not to admit in his own internal conviction, and the validity of which, the deniers of any original beauty would be far from denying, or even wishing to weaken; since the very wish to convince of the truth of their theory, whatever it may be, must be founded on this very distinction of a peculiar capacity in the mind, of a feeling of the truth of certain arguments, rather than of certain opposite arguments. If our tastes, however, fluctuate, do not our opinions of every sort vary in like manner? and is not the objection in the one case, then, as powerful as in the other? or, if powerless in one, must it not be equally powerless in both? I need not speak of different nations, or ages of the world, in this, more than in the other case, of the very different systems of opinions of savage, semibarbarous, and civilized life, in all their varieties of climate and state. Here, too, it is sufficient to think of one individual, to compare the wisdom of the mature well-educated man with the ignorance of his boyhood, and the proud, but irregular and fluctuating acquirements of his more advanced youth; and if, notwithstanding all these changes, when perhaps not a single opinion ultimately remains the same, we yet cannot fail to believe, that truth is something more than a mere arbitrary feeling, the result of accidental circumstances, that there is, in short, an original tendency in the mind to assent to certain propositions, rather than to certain other propositions opposite to these; we surely are not entitled to infer from changes in the emotion of beauty, not more striking, that all in the mental susceptibility of it, is arbitrary and accidental.

Again, however, I must repeat, that in this review of the argument, I am not contending for the positive originality and independence of any species of beauty,

VOL. III.

I

but merely considering probabilities; and that, although, from the circumstances as they appear to us, I am led to adopt the greater probability of some original tendencies to feelings of this class, I am far from considering these as forming the most important of the class, or even as bearing any high proportion, in number or intensity, to the multitude of delightful feelings of the same order, that beam for ever, like a sort of radiant atmosphere within, on the cultivated mind; becoming thus, in their ever-increasing variety, one of the happiest rewards of years of study, that were too delightful in themselves to need to be rewarded.

LECTURE LVI.

I. Immediate Emotions, not necessarily involving any Moral Feeling.-5. Beauty, and its Reverse, continued.-The Emotion of Beauty seems to be an Original Feeling of the Mind.Mr Alison's Theory.

GENTLEMEN, the inquiries which engaged us in the Lecture of yesterday related to the influence of accidental circumstances on our emotion of beauty, an influence which we found to be capable of producing the most striking diversities, in our susceptibility of these emotions, of every species, whether arising from the contemplation of objects material, intellectual, or moral. So very striking, indeed, did these diversities. appear, on our review, as naturally to give occasion to the inquiry, whether feelings that vary so much, with all the variety of the circumstances that have preceded them, may not wholly depend on that influence, on which they have manifestly depended to so great an

extent. I stated to you, that, in such an inquiry, it is not possible to attain confidence in the result; since all the circumstances which it would be necessary to know, cannot be known to us. It is long before the intellectual processes of the infant mind are capable of being distinctly revealed to another, directly or indirectly; and, in this most important of all periods, when thought is slowly evolved from the rude elements of sensation, the very circumstance, the influence of which we wish to trace, must have been exerting an influence that is wholly unperceived by us. The question, therefore, as to any susceptibility in the mind, of being affected with impressions of original beauty, is a question of probabilities, and nothing more.

Proceeding, then, with this limited confidence, in the results of our inquiry, we endeavoured to consider the phenomena of this order of our emotions, not, indeed, in perfect freedom from the influence of preceding accidental circumstances, since this distinct analysis is beyond our power, but with as near an approach to it as it was possible for us to attain; and, after a comparison of the probabilities, we found, I think, reason, I will not say to believe, but at least to incline to the opinion, that we are truly endowed with some original susceptibilities of this class,-susceptibilities, however, that are not so independent of arbitrary circumstances of association as to be incapable of being modified, or even wholly overcome by other tendencies that may be superinduced; but which, at the same time, are not so dependent on such circumstances, as, when these circumstances have not occurred to favour them, nor any other circumstance more powerful to counteract them, to be, of themselves, incapable of affecting us in the slightest degree

with any of those delightful emotions, of which we have been endeavouring to trace the origin.

In examining this point, it was of great importance to make you sufficiently acquainted with one radical distinction; and I trust that now, after the remarks which I made, you are in no danger of confounding that view of beauty, which regards it as an emotion, dependent on the existence of certain previous perceptions or conceptions, which may induce it, but may also, by the operation of the common laws of suggestion, induce, at other times, in like manner, other states of mind, exclusive of the emotion,-with the very different doctrine, that regards beauty as the object of a peculiar internal sense, which might, therefore, from the analogy conveyed in that name, be supposed to be as uniform, in its feelings, as our other senses, on the presence of their particular objects, are uniform, or nearly uniform, in the intimations afforded by them. Such a sense of beauty, as a fixed regular object, we assuredly have not; but it does not follow that we are without such an original susceptibility of a mere emotion, that is not, like sensation, the direct and uniform effect of the presence of its objects, but may vary in the occasions on which it rises, like our other emotions; love, for example, or hate, or astonishment, which various circumstances may produce, as various other circumstances may prevent them from arising.

In conformity, then, with this view,-though from a comparison of all the circumstances of the case, as far as they can be known to us, I am led to regard the mind as having originally certain tendencies to emotions of beauty, in consequence of which it may be impressed with them, on the contemplation of certain objects, without the necessary previous influence of any contingent circumstances,-I yet allow the

power of such circumstances, not merely to produce analogous emotions, when otherwise these would not have arisen, but also to modify, and even in some cases to overcome our original tendencies themselves, in the same manner as we found that our original tendencies to other emotions might be modified and overcome, in particular cases of a different kind. I allow this influence of circumstances on our emotions of beauty, in the same manner as I allow the very general empire of prejudice, and the power of all the accidental circumstances, which may prepare the mind, less or more, for the reception, or for the denial of truth, though I do not regard truth itself as arbitrary in its own nature; that is to say, since truth is only a general name of a feeling common to many propositions, I do not regard all propositions, and the propositions opposite to them, as equally fitted to excite this feeling of truth in the mind. The analogy of truth, indeed, as that which there is a greater original tendency to feel in certain propositions than in others, though a tendency which circumstances may, in certain minds, weaken and even reverse, seems to me a very important one in this discussion; since precisely the same arguments which are urged by those who contend for the exclusive influence of association in the production of beauty, might be urged, as I showed you, with equal force, against those distinctions of truth and falsehood, which the assertors of the creative influence of association, in the less im portant department of taste, would surely be unwilling to abandon. If it be in the power of circumstances to make us regard objects as beautiful, which, but for those circumstances, would not have excited any emotion whatever, and, in many cases, even to reverse our emotions, which is all that the deniers of