B 1 



111 



B E A 



sounds, in consequence of conventional speech. In tins 

 \\d\ they every moment present pictures to the imagination: 

 and we apply to the description as to the thu. 

 (with hardly any consciousness of speaking figurali\cl\) 

 such words as lively, glowing, luminous, tp/rmii I. jnclu- 

 rfitjiir. 'To these considerations should be added (as the 

 same writer justly observes), as a c :IIL' power- 



fully to the same end, thu intimate association which, in 

 our apprehensions, is formed between the eye and the ear, 

 as the great inlets of our acquired knowledge, as the only 

 media by which different minds ran communicate together, 

 and as the organs by which we receive tr,.m the material 

 world the two classes of pleasures which, while they surpass 

 all the rest in variety and in duration, are the most com- 

 pletely removed from the gro&sness of animal indulgence, 

 and tbe most nearly allied to the enjoyments of the intel- 

 lect. The unconsciousness we have in both these senses of 

 any local impression on our bodily frame may perhaps help 

 -lain the peculiar facility with which their perceptions 

 blciid them--. Ives with other pleasures of a rank still nobler 

 aud more refined.' (Ibid. c. vi.) 



But although the epithet beautiful is never applied to 

 the perceptions of any sense except those of seeing and 

 hearing, yet it is extended to the results of some intellectual 

 processes, as when we speak of a beautiful chain of reason- 

 ing, a beautiful poem, a beautiful metaphor, a beautiful 

 language, a beautiful machine, a beautiful contrivance of 

 nature, &c. When thu word beauty is thus employed, it is 

 merely a vague term of praise, and is nearly svuoiiymous 

 with admirable. ' The word beauty (as Mr. knight re- 

 marks) is often applied to a syllogism or a problem ; hut 

 then it means clearness, point, or precision, or whatever else 

 be the characteristic excellence of that ti> which it is ap- 

 plied.' (Inquiry into the Principles uf Taste, p. 259.) As 

 iiie e fleet of beauty in visible objects is to produce admira- 

 tion, all beautiful objects are also admirable ; and thence it 

 was an easy step to apply the epithet beautiful to things 

 which produced admiration, although this feeling did not 

 arise from the cause which produces it in the contemplation 

 of visible objects. Similar transfers way be observed in 

 other words : thus the word law properly signifies n general 

 command given by one intelligent being to another; but 

 ln-c.iuse the eJTerl of such a command is to produce an uni- 

 formity of conduct in the persons to whom it is addi 

 the term laic has been extended to those operations of na- 

 ture in which an uniformity of phenomena prevails, although 

 the cause of the uniformity is altogether different. [See 

 ANALOGY.] 



In the following remarks on the nature and causes of 

 beauty, we shall limit ourselves to the original and appro- 

 priate meaning of the word in question, viz., the beauty of 

 visible objects. 



The beauty of visible objects consists of two parts, viz., 

 the beauty of colour and the beauty of fur in, which, al- 

 though closely connected with each other, arise from dif- 

 ferent sources, and from sources of a different clnu.i' t.-r, 

 inasmuch as the one appears to be, in most ca.-.es, a simple 

 emotion, and therefore an ultimate fact, of which no cxpla 

 nation can be given, while the other is a pleasure derived 

 from association, which is susceptible of analysis. 



There cannot, in our opinion, be any doubt that certain 

 colours, and cirlain arrangements of colours, are naturally, 

 and in themsehes, pleasing to the eye. Children arc ob- 

 served to take delight in brilliant colours before theyh.nc 

 learnt to connect any agreeable ideas with them. The 

 analogy of the other senses would, a priori, lead to this 

 conclusion : for as there are certain odours, tastes, and 

 sounds, which are naturally pleasing or displeasing to the 

 nose, the tongue, and the car, so it may be presumed that 

 there are certain colours, and combinatio'ns of colours, which 

 are naturally pleasing or displeasing to the eye. Although, 

 as will be presently shown, one branch of beauty is entirely 

 founded on association, the feeling of beauty cannot be de- 

 , association aloiie. ' It is the province of asso- 

 ciation (as Mr. Stewart has justly ol to impart to 

 one thing the agreeable or disagreeable effect of another; 

 but association can never account for the iirigin of :. 

 of pleasures different in kind from all the 



re was nothing originally and intrinncally pleasing or 

 beautiful, the associating principle would have no materials 

 un which it could operate.' (Ettay i. c. 6.) 



This origin of the feeling of beauty appears to us t< 

 sist in the pleasure derived from the contemplation of colours, 



a pleasure, in most cases, purely sensual and organic, and 

 i- in.-apable of explanation as the pleasure derived to the 

 mind through thu medium of the ear from the harmony of 



sounds. An instance of purely sensual beauty U 

 afforded by precious stnnti, which all ages and nations, an- 

 tient and modern, barbarous an- 



in admiring. That their beauty does not arise from any 

 i -.lateral associations of their durability a. 

 evident from this, that in the unpolished state, v 



;ually hard and durable, they excite no admiration. 

 The precious mrtali also are beautiful for the MI: 

 though they have other qualities besides their beauty v. 

 gi\e them exchangeable value: whereas the value of pre- 

 cious stones is almost exclusively owing to their beauty. 

 Flowers, the plumage of birds, the' rainbow, the setting MH'I, 

 the clear blue expanse of the sky or the sea, aKo derive 

 their beauty in great measure from the mere sensual im- 

 pression on the organ of sight. Indeed, there are only a few 

 cases (such as that of the beauty of complexion, which will 

 be mentioned below), in which the beauty of colour is de- 

 rived from association, and therefore admits of a resolution 

 into simpler elements. 



The beauty of form belongs altogether to a different ca- 

 tegory, and is derived (as we shall attempt to show) from 

 an association inseparably connected with the form of any 

 object, and necessarily and instantaneously suggested by 

 it, viz., its adaptation 'to the purpose which it is intended to 

 fulfil. The beauty of form, as arising from this source, is 

 however subject to certain conditions, the chief of which is, 

 that the object should either possess the beauty of colour, 

 or at least should be of such a colour as is completely 

 inoffensive to the eye. The manner in which the organic 

 emotion works back upon the pleasure of a ci.iti MI is well 

 illustrated by the following remarks of Mr. 1'ayne Knight 

 ' The habit,' he says, 'which we acquire of spontaneously 

 mixing associated ideas with organic perceptions, in con- 

 tcmplating objects of vision, is the principal reason why the 

 merely sensuul pleasures of this organ are in adult persons 

 very limited and feeble. Children are delighted with . 

 gay assemblage of colours, but as the intellect and imagina- 

 tion acquire strength h) '-011110! and exercise, they obtain 

 so much influence over the sense as to make it reject almost 

 every gratification in which one of them i: . .:tici- 



pate. But nevertheless the sense acquires" a similar i 

 live power, in its turn, by the same habit of association ; 

 and if there be anything in the object of contemplation to 

 offend or disgust, it effectually mars the gratification of 

 even other faculty. Thus, in the higher cla- 

 whethor in nature ur in art, the mere sensual g. 

 of the eye is comparatively so small as scarcely to be at- 

 tended to ; but )et if there occur a single spot, cither in 

 the scene or the picture, offensively harsh and glaring, all 

 the magic, instantly vanishes, and the imagination a\i 

 thu injury offered to the sense. The glaring and inhar- 

 monious spit, being the most prominent and obtri 

 irresistibly attracts the r.ttention, so as to interrupt tli 

 pose of the whole, and leave the mind no place to rest upon. 

 It is ii: pects the same with the sense of be-;.. 



The mere .iciiMial gratification arising from the melody of 

 an actor's voice is a very small part, indeed, of the pluasuro 

 which we receive from the rcpu scntation of a fine drama; 

 but, nevertheless, if a single note of the voice be absolutely 



d and out of tune, so a- to offend and disgust th. 

 it will completely destroy the unVct of the must skilful 

 acting, and render all the sublimity and pathos of the finest 



I) ludicrous.' p. 'J5. 



The beauty of form, although in strictness not comic 

 with the colour of an\ object, is nevertheless so far dependent 

 on it, that if the colour should be olfcnsiv . the, 



pleasure derived from the beaut;. i.iuch impaired, 



\en destroyed. Beauty of form, as arising from the 

 fitness of the form for its end, r. it the colour of 



the object should be such as shall not interfere with the 

 effect produced by the mutual i. 



There i-<, however, another condition for the existence of 

 beaut) 1 the perception uf itsfil; 



B, the statement of which will complete ourclcfln. 

 of this kind of beauty. 1C, then, tho-r colours arc either 

 absent or present, whose absence or pr< :ial to 



the perception of beauty ill any object, simply as an 01 

 impn s-io;i, the beauty of form in any object mainly di : 

 on on iaptatioii to the end for winch 



destined, provided that this cud is agreeable to contemplate. 



