GENERAL INFERENCES RESPECTING TYPICAL BEAUTY.
Sec. 1. The subject incompletely treated, yet admitting of general
conclusions.
I have now enumerated, and in some measure explained those
characteristics of mere matter by which I conceive it becomes agreeable
to the theoretic faculty, under whatever form, dead, organized, or
animated, it may present itself. It will be our task in the succeeding
volume to examine, and illustrate by examples, the mode in which these
characteristics appear in every division of creation, in stones,
mountains, waves, clouds, and all organic bodies; beginning with
vegetables, and then taking instances in the range of animals from the
mollusc to man; examining how one animal form is nobler than another, by
the more manifest presence of these attributes, and chiefly endeavoring
to show how much there is of admirable and lovely, even in what is
commonly despised. At present I have only to mark the conclusions at
which we have as yet arrived respecting the rank of the theoretic
faculty, and then to pursue the inquiry farther into the nature of vital
beauty.
As I before said, I pretend not to have enumerated all the sources of
material beauty, nor the analogies connected with them; it is probable
that others may occur to many readers, or to myself as I proceed into
more particular inquiry, but I am not careful to collect all conceivable
evidence on the subject. I desire only to assert and prove some certain
principles, and by means of these to show, in some measure, the inherent
worthiness and glory of God's works and something of the relations they
bear to each other and to us, leaving the subject to be fully pursued,
as it only can be, by the ardor and affection of those whom it may
interest.
Sec. 2. Typical beauty not created for man's sake.
Sec. 3. But degrees of it for his sake admitted.
Sec. 4. What encouragement hence to be received.
The qualities above enumerated are not to be considered as stamped upon
matter for our teaching or enjoyment only, but as the necessary
consequence of the perfection of God's working, and the inevitable stamp
of his image on what he creates. For it would be inconsistent with his
Infinite perfection to work imperfectly in any place, or in any matter;
wherefore we do not find that flowers and fair trees, and kindly skies,
are given only where man may see them and be fed by them, but the Spirit
of God works everywhere alike, where there is no eye to see, covering
all lonely places with an equal glory, using the same pencil and
outpouring the same splendor, in the caves of the waters where the
sea-snakes swim, and in the desert where the satyrs dance, among the
fir-trees of the stork, and the rocks of the conies, as among those
higher creatures whom he has made capable witnesses of his working.
Nevertheless, I think that the admission of different degrees of this
glory and image of himself upon creation, has the look of something
meant especially for us; for although, in pursuance of the appointed
system of government by universal laws, these same degrees exist where
we cannot witness them, yet the existence of degrees at all seems at
first unlikely in Divine work, and I cannot see reason for it unless
that palpable one of increasing in us the understanding of the sacred
characters by showing us the results of their comparative absence. For I
know not that if all things had been equally beautiful, we could have
received the idea of beauty at all, or if we had, certainly it had
become a matter of indifference to us, and of little thought, whereas
through the beneficent ordaining of degrees in its manifestation, the
hearts of men are stirred by its occasional occurrence in its noblest
form, and all their energies are awakened in the pursuit of it, and
endeavor to arrest it or recreate it for themselves. But whatever doubt
there may be respecting the exact amount of modification of created
things admitted reference to us, there can be none respecting the
dignity of that faculty by which we receive the mysterious evidence of
their divine origin. The fact of our deriving constant pleasure from
whatever is a type or semblance of Divine attributes, and from nothing
but that which is so, is the most glorious of all that can be
demonstrated of human nature; it not only sets a great gulf of specific
separation between us and the lower animals, but it seems a promise of a
communion ultimately deep, close, and conscious, with the Being whose
darkened manifestations we here feebly and unthinkingly delight in.
Probably to every order of intelligence more of his image becomes
palpable in all around them, and the glorified spirits and the angels
have perceptions as much more full and rapturous than ours, as ours than
those of beasts and creeping things. And receiving it, as we must, for
an universal axiom that "no natural desire can be entirely frustrate,"
and seeing that these desires are indeed so unfailing in us that they
have escaped not the reasoners of any time, but were held divine of old,
and in even heathen countries,[30] it cannot be but that there is in
these visionary pleasures, lightly as we now regard them, cause for
thankfulness, ground for hope, anchor for faith, more than in all the
other manifold gifts and guidances, wherewith God crowns the years, and
hedges the paths of men.
FOOTNOTES
[30] [Greek: He de teleia eudaimonia theoretike tis eotin henergeia.
* * tois men gar theois apas ho bios makarios, tois d anthropois,
eph hoson homoioma ti tes toiantes henergeias huparchei. ton d
hallon zoon ouden eudaimonei. hepeide oudame koinonei
theorias.]--Arist. Eth. Lib. 10th. The concluding book of the Ethics
should be carefully read. It is all most valuable.