The long neck of the ostrich is in exact and evident proportion to the height of the animal, and is of manifest utility and necessity to the bird, as it stoops down to graze and still walks on. But not being harmonized with the body by plumage or color, it seems to run along the grass like 5 a serpent before the headless tall body that still stalks after it, inspiring at once the sense of the Deformed and the Fantastic.

I here close my metaphysical Preliminaries, in which I have confined myself to the Beauty of the Senses, and by 10 the Good have chiefly referred to the relatively good. Of the supersensual Beauty, the Beauty of Virtue and Holiness, and of its relation to the ABSOLUTELY GOOD, distinguishable, not separable (even such relation as that of color to the Light of Heaven, and as the Light itself bears to the Know- 15 ledge, which it awakens), I discourse not now, waiting for a loftier mood, a nobler subject, a more appropriate audience, warned from within and from without, that it is profanation to speak of these mysteries “ τοῖς μηδέποτε φαντασθεῖσιν, ὡς καλὸν τὸ τῆς δικαιοσύνης καὶ σωφροσύνης πρόσω- 20 πον, καὶ ὡς οὔτε ἔσπερος οὔτε ἑῷος οὕτω καλά. Τὸν γὰρ ὁρῶντα πρὸς τὸ ὁρώμενον συγγενὲς καὶ ὅμοιον ποιησάμενον δεῖ ἐπιβάλλειν τῇ θέᾳ· οὐ γὰρ ἂν πώποτε εἶδεν ὀφθαλμὸς ἥλιον, ἡλιοειδής μὴ γεγενημένος, οὔδε τὸ καλὸν ἂν ἴδοι ψυχὴ μὴ γενομένη.”

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FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON

TASTE. 1810

THE same arguments that decide the question, whether taste has any fixed principles, may probably lead to a determination of what those principles are. First, then, what is taste in its metaphorical sense, or, which will be the easiest 5 mode of arriving at the same solution, what is there in the primary sense of the word, which may give to its metaphorical meaning an import different from that of sight or hearing, on the one hand, and of touch or smell on the other? And this question seems the more natural, because 10 in correct language we confine beauty, the main subject of taste, to objects of sight and combinations of sounds, and never, except sportively or by abuse of words, speak of a beautiful flavor or a beautiful scent.

Now the analysis of our senses in the commonest books 15 of anthropology has drawn our attention to the distinction between the perfectly organic, and the mixed senses ;—the first presenting objects, as distinct from the perception,— the last as blending the perception with the sense of the object. Our eyes and ears-(I am not now considering 20 what is or is not the case really, but only that of which we are regularly conscious as appearances)—our eyes most often appear to us perfect organs of the sentient principle, and wholly in action, and our hearing so much more so than the three other senses, and in all the ordinary exertions of that 25 sense, perhaps, equally so with the sight, that all languages place them in one class, and express their different modifications by nearly the same metaphors. The three remain

ing senses appear in part passive, and combine with the perception of the outward object a distinct sense of our own life. Taste, therefore, as opposed to vision and sound, will teach us to expect in its metaphorical use a certain reference of any given object to our own being, and not merely a distinct notion of the object as in itself, or in its independent properties. From the sense of touch, on the other hand, it is distinguishable by adding to this reference to our vital being some degree of enjoyment, or-the con-. trary-some perceptible impulse from pleasure or pain to 10 complacency or dislike. The sense of smell, indeed, might perhaps have furnished a metaphor of the same import with that of taste; but the latter was naturally chosen by the majority of civilized nations on account of the greater frequency, importance, and dignity of its employment or 15 exertion in human nature.

By taste, therefore, as applied to the fine arts, we must be supposed to mean an intellectual perception of any object blended with a distinct reference to our own sensibility of pain or pleasure, or vice versa, a sense of enjoyment or 20 dislike co-instantaneously combined with, and appearing to proceed from, some intellectual perception of the object ;— intellectual perception, I say; for otherwise it would be a definition of taste in its primary rather than in its metaphorical sense. Briefly, taste is a metaphor taken from one 25 of our mixed senses, and applied to objects of the more purely organic senses, and of our moral sense, when we would imply the co-existence of immediate personal dislike or complacency. In this definition of taste, therefore, is involved the definition of fine arts, namely, as being such, 30 the chief and discriminative purpose of which it is to gratify the taste,—that is, not merely to connect, but to combine and unite, a sense of immediate pleasure in ourselves with the perception of external arrangement.

The great question, therefore, whether taste in any one 35

of the fine arts has any fixed principle or ideal, will find its solution in the ascertainment of two facts :-first, whether in every determination of the taste concerning any work of the fine arts, the individual does not, with or even against 5 the approbation of his general judgement, involuntarily claim that all other minds ought to think and feel the same; whether the common expressions, "I daresay I may be wrong, but that is my particular taste," are uttered as an offering of courtesy, as a sacrifice to the undoubted fact of our indi10 vidual fallibility, or are spoken with perfect sincerity, not only of the reason, but of the whole feeling, with the same entireness of mind and heart, with which we concede a right to every person to differ from another in his preference of bodily tastes and flavors. If we should find ourselves 15 compelled to deny this, and to admit that, notwithstanding the consciousness of our liability to error, and in spite of all those many individual experiences which may have strengthened the consciousness, each man does at the moment so far legislate for all men, as to believe of necessity that he is 20 either right or wrong, and that if it be right for him, it is universally right,-we must then proceed to ascertain :secondly, whether the source of these phenomena is at all to be found in those parts of our nature, in which each intellect is representative of all,-and whether wholly or 25 partially. No person of common reflection demands even in feeling, that what tastes pleasant to him ought to produce the same effect on all living beings; but every man does and must expect and demand the universal acquiescence of all intelligent beings in every conviction of his 30 understanding.

FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON

BEAUTY. 1818

THE only necessary, but this the absolute necessary, prerequisite to a full insight into the grounds of the beauty in the objects of sight, is—the directing of the attention to the action of those thoughts in our own mind which are not consciously distinguished. Every man may understand 5 this, if he will but recall the state of his feelings in endeavouring to recollect a name, which he is quite sure that he remembers, though he cannot force it back into consciousness. This region of unconscious thoughts, oftentimes the more working the more indistinct they are, may, in reference 10 to this subject, be conceived as forming an ascending scale from the most universal associations of motion with the functions and passions of life,-as when, on passing out of a crowded city into the fields on a day in June, we describe the grass and king-cups as nodding their heads and dancing 15 in the breeze,-up to the half perceived, yet not fixable, resemblance of a form to some particular object of a diverse class, which resemblance we need only increase but a little, to destroy, or at least injure, its beauty-enhancing effect, and to make it a fantastic intrusion of the accidental and 20 the arbitrary, and consequently a disturbance of the beautiful. This might be abundantly exemplified and illustrated from the paintings of Salvator Rosa.

I am now using the term beauty in its most comprehensive sense, as including expression and artistic interest,- 25 that is, I consider not only the living balance, but likewise all the accompaniments that even by disturbing are neces