripture; God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. But I could
not logically class the presence of an actual substance or motion with
mere conditions and modes of being, neither could I logically separate
from any of these, that which is evidently necessary to the perception
of all. And it is also to be observed, that though the love of light is
more instinctive in the human heart than any other of the desires
connected with beauty, we can hardly separate its agreeableness in its
own nature from the sense of its necessity and value for the purposes of
life, neither the abstract painfulness of darkness from the sense of
danger and incapacity connected with it; and note also that it is not
_all_ light, but light possessing the universal qualities of beauty,
diffused or infinite rather than in points, tranquil, not startling and
variable, pure, not sullied or oppressed, which is indeed pleasant and
perfectly typical of the Divine nature.
Sec. 2. The idea of purity connected with it.
Observe, however, that there is one quality, the idea of which had been
just introduced in connection with light, which might have escaped us in
the consideration of mere matter, namely purity, and yet I think that
the original notion of this quality is altogether material, and has only
been attributed to color when such color is suggestive of the condition
of matter from which we originally received the idea. For I see not in
the abstract how one color should be considered purer than another,
except as more or less compounded, whereas there is certainly a sense of
purity or impurity in the most compound and neutral colors, as well as
in the simplest, a quality difficult to define, and which the reader
will probably be surprised by my calling the type of energy, with which
it has certainly little traceable connection in the mind.
Sec. 3. Originally derived from conditions of matter.
Sec. 4. Associated ideas adding to the power of the impression. Influence
of clearness.
Sec. 5. Perfect beauty of surface, in what consisting.
I believe however if we carefully analyze the nature of our ideas of
impurity in general, we shall find them refer especially to conditions
of matter in which its various elements are placed in a relation
incapable of healthy or proper operation; and most distinctly to
conditions in which the negation of vital or energetic action is most
evident, as in corruption and decay of all kinds, wherein particles
which once, by their operation on each other, produced a living and
energetic whole, are reduced to a condition of perfect passiveness, in
which they are seized upon and appropriated, one by one, piecemeal, by
whatever has need of them, without any power of resistance or energy of
their own. And thus there is a peculiar painfulness attached to any
associations of inorganic with organic matter, such as appear to involve
the inactivity and feebleness of the latter, so that things which are
not felt to be foul in their own nature, yet become so in association
with things of greater inherent energy; as dust or earth, which in a
mass excites no painful sensation, excites a most disagreeable one when
strewing or staining an animal's skin, because it implies a decline and
deadening of the vital and healthy power of the skin. But all reasoning
about this impression is rendered difficult, by the host of associated
ideas connected with it; for the ocular sense of impurity connected with
corruption is infinitely enhanced by the offending of other senses and
by the grief and horror of it in its own nature, as the special
punishment and evidence of sin, and on the other hand, the ocular
delight in purity is mingled, as I before observed, with the love of the
mere element of light, as a type of wisdom and of truth; whence it seems
to me that we admire the transparency of bodies, though probably it is
still rather owing to our sense of more perfect order and arrangement of
particles, and not to our love of light, that we look upon a piece of
rock crystal as purer than a piece of marble, and on the marble as purer
than a piece of chalk. And let it be observed also that the most lovely
objects in nature are only partially transparent. I suppose the utmost
possible sense of beauty is conveyed by a feebly translucent, smooth,
but not lustrous surface of white, and pale warm red, subdued by the
most pure and delicate grays, as in the finer portions of the human
frame; in wreaths of snow, and in white plumage under rose light,[26] so
Viola of Olivia in Twelfth Night, and Homer of Atrides wounded.[27] And
I think that transparency and lustre, both beautiful in themselves, are
incompatible with the highest beauty because they destroy form, on the
full perception of which more of the divinely character of the object
depends than upon its color. Hence, in the beauty of snow and of flesh,
so much translucency is allowed as is consistent with the full
explanation of the forms, while we are suffered to receive more intense
impressions of light and transparency from other objects which,
nevertheless, owing to their necessarily unperceived form, are not
perfectly nor affectingly beautiful. A fair forehead outshines its
diamond diadem. The sparkle of the cascade withdraws not our eyes from
the snowy summits in their evening silence.
Sec. 6. Purity only metaphorically a type of sinlessness.
It may seem strange to many readers that I have not spoken of purity in
that sense in which it is most frequently used, as a type of
sinlessness. I do not deny that the frequent metaphorical use of it in
Scripture may have and ought to have much influence on the sympathies
with which we regard it, and that probably the immediate agreeableness
of it to most minds arises far more from this source than from that to
which I have chosen to attribute it. But, in the first place, if it be
indeed in the signs of Divine and not of human attributes that beauty
consists, I see not how the idea of sin can be formed with respect to
the Deity, for it is an idea of a relation borne by us to Him, and not
in any way to be attached to his abstract nature. And if the idea of sin
is incapable of being formed with respect to Him, so also is its
negative, for we cannot form an idea of negation, where we cannot form
an idea of presence. If for instance one could conceive of taste or
flavor in a proposition of Euclid, so also might we of insipidity, but
if not of the one, then not of the other. So that, in speaking of the
goodness of God, it cannot be that we mean anything more than his Love,
Mercifulness, and Justice, and these attributes I have shown to be
expressed by other qualities of beauty, and I cannot trace any rational
connection between them and the idea of spotlessness in matter. Neither
can I trace any more distinct relation between this idea, and any of the
virtues which make up the righteousness of man, except perhaps those of
truth and openness, of which I have already spoken as more expressed by
the transparency than the mere purity of matter. So that I conceive the
whole use of the terms purity, spotlessness, etc., in moral subjects, to
be merely metaphorical, and that it is rather that we illustrate these
virtues by the desirableness of material purity, than that we desire
material purity because it is illustrative of these virtues.
Sec. 7. Energy, how expressed by purity of matter.
I repeat, then, that the only idea which I think can be legitimately
connected with purity of matter, is this of vital and energetic
connection among its particles, and that the idea of foulness is
essentially connected with dissolution and death. Thus the purity of the
rock, contrasted with the foulness of dust or mould, is expressed by the
epithet "living," very singularly given in the rock, in almost all
languages; singularly I say, because life is almost the last attribute
one would ascribe to stone, but for this visible energy and connection
of its particles: and so of water as opposed to stagnancy. And I do not
think that, however pure a powder or dust may be, the idea of beauty is
ever connected with it, for it is not the mere purity, but the _active_
condition of the substance which is desired, so that as soon as it
shoots into crystals, or gathers into efflorescence, a sensation of
_active_ or real purity is received which was not felt in the calcined
caput mortuum.
Sec. 8. And of color.
Sec. 9. Spirituality, how so expressed.
And again in color. I imagine that the quality of it which we term
purity is dependent on the full energizing of the rays that compose it,
whereof if in compound hues any are overpowered and killed by the rest,
so as to be of no value nor operation, foulness is the consequence;
while so long as all act together, whether side by side, or from
pigments seen one through the other, so that all the coloring matter
employed comes into play in the harmony desired, and none be quenched
nor killed, purity results. And so in all cases I suppose that pureness
is made to us desirable, because expressive of the constant presence and
energizing of the Deity in matter, through which all things live and
move, and have their being, and that foulness is painful as the
accompaniment of disorder and decay, and always indicative of the
withdrawal of Divine support. And the practical analogies of life, the
invariable connection of outward foulness with mental sloth and
degradation, as well as with bodily lethargy and disease, together with
the contrary indications of freshness and purity belonging to every
healthy and active organic frame, (singularly seen in the effort of the
young leaves when first their inward energy prevails over the earth,
pierces its corruption, and shakes its dust away from their own white
purity of life,) all these circumstances strengthen the instinct by
associations countless and irresistible. And then, finally, with the
idea of purity comes that of spirituality, for the essential
characteristic of matter is its inertia, whence, by adding to it purity
or energy, we may in some measure spiritualize even matter itself. Thus
in the descriptions of the Apocalypse it is its purity that fits it for
its place in heaven; the river of the water of life, that proceeds out
of the throne of the Lamb, is clear as crystal, and the pavement of the
city is pure gold, like unto clear glass.[28]
FOOTNOTES
[26] The reader will observe that I am speaking at present of mere
material qualities. If he would obtain perfect ideas respecting
loveliness of luminous surface, let him closely observe a swan with
its wings expanded in full light five minutes before sunset. The
human cheek or the rose leaf are perhaps hardly so pure, and the
forms of snow, though individually as beautiful, are less
exquisitely combined.
[27] [Greek: hos d' ote tis t' elephanta gyne phoiniki miene
Meonis.]
So Spenser of Shamefacedness, an exquisite piece of glowing
color--and sweetly of Belphoebe--(so the roses and lilies of all
poets.) Compare the making of the image of Florimell.
"The substance whereof she the body made
Was purest snow, in massy mould congealed,
Which she had gathered in a shady glade
Of the Riphoean hills.
The same she tempered with fine mercury,
And mingled them with perfect vermily."
With Una he perhaps overdoes the white a little. She is two degrees
of comparison above snow. Compare his questioning in the Hymn to
Beauty, about that mixture made of colors fair; and goodly
temperament, of pure complexion.
"Hath white and red in it such wondrous power
That it can pierce through the eyes into the heart?"
Where the distinction between typical and vital beauty is very
gloriously carried out.
[28] I have not spoken here of any of the associations connected
with warmth or coolness of color, they are partly connected with
vital beauty, compare Chap. xiv. Sec. 22, 23, and partly with
impressions of the sublime, the discussion of which is foreign to
the present subject; purity, however, it is which gives value to
both, for neither warm nor cool color, can be beautiful, if impure.
Neither have I spoken of any questions relating to melodies of
color, a subject of separate science--whose general principle has
been already stated in the seventh chapter respecting unity of
sequence. Those qualities only are here noted which give absolute
beauty, whether to separate color or to melodies of it--for all
melodies are not beautiful, but only those which are expressive of
certain pleasant or solemn emotions; and the rest startling, or
curious, or cheerful, or exciting, or sublime, but not beautiful,
(and so in music.) And all questions relating to this grandeur,
cheerfulness, or other characteristic impression of color must be
considered under the head of ideas of relation.