NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

TO THE

First Volume.

NOTE A. p. 11.

I am the more surprised at Mr. Hume's maintaining this doctrine, as in another part of his works, (his Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section ii.) he expressly endeavours to show that there is no idea in the human mind which is not originally derived from the senses. If all our ideas are deducible from sensation, it seems to me a necessary consequence that all our affections must be so too, since every affection implies an idea of its object. I have not, however, found in this author's writings any attempt to reconcile these inconsistent doctrines.

NOTE B. p. 19.

It seems a mere truism to observe that the appetites are selfish desires; yet this is actually denied by Mr. Stewart in the following passage, to which I would direct the attention of my readers, for the purpose of showing by what strange sophistry the doctrine which deduces all human affections from a selfish origin is sometimes opposed. "Our appetites," says he, "can, with no propriety, be called selfish, for they are directed to their respective objects as ultimate ends; and they must all have operated, in the first instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising from their gratification. Self-love, too, is often sacrificed to appetite, when we indulge ourselves in an imme

diate enjoyment, which we know is likely to be attended with hurtful consequences." (Stewart's Outlines of Moral Philosophy. Part ii. ch. i. sec. ii.)—"They are directed to their respective objects as ultimate ends."-Does Mr. Stewart, then, mean to assert that food is naturally an object of desire, independently of the relief which it affords from the uneasy sensations of hunger; and that if there had been no such uneasy sensations, and no pleasure in the act of eating, food would still have been desired and sought for its own sake? If so, I can only express my entire dissent from a doctrine, which, though it cannot be disproved by actual experiment, is at variance with the plainest principles of human nature. "And they must all," he continues, "have operated, in the first instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising from their gratification." Yes; but not prior to the experience of certain uneasy sensations which the objects of the appetite are capable of removing. When first the new-born infant utters the cry of hunger, it cannot be supposed to have any idea of the means of satisfying its want; so that its appetite is not the desire of food, but merely the desire of es caping from pain. It is guided to the source of its nourishment by others, and the act of sucking, in its first exercise, is merely the effect of animal irritation, or what Hartley would call an automatic motion. It is not till after further experience has in: formed the infant of the means of removing its uneasy feelings, that the appetite for food can be said to be fully formed. In the last sentence of the passage above quoted, Mr. Stewart has strangely departed from the ordinary usage of language, in restricting the term self-love to that enlightened regard to individual happiness which looks beyond the gratification of the present moment, and takes account of distant consequences. Surely there is a blind and mistaken, as well as an enlightened and judicious self-love; and if the term selfish can with propriety be applied, as both etymology and usage allow, to one whose atten tion is exclusively occupied by his own immediate pleasures and pains, the new-born infant, who feels no other impulse than that of appetite, is altogether a selfish being. But according to Mr. Stewart's usage of the term, the new-born infant, the blindest slave of appetite, is less selfish than the man whose more

enlightened judgment prescribes some bounds to his indulgence; and the brute whose bodily appetites are entirely uncontrolled by reason, partakes in no degree of the selfishness of human nature !!

NOTE C. p. 39.

"How feeble," observes Mr. Stewart, are the emotions produced by the liveliest conception of modern Italy, to what the poet felt, when amidst the ruins of Rome,

He drew th' inspiring breath of ancient arts,
And trod the sacred walks,

Where at each step imagination burns !”

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind.
Ch. v. p. i. s. i.

"Distant as we are,'
says another writer, "from those lands
which in the studies of our boyhood, endeared and consecrated
by so many remembrances, were to us almost like the very country
of our birth, it is scarcely possible to think of ancient Rome or
Greece, without mingling, with an interest more than passion,
in the very ages of their glory. Some name or exploit instantly
occurs to our mind, which, even in the faintness of our concep-
tion, is sufficient to transport us, for some few moments, from
the scene of duller things around. But when we tread on the
soil itself,-when, as Cicero says, speaking of Athens, "Quo-
cunque ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus,”-
all which history has made dear to us is renewed in our very eyes.
There are visionary forms around us, which make the land on
which we tread, not the country that is, but the country that has
been. We see again the very groves of Academus ;

"And Plato's self

Seems half emerging from his olive bowers,

To gather round him all th' Athenian sons

Of wisdom."

Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind.
Lecture xxxviii.

NOTE D. p. 58.

The faculties of sensation, in their first exercise, are necessarily rude and undistinguishing; incapable of analysing complex

impressions, or of discriminating between such as resemble one another, and observant only of the broader features of the objects presented to them. The power of more correct perception, the power of distinguishing the nicer varieties and relations of colour, form, and sound, is only the slowly-acquired result of long experience. If then the mere exercise of the senses of sight and hearing be agreeable, this implies the agreeableness of that mode of exercise which is appropriate to their existing state whether of imperfection or improvement. Now the appropriate exercise of improved vision consists in attending to those nicer distinctions of colour, and in observing those several varieties and relations of figure, which the rude unpractised sense is incapable of perceiving. This seems necessarily to imply a preference of delicate to glaring colours, and a peculiar aptness to receive pleasure from a certain mixture and contrast of these with one another. It implies, also, not less necessarily, a fondness for regular forms, as alone exhibiting that relation of parts, which the improved sense is now capable of perceiving. The same principle is applicable also, in a certain degree, to the beauty of sounds. Music undoubtedly derives its principal charm from association, that is, from its being expressive of certain feelings or passions of the mind. But there is much music which is expressive of no particular feeling, and which is nevertheless agreeable. This can only be, because those nicer varieties and gradations, and those more complicated combinations of sound which constitute music, are naturally gratifying to the organ in its improved state. The restriction of our pleasure to that par ticular succession, and that particular combination of sounds which the laws of music require, can only be ascribed to something not yet ascertained in the structure of the organ itself.

NOTE E.

p.

60.

The following passage so well illustrates these observations, that I make no apology for quoting it at length

"How oft upon yon eminence our pace

Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew;

While admiration, feeding at the eye,

And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.

Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd
The distant plough slow moving, and beside

His lab'ring team, that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminished to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,
Stand, never overlooked, our fav'rite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream,
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
Displaying on its varied side the grace

Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow'r,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear;

Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote."

Cowper's Task. Book I.

NOTE F. p. 63.

But in a picture the cottage is accounted a more beautiful object than the mansion. True; but it is the very circumstance of being in a picture which makes all the difference. The objects which are most beautiful in reality, are not always the most pleasing in imitation. An elegant mansion, with its straight lines, sharp angles, and perfect symmetry, is not considered a good subject for a picture, because it allows no scope for the skill of imitation. To imitate nature is obviously a higher effort of art, than to imitate other productions of art; and therefore it is, that the rude scenes of nature, and objects which bear the fewest marks of art, have always been accounted the fittest subjects for the painter's pencil. The painter and those who are conversant with paintings regard the scenes of nature with a taste peculiar to themselves, and are determined in their sentiments of the beautiful, not so much by the perception of utility,