THE PLEASURE OF VISUAL FORM. 77 



gained a high official position in universities and academies are often 

 actuated by a jealousy very similar to that which we have traced 

 among ecclesiastics. They establish a certain scientific orthodoxy, 

 based often to a great extent on mere conjecture and assertion, and 

 seek to frown down and to silence the unknown outsider who calls in 

 question one of their dogmas, or who discovers a truth which they have 

 overlooked. That any region of research should be officially tabooed 

 is a humiliating circumstance. The dread of truth, the jealousy of 

 discovery, is not confined to the Holy Inquisition, and no disestablish- 

 ment of churches, no secularization of schools and colleges, not even 

 the suppression of every religion were such a step possible would 

 put an end to its action. Journal of Science. 



THE PLEASURE OF VISUAL FORM. 



By JAMES SULLY. 



II. 



HAVIXG thus determined what means of appreciating formal ele- 

 ments and relations are at the command of the eye, our next 

 inquiry will naturally be, What modes of sesthetic intuition in other 

 words, what intellectual perceptions of pleasing and beautiful relations 

 of form are possible by help of these means ? Fortunately, this side 

 of the subject has been pretty fully investigated already, and I shall 

 be able to pass it over with a very few words. 



I here assume, what is agreed on by most writers, that beauty of 

 form so far as it is independent of sensuous pleasure on the one hand, 

 and pleasures of association and suggestion on the other, is resolvable 

 into the presence of a certain order among manifold details, which 

 order is commonly spoken of as unity in variety. With respect, first 

 of all, to the way in which the element of variety and contrast pre- 

 sents itself in visible form, a word or two will suffice. Direction and 

 magnitude of lines, degree of change of direction, whether appearing 

 as an angle or as a curve, each offers a field for the perception of dif- 

 ference and contrast. And each figure formed by a single arrange- 

 ment of lines may, in its turn, become an element of variety in a larger 

 scheme. It is worth noting that these elements of variety may be in- 

 definitely present to the mind, as in the perception of all relations of 

 distance and direction between points which are not connected by lines. 

 The appreciation of superficial and solid, as distinguished from linear 

 form, clearly involves a countless number of such less definite elements 

 of visual perception. 



The study of the various modes of securing a pleasing unity in 

 visual form is a little more intricate. Speaking roughly, one may say 



