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An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the United States of America.

Part First. Containing an Historical Outline of their Merits and Wrongs as Colonies,

and Strictures on the Calumnies of British Writers. By ROBERT WALSH, Esq. ...

(Bracebridge Hall; or, the Humourists. By GEOFFREY CRAYON, Gent., Author of "The

Sketch Book," &c...

A Portraiture of Quakerism, as taken from a View of the Moral Education, Discipline,

Peculiar Customs, Religious Principles, Political and Civil Economy, and Character

of the Society of Friends. By THOMAS CLARKSON, M. A., Author of several Essays

on the Subject of the Slave Trade..

Memoirs of the Private and Public Life of William Penn. By THOMAS CLARKSON, M. A.

A Selection from the Public and Private Correspondence of Vice-Admiral Lord Colling-

wood: interspersed with Memoirs of his Life. By G. L. NEWNHAM COLLINGWOOD,

Esq., F. R. S.

Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay,

1824, 1825 (with Notes upon Ceylon); an Account of a Journey to Madras and the

Southern Provinces, 1826; and Letters written in India. By the late Right Rever-

end REGINALD HEBER, Lord Bishop of Calcutta...

Sketches of India. Written by an Officer, for Fire-Side Travellers at Home

Scenes and Impressions in Egypt and in Italy. By the Author of "Sketches of India,"

and "Recollections of the Peninsula"

Letters from a late eminent Prelate to one of his Friends

Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, Knight

of St. Patrick, &c. &c. By FRANCIS HARDY, Esq., Member of the House of Com-

mons in the three last Parliaments of Ireland..

An Inquiry whether Crime and Misery are produced or prevented by our present Sys-

tem of Prison discipline. Illustrated by Descriptions of the Borough Compter, Tot-

hill Fields Prison, the Jail at St. Albans, the Jail at Guilford, the Jail at Bristol, the

Jails at Bury and Ilchester, the Maison de Force at Ghent, the Philadelphia Prison,

the Penitentiary at Millbank, aud the Proceedings of the Ladies' Committee at

Newgate. By THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON....

Memoirs of Richard Cumberland: written by Himself. Containing an Account of his

Life and Writings, interspersed with Anecdotes and Characters of the most distin-

guished Persons of his Time with whom he had Intercourse or Connection.......

The Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Including her Cor-

respondence, Poems, and Essays.

The Life of the Right Honourable John Philpot Curran, late Master of the Rolls in Ire-

land. By his Son, WILLIAM HENRY CURRAN, Barrister-at-Law..

Switzerland, or a Journal of a Tour and Residence in that Country in the Years 1817,

1818, 1819. Followed by an Historical Sketch of the Manners and Customs of An-

cient and Modern Helvetia, in which the Events of our own Time are fully De-

tailed; together with the Causes to which they may be referred. By L. SIMOND,

Author of "Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain during the Years 1810

and 1811".

Rejected Addresses; or the New Theatrum Poetarum..

Euvres Inédites de Madame la Baronne de Staël, publiées par son Fils; précédées d'une

Notice sur le Caractère et les Ecrits de M. de Staël. Par Madame NECKER SAUS-

GENERAL LITERATURE

AND

LITERARY BIOGRAPHY.

(May, 1811.)

Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste.-By ARCHIBALD ALISON, L L. B., F. R. S., Prebendary of Sarum,* &c. 2 vols. 8vo.

THERE are few parts of our nature which ¡ define what green or red is, say that green is have given more trouble to philosophers, or appeared more simple to the unreflecting, than the perceptions we have of Beauty, and the circumstances under which these are preseated to us. If we ask one of the latter (and arger) class, what beauty is? we shall most probably be answered, that it is what makes things pleasant to look at; and if we remind him that many other things are called and perceived to be beautiful, besides objects of sight, and ask how, or by what faculty he supposes that we distinguish such objects, we must generally be satisfied with hearing that it has pleased God to make us capable of such a perception. The science of mind may not appear to be much advanced by these responses; and yet, if it could be made out, as Some have alleged, that our perception of beauty was a simple sensation, like our perception of colour, and that the faculty of taste was an original and distinct sense, like that of seeing or hearing; this would be truly the only account that could be given, either of the sense or of its object; and all that we could do, in investigating the nature of the latter, would be to ascertain and enumerate the circumstances under which it was found to indicate itself to its appropriate organ. All that we can say of colour, if we consider it very strictly, is, that it is that property in objects by which they make themselves known to the faculty of sight; and the faculty of sight can scarcely be defined in any other way than as that by which we are enabled to discover the existence of colour. When we attempt to proceed farther, and, on being asked to

the colour of grass, and red of roses or of blood, it is plain that we do not in any respect explain the nature of those colours, but only give instances of their occurrence; and that one who had never seen the objects referred to could learn nothing whatever from these pretended definitions. Complex ideas, on the other hand, and compound emotions, may always be defined, and explained to a certain extent, by enumerating the parts of which they are made up, or resolving them into the elements of which they are composed: and we may thus acquire, not only a substantial, though limited, knowledge of their nature, but a practical power in their regulation or production.

The greater part of this paper was first printed in the Edinburgh Review for May 1811; but was afterwards considerably enlarged, and inserted as a separate article (under the word BEAUTY) in the supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1824, and subsequently incorporated into the new edition of that great work in 1841, from which it is now reprinted in its complete form, by the liberal allowance of the proprietors.

It becomes of importance, therefore, in the very outset of this inquiry, to consider whether our sense of beauty be really a simple sensation, like some of those we have enumerated, or a compound or derivative feeling, the sources or elements of which may be investigated and ascertained. If it be the former, we have then only to refer it to the peculiar sense or faculty of which it is the object; and to determine, by repeated observation, under what circumstances that sense is called into action: but if it be the latter, we shall have to proceed, by a joint process of observation and reflection, to ascertain what are the primary feelings to which it may be referred; and by what peculiar modification of them it is produced and distinguished. We are not quite prepared, as yet, to exhaust the whole of this important discussion, to which we shall be obliged to return in the sequel of our inquiry; but it is necessary, in order to explain and to set forth, in their natural order, the difficulties with which the subject is surrounded, to state here; in a very few words, one or two of the most obvious, and, as we think, decisive objections against the notion of beauty being a simple sensation, or the object of a separate and peculiar faculty.

The first, and perhaps the most consider

sally by the same name, and be recogni as the peculiar object of a separate sense faculty. All simple qualities that are percei in any one object, are immediately recogni to be the same, when they are again percei in another; and the objects in which they thus perceived are at once felt so far to semble each other, and to partake of the sa nature. Thus snow is seen to be white, chalk is seen to be white; but this is sooner seen, than the two substances, h ever unlike in other respects, are felt at to have this quality in common, and to semble each other completely in all tha lates to the quality of colour, and the s of seeing. But is this felt, or could it ever intelligibly asserted, with regard to the qua of beauty? Take even a limited and specific of beauty-for instance, the beauty of fo The form of a fine tree is beautiful, and form of a fine woman, and the form of a colu and a vase, and a chandelier. Yet how c be said that the form of a woman has thing in common with that of a tree or a ple? or to which of the senses by which fo are distinguished can it be supposed to ap that they have any resemblance or affini The matter, however, becomes still inextricable when we recollect that be does not belong merely to forms or col but to sounds, and perhaps to the objec other senses; nay, that in all languages in all nations, it is not supposed to reside clusively in material objects, but to be also to sentiments and ideas, and intelle and moral existences. Not only is a beautiful, as well as a palace or a wate but a poem is beautiful, and a theore mathematics, and a contrivance in mecha But if things intellectual and totally s gated from matter may thus possess be how can it possibly be a quality of ma objects? or what sense or faculty can tha whose proper office it is to intimate to u existence of some property which is con to a flower and a demonstration, a valley an eloquent discourse?

able, is the want of agreement as to the time possess so much unity as to pass univ presence and existence of beauty in particular objects, among men whose organization is perfect, and who are plainly possessed of the faculty, whatever it may be, by which beauty is discerned. Now, no such thing happens, we imagine, or can be conceived to happen, in the case of any other simple sensation, or the exercise of any other distinct faculty. Where one man sees light, all men who have eyes see light also. All men allow grass to be green, and sugar to be sweet, and ice to be cold; and the unavoidable inference from any apparent disagreement in such matters necessarily is, that the party is insane, or entirely destitute of the sense or organ concerned in the perception. With regard to beauty, however, it is obvious, at first sight, that the case is entirely different. One man sees it perpetually, where to another it is quite invisible, or even where its reverse seems to be conspicuous. Nor is this owing to the insensibility of either of the parties; for the same contrariety exists where both are keenly alive to the influences of the beauty they respectively discern. A Chinese or African lover would probably see nothing at all attractive in a belle of London or Paris; and, undoubtedly, an elegans formarum spectator from either of those cities would discover nothing but deformity in the Venus of the Hottentots. A little distance in time often produces the same effects as distance in place; the gardens, the furniture, the dress, which appeared beautiful in the eyes of our grandfathers, are odious and ridiculous in ours. Nay, the difference of rank, education, or employments, gives rise to the same diversity of sensation. The little shop-keeper sees a beauty in his roadside box, and in the staring tile roof, wooden lions, and clipped boxwood, which strike horror into the soul of the student of the picturesque; while he is transported in surveying the fragments of ancient sculpture, which are nothing but ugly masses of mouldering stone, in the judgment of the admirer of neatness. It is needless, however, to multiply instances, since the fact admits of no contradiction. But how can we believe that beauty is the object of a peculiar sense or faculty, when persons undoubtedly possessed of the faculty, and even in an eminent degree, can discover nothing of it in objects where it is distinctly felt and perceived by others with the same use of the faculty?

This one consideration, we confess, appears to us conclusive against the supposition of beauty being a real property of objects, addressing itself to the power of taste as a separate sense or faculty; and it seems to point irresistibly to the conclusion, that our sense of it is the result of other more elementary feelings, into which it may be analysed or resolved. A second objection, however, if possible of still greater force, is suggested, by considering the prodigious and almost infinite variety of things to which this property of beauty is ascribed; and the impossibility of imagining any one inherent quality which can belong to them all, and yet at the same

The only answer which occurs to th plainly enough a bad one; but the state of it, and of its insufficiency, will serve b perhaps, than any thing else, to develop actual difficulties of the subject, and the state of the question with regard to ther may be said, then, in answer to the ques we have suggested above, that all thes jects, however various and dissimilar, at least in being agreeable, and that agreeableness, which is the only quality possess in common, may probably be beauty which is ascribed to them all. to those who are accustomed to such d sions, it would be quite enough to reply though the agreeableness of such objec pend plainly enough upon their beauty, no means follows, but quite the contrary their beauty depends upon their agree ness; the latter being the more comprehe or generic term, under which beauty rank as one of the species. Its nature,

bre, is no more explained, nor is less ab-give; and find ourselves just where we were surdity substantially committed, by saying at the beginning of the discussion, and emthat things are beautiful because they are barrassed with all the difficulties arising from agreeable, than if we were to give the same the prodigious diversity of objects which seem explanation of the sweetness of sugar; for no to possess these qualities. one, we suppose, will dispute, that though it be very true that sugar is agreeable because it is sweet, it would be manifestly preposterous to say that it was sweet because it was greeable. For the benefit, however, of those ho wish or require to be more regularly nitiated in these mysteries, we beg leave to add a few observations.

and

We know pretty well what is the faculty of seeing or hearing; or, at least, we know that what is agreeable to one of those faculties, has no effect whatever on the other. We know that bright colours afford no delight to the ear, nor sweet tones to the eye; and are therefore perfectly assured that the qualities which make the visible objects agreeable, cannot be the same with those which give pleasure to the ear. But it is by the eye by the ear that all material beauty is perceived; and yet the beauty which discloses itself to these two separate senses, and consequently must depend upon qualities which have no sort of affinity, is supposed to be one distinct quality, and to be perceived by a peculiar sense or faculty! The perplexity becomes still greater when we think of the beauty of poems or theorems, and endeavour to imagine what qualities they can possess in common with the agreeable modifications of light or of sound.

In the first place, then, it seems evident, that agreeableness, in general, cannot be the same with beauty, because there are very many things in the highest degree agreeable, that can in no sense be called beautiful. Moderate heat, and savoury food, and rest, and exercise, are agreeable to the body; but one of these can be called beautiful; and mong objects of a higher class, the love and esteem of others, and fame, and a good conscience, and health, and riches, and wisdom, are all eminently agreeable; but none at all beautiful, according to any intelligible use of the word. It is plainly quite absurd, therefore, say that beauty consists in agreeableness, It is in these considerations undoubtedly without specifying in consequence of what it that the difficulty of the subject consists. The agreeable or to hold that any thing what- faculty of taste, plainly, is not a faculty like er is taught as to its nature, by merely any of the external senses, the range of whose assing it among our pleasurable emotions. objects is limited and precise, as well as the In the second place, however, we may re- qualities by which they are gratified or of mark, that among all the objects that are fended; and beauty, accordingly, is discovered greeable, whether they are also beautiful or in an infinite variety of objects, among which 30, scarcely any two are agreeable on account it seems, at first sight, impossible to discover qualities, or even suggest their any other bond of connexion. Yet boundless agreeableness to the same faculty or organ. as their diversity may appear, it is plain that Most certainly there is no resemblance or they must resemble each other in something, affinity whatever between the qualities which and in something more definite and definable make a peach agreeable to the palate, and a than merely in being agreeable; since they beautiful statue to the eye; which soothe us are all classed together, in every tongue and an easy chair by the fire, or delight us in a nation, under the common appellation of beauphilosophical discovery. The truth is, that tiful, and are felt indeed to produce emotions agreeableness is not properly a quality of any in the mind that have some sort of kindred or object whatsoever, but the effect or result of affinity. The words beauty and beautiful, in certain qualities, the nature of which, in every short, do and must mean something; and are particular instance, we can generally define universally felt to mean something much pretty exactly, or of which we know at least more definite than agreeableness or gratificawith certainty that they manifest themselves tion in general: and while it is confessedly faculty, and to no other; and consequently it that something is, the force and clearness of respectively to some one particular sense or by no means easy to describe or define what would

of the same

se a faculty or organ, whose office it was to

readiness with which we determine, in any

perceive agreeableness in general, as to sup- particular instance, whether the object of a

that could thus be perceived.

The class of agreeable objects, thanks to

erly described as beauty.
What we have already said, we confess,

the bounty of Providence, is exceedingly large. appears to us conclusive against the idea of

Certain things

are

others to the smell and to the touch. Some erty of the objects to which it is ascribed, or again are agreeable to our faculty of imagina- itself the object of any separate and inde

agreeable to the palate, and this beauty being any fixed or inherent prop

tion, or to our

feelings; and none of all these we call beau- ceal from the reader what we take to be the tiful. But there are others which we do call true solution of the difficulty. In our opinion, understanding, or to our moral pendent faculty; and we will no longer conntiful; and

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the qualities which recommend the subjects agreeable or interesting sensations with which ask what is the faculty of taste, and what are or emotions, and consists in the suggestion of to that faculty?-we have no such answer to we had formerly been made familiar by the

what y of taste; but when we come to our previous experience of simpler pleasures

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