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purchased by actual efforts of repressed appetite and crucified desire. The more common method is, to set up moral theories involving this in a high degree, to be contemplated and admired, with the admission that human nature is not equal to their full realization. So much are we disposed to hug moral strength as an idea, that we are greatly more indignant at any attempt to relax ethical theory than to see the derelictions of practice. It has been remarked that any man who should come to preach a relaxed morality would be pelted,' which is only a mode of expressing the adhesion of the mind to the ideal of high moral energy, notwithstanding all the shortcomings of actual conduct. The morality imposed by a community upon individuals partakes of the same admiration of power in the idea. There is, too, the farther satisfaction that each person has, as a member of the society, in imposing rigid rules upon his fellows, which seems more than a compensation for the hardship of being likewise subjected to them. The agreeable sentiment of the exercise of power is thus seen, in more ways than one, surmounting the pleasures of sense, the love of personal liberty, and the sympathy with pleasure generally, which have all very considerable standing in human nature. It would seem a usual tendency of the mental system to run in the channel of the emotions of power; and it is certain that many of the cerebral stimulants, both physical and other, enhance the same general tendency. Under the elation of wine, when the actual exercise of great moral energy, or of anything else, is at the very lowest, the imagination of this quality and the agreeable excitement of it are at the very highest. Under stimulation generally the same effect is liable to occur; in truth, the period of total disqualification for the real is the very acme of the ideal.

16. The outgoings of the Religious sentiment have a reference to the want of accordance between the mind and the world as now constituted; and a portion of the ungratified emotion takes the direction of the supernatural. Nothing could be more accurately expressed than the phrase 'worldly

minded' as opposed to 'religiously minded.' The state of the affections exactly suited by the persons and interests of the present life, gives no footing to the religious nature; the heart completely filled and gratified with the terrestrial, naturally abides in that limited sphere. But the history of humanity shows that this is not the general rule of our constitution. There has always existed a vein of strong emotion,-wonder, love, or awe-that would be satisfied with nothing less than a recognition of some great Power above.

17. In the region of Fine Art the ideal enters as an important ingredient, for reasons that must now be pretty obvious. The creations of art, being intended solely for gratifying the human susceptibilities to pleasure, must needs have respect to those that are not otherwise sufficiently provided for. The imitative artist may, as we have seen in the previous chapter, interest us by effects incidental to able or skilled imitation; but this has never wholly satisfied the human mind. The poet, while working on the subjects of nature and human life, is expected to improve his original by well-managed additions and omissions, thereby furnishing a more adequate vent for our strong sentiments, than the real world affords. This is admitted in all times to be the poetic function.

I may here remark, in conclusion, on imaginative sensibility, and its differences from sensibility to the real. Some of the most sentimental writers, such as Sterne (and Byron), seem to have had their capacities of tenderness excited only by ideal objects, and to have been very hard-hearted towards real persons. Of Wordsworth, again, it has been remarked, that his sensibilities were excited by a thing only after he had 'passed it through his imagination.' The counterpart of Byron's tenderness is Southey's indignation, which, as his friends said (not incredibly to those that have seen him), was wholly imaginative; the man being singularly free from bitterness or antipathy, even such as his opinions made him think were right and becoming.

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Such men live in two distinct worlds, their behaviour in one being no clue to their behaviour in the other. In meditation, and in composition, they enter their ideal sphere, and converse with imagined beings; in real life, they encounter totally different elements, and are affected accordingly.

1. BY

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ESTHETIC EMOTIONS.

Y the above title I understand the group of feelings involved in the various Fine Arts, and constituting a class of pleasures somewhat vaguely circumscribed, but yet in various respects contradistinguished from our other pleasures. A contrast has always been considered to exist between the Beautiful and the Useful, and between Art and Industry. And we can readily inquire wherein the difference is conceived to lie. The gratifications of eating and drinking, and the other indulgences called sensual, are excluded from the present class, and indeed set in opposition to them, on several assignable grounds. In the first place, as our frame is constituted, these bodily functions, while incidentally ministering to our pleasure, are in the main subservient to the keeping up of our existence, and being in the first instance guided for that special end, they do not necessarily rank among gratifications as such. In the second place, they are connected with the production of what is repulsive and loathsome, which mars their purity as sources of pleasure. And in the third place, they are essentially confined in their influence to the single individual; for the sociability of the table is an added element. Two persons cannot enjoy the same morsel of food, or the same draught of exhilarating beverage. Now a mode of pleasure subject to one or more of these three conditions, may belong in an eminent degree to the list of utilities, and the ends of industry, but does not come under the class now propounded for discussion. Again, the machinery of precautions against pain, disease, and death,

DISTINCTIONS OF FINE ART PLEASURES.

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-our clothes, our houses, our parapet walls, our embankments, our lightning conductors, physic and surgery, having in themselves nothing essentially pleasing, are placed in the category of the useful. So bodily or mental cultivation is not pleasurable in itself; very often the contrary. Wealth is disqualified by the third condition, inasmuch as, while in the shape of money, it is confined to some single proprietor. The same may be said of power and dignity, whose enjoyment cannot be divided or diffused, excepting under one aspect to be presently noticed. Affection is nearly in the same predicament, from the difficulty of extending it over any great number. Anything so restricted in its sphere of action as to cons itute individual property, and give occasion to jealousy and envy, is not a pleasure aimed at by the producer of fine art. For there do exist objects that can give us delight as their primary end, that have no disagreeable or revolting accompaniments, and whose enjoyment cannot be restricted to a single mind; all which considerations obviously elevate the rank of such objects in the scale of our enjoyments. Though they are not so intense as some of those other agencies of the monopolist class, their diffusion makes them precious like the free air and the light of heaven.

2. The Eye and the Ear are the great avenues to the mind for the æsthetic class of influences; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green woods, and all the beauties of the landscape can fill the vision of a countless throng of admirers. So with the pleasing sounds, which certainly may be artificially monopolized, but which in their nature are capable of being enjoyed alike by a numerous multitude. Other things there are that do not perish with the using, but that nevertheless cannot operate upon a plurality of minds at one time, as for example, the whole class of tools and implements employed in our plea

National power may be enjoyed as a collective sentiment, thereby approaching to the condition of one of the aesthetical feelings. So may family pride, or the pride of rank.