OF IDEAS OF BEAUTY.
Sec. 1. Definition of the term "beautiful."
Any material object which can give us pleasure in the simple
contemplation of its outward qualities without any direct and definite
exertion of the intellect, I call in some way, or in some degree,
beautiful. Why we receive pleasure from some forms and colors, and not
from others, is no more to be asked or answered than why we like sugar
and dislike wormwood. The utmost subtilty of investigation will only
lead us to ultimate instincts and principles of human nature, for which
no farther reason can be given than the simple will of the Deity that we
should be so created. We may, indeed, perceive, as far as we are
acquainted with His nature, that we have been so constructed as, when in
a healthy and cultivated state of mind, to derive pleasure from whatever
things are illustrative of that nature; but we do not receive pleasure
from them _because_ they are illustrative of it, nor from any perception
that they are illustrative of it, but instinctively and necessarily, as
we derive sensual pleasure from the scent of a rose. On these primary
principles of our nature, education and accident operate to an unlimited
extent; they may be cultivated or checked, directed or diverted, gifted
by right guidance with the most acute and faultless sense, or subjected
by neglect to every phase of error and disease. He who has followed up
these natural laws of aversion and desire, rendering them more and more
authoritative by constant obedience, so as to derive pleasure always
from that which God originally intended should give him pleasure, and
who derives the greatest possible sum of pleasure from any given object,
is a man of taste.
Sec. 2. Definition of the term "taste."
This, then, is the real meaning of this disputed word. Perfect taste is
the faculty of receiving the greatest possible pleasure from those
material sources which are attractive to our moral nature in its purity
and perfection. He who receives little pleasure from these sources,
wants taste; he who receives pleasure from any other sources, has false
or bad taste.
Sec. 3. Distinction between taste and judgment.
And it is thus that the term "taste" is to be distinguished from that of
"judgment," with which it is constantly confounded. Judgment is a
general term, expressing definite action of the intellect, and
applicable to every kind of subject which can be submitted to it. There
may be judgment of congruity, judgment of truth, judgment of justice,
and judgment of difficulty and excellence. But all these exertions of
the intellect are totally distinct from taste, properly so called, which
is the instinctive and instant preferring of one material object to
another without any obvious reason, except that it is proper to human
nature in its perfection so to do.
Sec. 4. How far beauty may become intellectual.
Observe, however, I do not mean by excluding direct exertion of the
intellect from ideas of beauty, to assert that beauty has no effect upon
nor connection with the intellect. All our moral feelings are so
in-woven with our intellectual powers, that we cannot affect the one
without in some degree addressing the other; and in all high ideas of
beauty, it is more than probable that much of the pleasure depends on
delicate and untraceable perceptions of fitness, propriety, and
relation, which are purely intellectual, and through which we arrive at
our noblest ideas of what is commonly and rightly called "intellectual
beauty." But there is yet no immediate _exertion_ of the intellect; that
is to say, if a person receiving even the noblest ideas of simple beauty
be asked _why_ he likes the object exciting them, he will not be able to
give any distinct reason, nor to trace in his mind any formed thought,
to which he can appeal as a source of pleasure. He will say that the
thing gratifies, fills, hallows, exalts his mind, but he will not be
able to say why, or how. If he can, and if he can show that he perceives
in the object any expression of distinct thought, he has received more
than an idea of beauty--it is an idea of relation.
Sec. 5. The high rank and function of ideas of beauty.
Ideas of beauty are among the noblest which can be presented to the
human mind, invariably exalting and purifying it according to their
degree; and it would appear that we are intended by the Deity to be
constantly under their influence, because there is not one single object
in nature which is not capable of conveying them, and which, to the
rightly perceiving mind, does not present an incalculably greater number
of beautiful than of deformed parts; there being in fact scarcely
anything, in pure, undiseased nature, like positive deformity, but only
degrees of beauty, or such slight and rare points of permitted contrast
as may render all around them more valuable by their opposition, spots
of blackness in creation, to make its colors felt.
Sec. 6. Meaning of the term "ideal beauty."
But although everything in nature is more or less beautiful, every
species of object has its own kind and degree of beauty; some being in
their own nature more beautiful than others, and few, if any,
individuals possessing the utmost degree of beauty of which the species
is capable. This utmost degree of specific beauty, necessarily
coexistent with the utmost perfection of the object in other respects,
is the ideal of the object.
Ideas of beauty, then, be it remembered, are the subjects of moral, but
not of intellectual perception. By the investigation of them we shall be
led to the knowledge of the ideal subjects of art.