Beauty Part 5

The characters of the minor beauty or prettiness, with relation to ourselves, are smallness, subordination, and subjection. Hence female beauty, in relation to the male.

The characters of grandeur or sublimity, with relation to ourselves, are greatness, superordination, and power. Hence male beauty, in relation to the female.

By the preceding brief train of a.n.a.lysis and definition, is, I believe, answered the question--"whether the emotion of grandeur make a branch of the emotion of beauty, or be entirely distinct from it."

Having, by this concise statement of my own views on these subjects, made the reader acquainted with some of the materials of future consideration here employed, I may now examine the opinions of some philosophers, in order to see how far they accord with these first principles, and what answer can be given to them where they differ.

That _beauty_, _generally considered_, has nothing to do with particular size, is very well shown by Payne Knight, who, though he argues incorrectly about it in many other respects, here truly says: "All degrees of magnitude contribute to beauty in proportion as they show objects to be perfect in their kind. The dimensions of a beautiful horse are very different from those of a beautiful lapdog; and those of a beautiful oak from those of a beautiful myrtle; because, nature has formed these different kinds of animals and vegetables upon different scales.

"The notion of objects being rendered beautiful by being gradually diminished, or tapered, is equally unfounded; for the same object, which is small by degrees, and beautifully less, when seen in one direction, is large by degrees, and beautifully bigger, when seen in another. The stems of trees are tapered upward; and the columns of Grecian architecture, having been taken from them, and therefore retaining a degree of a.n.a.logy with them, were tapered upward too: but the legs of animals are tapered downward, and the inverted obelisks, upon which busts were placed, having a similar a.n.a.logy to them, were tapered downward also; while pilasters, which had no a.n.a.logy with either, but were mere square posts terminating a wall, never tapered at all."

Speaking of beauty generally, and without seeing the distinctions I have made above, Burke, on the contrary, states the first quality of beauty to be comparative smallness, and says: "In ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love;" and "in most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets."

This is evidently true only of the objects of _minor_ or _subordinate beauty_, which Burke confusedly thought the only kind of it, though he elsewhere grants, that beauty may be connected with sublimity! It shows, however, that relative littleness is essential to that first kind of beauty.

With greater knowledge of facts than Burke possessed, and with as feeble reasoning powers, but with less taste, and with a perverse whimsicality which was all his own, Payne Knight similarly, making no distinction in beauty, considered smallness as an accidental a.s.sociation, failed to see that it characterized a kind of beauty, and argued, that "if we join the diminutive to a term which precludes all such affection, or does not even, in some degree, express it, it immediately converts it into a term of contempt and reproach: thus, a bantling, a fondling, a darling, &c., are terms of endearment; but a witling, a changeling, a lordling, &c., are invariably terms of scorn: so in French, '_mon pet.i.t enfant_,' is an expression of endearment; but '_mon pet.i.t monsieur_,' is an expression of the most pointed reproach and contempt."

Now, this chatter of grammatical termination and French phrase, though meant to look vastly clever, is merely a blunder. There is no a.n.a.logy in the cases compared: a "darling" or little dear unites _dear_, an expression of love, with _little_, implying that dependance which enhances love; while "witling" or little wit unites _wit_, an expression of talent, with _little_, meaning the small quant.i.ty or absence of the talent alluded to; and it is because the latter term means, not physical littleness, which well a.s.sociates with love, but moral littleness and mental degradation, that it becomes a term of contempt.

Even from the little already said, it seems evident that much of the confusion on this subject has arisen from not distinguishing the two genera of beauty, and not seeing that "the emotion of grandeur" is merely "a branch of the emotion of beauty."

The other genus of beauty, _grand_ or _sublime beauty_, is well described by the names given to it, grandeur or sublimity. Some have considered sublimity as expressing grandeur in the highest degree: it would perhaps be as well to express the cause of the emotion by grandeur, and the emotion itself by sublimity.

Nothing is sublime that is not vast or powerful, or that does not make him who feels it sensible of its physical or moral superiority.

The simplest cause of sublimity is presented by all objects of vast magnitude or extent--a seemingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c.; and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion--height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active.

Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in a.s.serting comparative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty.

Hence, in one place, Burke says: "As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities that const.i.tute _beauty_ may _possibly_ be united to things of _greater dimensions_ [that is, littleness may be united with bigness!]; when they are so united they const.i.tute _a species something different both from the sublime and beautiful_, which I have before called, Fine."

So also he says: "Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror."

Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other writers, when they say that "exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime." It is a fact, that exactly in proportion as ugliness is subst.i.tuted for beauty in vast objects, is sublimity taken away, until at last it is utterly lost in the terrible.

Even Blair shows that sublimity may exist without terror or pain. "The proper sensation of sublimity appears," he observes, "to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral dispositions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, is exceedingly terrible, but is dest.i.tute of all claim whatever to sublimity."

Payne Knight shows that terror is even opposed to sublimity: "All the great and terrible convulsions of nature; such as storms, tempests, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, &c., excite sublime ideas, and impress sublime sentiments by the prodigious exertions of energy and power which they seem to display: for though these objects are, in their nature, terrible, and generally known to be so, it is not this attribute of terror that contributes, in the smallest degree to render them sublime.... Timid women fly to a cellar, or a darkened room, to avoid the sublime effects of a thunder-storm; because to them they are not sublime, but terrible. To those only are they sublime, '_qui formidine nulla imbuti spectant_,' who behold them without any fear at all; and to whom, therefore, they are in no degree terrible."

This farther confirms the distinction which I made of beauty into minor or subordinate, and grand or sublime beauty, although Knight adopted other principles, if principles they may be called, and neglected such distinction.

There is but one other error on this subject which I need to notice. Burke says: "To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger.... Those despotic governments which are founded on the pa.s.sions of men, and princ.i.p.ally upon the pa.s.sion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark."

From what has already been said, it is evident that all this contributes to terror, not to sublimity; and that the same error is made by Blair when he says, "As obscurity, so disorder, too, is very compatible with grandeur, nay, frequently heightens it."

To expose the weakness and to destroy the authority of some writers on this subject, can only set the mind free for the investigation of truth.

I may, therefore, conclude this chapter by quoting the shrewd remarks of Knight on some of the principles of Burke. I shall afterward be forced critically to examine the notions of Knight in their turn.

Burke states that the highest degree of sublime sensation is astonishment; and the subordinate degrees, awe, reverence, and respect; all which he considers as modes of terror. And Knight observes that this graduated scale of the sublime, from respect to astonishment, cannot, perhaps be better ill.u.s.trated than by applying it to his own character.

"He was certainly," says Knight, "a very respectable man, and reverenced by all who knew him intimately. At one period of his life, too, when he became the disinterested patron of remote and injured nations, who had none to help them, his character was truly sublime; but, unless upon those whom he so ably and eloquently arraigned, I do not believe that it impressed any awe.... If, during this period, he had suddenly appeared among the managers in Westminster Hall without his wig and coat, or had walked up St. James's street without his breeches, it would have occasioned great and universal astonishment; and if he had, at the same time, carried a loaded blunderbuss in his hands, the astonishment would have been mixed with no small portion of terror: but I do not believe that the united effects of these two powerful pa.s.sions would have produced any sentiment or sensation approaching to sublime, even in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who had the strongest sense of self-preservation and the quickest sensibility of danger."

Thus, I believe, it now appears that novelty[10] is the exciting cause of pleasurable emotion, and of the consequent perception of beauty in the relations of things, and that the two genera of beauty--the minor or subordinate beauty, and grandeur or sublimity--have distinct characteristics, the confounding of which by writers has led to the obscurity of this part of the subject.

CHAPTER V.

STANDARD OF TASTE IN BEAUTY.

The expression, "standard of taste," is used to signify the basis or foundation of our judgments respecting beauty and deformity, and their consequent certainty.

Setting aside such objection as might be raised to a standard of taste on the doctrine of Berkeley (which I refuted in 1809, and which I need not enter into here), this matter was long ago settled by David Hume; and I have nothing new to say upon the subject (there is probably enough of novelty in other chapters, whatever its worth may be), except that Burke appears to have borrowed all he knew about it from that incomparably more profound philosopher.

As I ought not, however, to omit here a view of the subject, I cannot do better than transcribe the words of Hume and Burke respectively. While this will put the reader in possession of all that I think necessary upon this subject, it will farther tend to show in what Burke's ability as a philosopher consisted.

I must first, however, observe that the word "taste," as expressing our judgment of beauty, is a metaphor whimsically borrowed from the lowest of our senses, and is applied to our exercise of that faculty, as regards both natural objects, and the fine arts which imitate these.

It is not wonderful that the variety and inconstancy of tastes respecting the attributes and the characters of beauty, should have led many philosophers to deny that there exist any certain combinations of forms and of effects to which the term beauty ought to be invariably attached.

In his "Philosophical Dictionary," Voltaire, after quoting some nonsense from the crazy dreamer who did so much injury to Greek philosophy, says: "I am willing to believe that nothing can be more beautiful than this discourse of Plato; but it does not give us very clear ideas of the nature of the beautiful. Ask of a toad what is beauty, pure beauty, the [Greek: to kalon]; he will answer you that it is his female, with two large round eyes projecting from her little head, a large and flat throat, a yellow belly, and a brown back. Ask the devil, and he will tell you that the beautiful is a pair of horns, four claws, and a tail. Consult, lastly, the philosophers, and they will answer you by rigmarole: they want something conformable to the archetype of the beautiful in essence, to the [Greek: to kalon]." This is wit, not reason: let us look for that to a deeper thinker--as proposed above.

David Hume says: "It appears that, amid all the variety and caprice of taste, there are certain general principles of approbation or blame, whose influence a careful eye may trace in all operations of the mind. Some particular forms or qualities from the original structure of the internal fabric, are calculated to please, and others to displease.... If they fail of their effect in any particular instance, it is from some apparent _defect_ or imperfection in the organ.

"In each creature there is a sound and a defective state; and the former alone can be supposed to afford us a true standard of taste and sentiment.

If, in the sound state of the organ, there be an entire or a considerable uniformity of sentiment among men, we may thence derive an idea of the perfect beauty; in like manner as the appearance of objects in daylight, to the eye of a man in health, is denominated their true and real color."

To the same purpose writes Burke, after some preliminary observations:--

"All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about external objects, are the senses, the imagination, and the judgment.

"First, with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that, as the conformations of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference.

"As there will be little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, while it operates naturally, simply, and by its proper powers only.

"Custom, and some other causes, have made many deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish remains to the very last.

"There is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it.

"Suppose one who had so vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of b.u.t.ter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the b.u.t.ter or honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points."

In the same manner, Payne Knight observes that "things, naturally the most nauseous, become most grateful; and things, naturally most grateful, most insipid.

"This extreme effect, however, only takes place where the palate has become morbid and vitiated by continued, and even forced gratification; and even when the metaphors taken from this sense, and employed to express intellectual qualities, show that it is always felt and considered as a corruption, even by those who are most corrupted: for though there are many who prefer port wine to malmsey, and tobacco to sugar, yet no one ever spoke of a sour or bitter temper as pleasant, or of a sweet one as unpleasant." By this concession, Knight answers several of his own objections.

"When it is said," farther observes Burke, very properly, "taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find from the taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but we may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we must draw our conclusions from those."