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"them; so that, though habit and custom cannot be said "to be the cause of beauty, it is certainly the cause of "our liking it: And I have no doubt, but that, if we "were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity "would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take "that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree, that "yes and no should change their meaning; yes would "then deny, and no would affirm.”*

As this theory has plainly taken its rise from a misconception of the manner in which the principle of Association operates, the objections to it which I have to offer, form a natural sequel to the discussions contained in the preceding chapter.

Among these objections, what strikes myself with the greatest force, is,—that, granting the theory to be just, so far as it goes, it does not at all touch the main difficulty it professes to resolve. Admitting it to be a fact, (as I very readily do, in the sense in which the proposition is explained by Reynolds), "That in each species of "things, the most customary form is the most beautiful;" and supposing, for the sake of argument, that this fact warranted the very illogical inference, "That the effect "of Beauty in that species depends on habit alone;" the question still remains to be answered; on what principle do we pronounce the Beauty of one species to be greater than that of another? To satisfy the conditions of the problem, it is obviously necessary, not only to shew how one Rose comes to be considered as more beautiful than another Rose; one Peacock as more beautiful than

* Idler, No. 82. See also Reynolds's Works by Malone, 2d Edit. p. 237.

body ever thought of applying to it the epithet beautiful. The rise of a column of smoke is a comparative rarity; and yet how often has it amused the eye of the infant, of the painter, of the poet, and of the philosopher!-AIthough the human form be necessarily fixed by its own gravity, to the surface of this globe, how beautiful are those pictures of ancient poetry, in which the Gods are represented as transporting themselves, at pleasure, between earth and heaven! Even the genius of Shakespear, in attempting to amplify the graces of a favourite Hero, has reserved for the last place in the climax, an attitude suggested by this imaginary attribute of the heathen divinities.

"A station, like the herald Mercury,
"New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill."

A still more obvious example, leading to the same conclusion, may be drawn from the agreeable effects of lights and colours; the very appearances from which I conceive our first notions of beauty are derived. Few, I presume, will venture to assert, that it is altogether owing to custom, that the eye delights to repose itself on the soft verdure of a field; or that there is nothing naturally attractive in the splendid illuminations of summer. From the regular vicissitudes of day and of night, custom (if nothing else were to operate) should entitle them both, in the same degree, to the appellation of Beautiful; but such, eertainly, has not been the judgment of mankind in any age of the world. " Truly the light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun." The criticisms which I have hazarded on the specula

tions of these writers do not affect the certainty, nor detract from the importance of the assumption on which they proceed. The only point in dispute is, whether individual objects please in consequence of their approximation to the usual forms and colours of Nature; or whether Nature herself is not pronounced to be Beautiful, in consequence of the regular profusion in which she exhibits forms and colours intrinsically pleasing. Upon either supposition, great praise is due to those who have so happily illustrated the process by which taste is guided in the study of ideal beauty; a process which Reynolds must be allowed to have traced and described with admirable sagacity, even by such as think the most lightly of the metaphysical doctrine which he has blended with his statement of the fact.

I must own, indeed, that it was not without some surprise, I first read the Essay in which the opinion I have now been controverting is proposed by this great artist. To have found the same paradox in the works of an abstract philosopher, however distinguished for ingenuity and learning, would have been entirely of a piece with the other extravagancies which abound in books of science; but it is difficult to reconcile the genuine enthusiasm with which Reynolds appears to have enjoyed the Beauties, both of Nature and of Art, with the belief, that "if Beauty were as rare as deformity now is, and deformity "as prevalent as actual Beauty, these words would entirely change their present meanings, in the same man"ner in which the word yes might become a negative, "and no an affirmative, in consequence of a general con"vention among mankind." The truth has probably

been, that, in the judgment of Reynolds, (as too often happens with all men in the more serious concerns of life,) a prepossession in favour of a particular conclusion, added verisimilitude to the premises of which it was sup posed to be the consequence; and that a long experience of the practical value of the maxim which it was his leading object to recommend, blinded him to the absur dity of the theory which he employed to support it.*

* See Note (Y).

ON THE BEAUTIFUL.

PART SECOND.

ON THE BEAUTIFUL, WHEN PRESENTED TO THE POWER OF IMAGINATION.

FROM the account given of Conception in my Analysis of the intellectual faculties,* it appears, that we have a power of representing to ourselves the absent objects of our perceptions, and also the sensations which we remem ber to have felt. I can picture out, for example, in my own mind, or (to express myself without a metaphor) I can think upon any remarkable building, or any remarkable scene with which I am familiarly acquainted. I can, in like manner, (though by no means with the same distinctness and steadiness) think of the Smell of a Rose, of the Taste of a Pine-Apple, or of the Sound of a Trumpet. In consequence of the various functions of this power, which extend to the provinces of all the different senses, the old English writers, (after the example of the schoolmen) frequently distinguish it by the title of Sensus Communis, a phrase which they employ precisely in the same acceptation in which I use the word Conception. It is in

* See Philosophy of the Human Mind,

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