THE REAL EFFECTS OF FITNESS.
When I excluded proportion and fitness from any share in beauty, I did
not by any means intend to say that they were of no value, or that they
ought to be disregarded in works of art. Works of art are the proper
sphere of their power; and here it is that they have their full effect.
Whenever the wisdom of our Creator intended that we should be affected
with anything, he did not confide the execution of his design to the
languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with
powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will;
which, seizing upon the senses and imagination, captivate the soul,
before the understanding is ready either to join with them, or to
oppose them. It is by a long deduction, and much study, that we discover
the adorable wisdom of God in his works: when we discover it the effect
is very different, not only in the manner of acquiring it, but in its
own nature, from that which strikes us without any preparation from the
sublime or the beautiful. How different is the satisfaction of an
anatomist, who discovers the use of the muscles and of the skin, the
excellent contrivance of the one for the various movements of the body,
and the wonderful texture of the other, at once a general covering, and
at once a general outlet as well as inlet; how different is this from
the affection which possesses an ordinary man at the sight of a
delicate, smooth skin, and all the other parts of beauty, which require
no investigation to be perceived! In the former case, whilst we look up
to the Maker with admiration and praise, the object which causes it may
be odious and distasteful; the latter very often so touches us by its
power on the imagination, that we examine but little into the artifice
of its contrivance; and we have need of a strong effort of our reason to
disentangle our minds from the allurements of the object, to a
consideration of that wisdom which invented so powerful a machine. The
effect of proportion and fitness, at least so far as they proceed from a
mere consideration of the work itself, produce approbation, the
acquiescence of the understanding, but not love, nor any passion of that
species. When we examine the structure of a watch, when we come to know
thoroughly the use of every part of it, satisfied as we are with the
fitness of the whole, we are far enough from perceiving anything like
beauty in the watch-work itself; but let us look on the case, the labor
of some curious artist in engraving, with little or no idea of use, we
shall have a much livelier idea of beauty than we ever could have had
from the watch itself, though the masterpiece of Graham. In beauty, as I
said, the effect is previous to any knowledge of the use; but to judge
of proportion, we must know the end for which any work is designed.
According to the end, the proportion varies. Thus there is one
proportion of a tower, another of a house; one proportion of a gallery,
another of a hall, another of a chamber. To judge of the proportions of
these, you must be first acquainted with the purposes for which they
were designed. Good sense and experience acting together, find out what
is fit to be done in every work of art. We are rational creatures, and
in all our works we ought to regard their end and purpose; the
gratification of any passion, how innocent soever, ought only to be of
secondary consideration. Herein is placed the real power of fitness and
proportion; they operate on the understanding considering them, which
_approves_ the work and acquiesces in it. The passions, and the
imagination which principally raises them, have here very little to do.
When a room appears in its original nakedness, bare walls and a plain
ceiling: let its proportion be ever so excellent, it pleases very
little; a cold approbation is the utmost we can reach; a much worse
proportioned room with elegant mouldings and fine festoons, glasses, and
other merely ornamental furniture, will make the imagination revolt
against the reason; it will please much more than the naked proportion
of the first room, which the understanding has so much approved, as
admirably fitted for its purposes. What I have here said and before
concerning proportion, is by no means to persuade people absurdly to
neglect the idea of use in the works of art. It is only to show that
these excellent things, beauty and proportion, are not the same; not
that they should either of them be disregarded.