The Objects called Sublime and Beautiful, and their Contraries, contemplated as Causes of our Pleasures and Pains.

These objects have received much of the attention of Philosophers; and great progress has been made in 231 analysing the associations which form the complicated feelings, ranged under the name of Emotions of the Sublime and Beautiful.

232 It does not belong to the present purpose to go into the details of this subject, which, for obvious reasons, have been pursued to great length. It is necessary, 233 however, for that purpose, to shew, into what general laws the phenomena are capable of being resolved.

The feelings which are marked under the name of 234 Emotions of the Sublime and Beautiful, are so much alike, that the distinction of them into two species is somewhat arbitrary. Though the Romans did apply 235 the word sublimis, and its abstract, sublimitas, in a certain rhetorical way, to objects of Taste, their word Pulchrum, properly denoted all that is expressed by 236 our Sublime and Beautiful, taken together. The Greek word, καλόν, also clearly included every thing which we rank under the name of Sublime. Longinus, indeed, who lived at a very late and degenerate period of Grecian literature, wrote a treatise to which he gave the affected Title, Πέρι Ὑψοῦς, or “About Height;” and as that has been a very popular treatise in modern times, it is not improbable, that the use of the word Sublime, which has become so prevalent in the discourse of the moderns, derives its origin from no higher source.

Mr. Alison, who wrote a very pleasing, and, to a certain degree, a Philosophical Book, on the Emotions of Taste, has shewn by an abundance of well-chosen illustrations, that it is not the immediate sensations, received by us from the objects of Taste, which constitute them a cause of our pleasures. The immediate sensations are commonly indifferent, or approaching the indifferent. It is only when they introduce, by association, a train of pleasurable ideas, that the feelings called the pleasures of Taste, are ever enjoyed.

I believe that I may assume this as an established 237 fact in our nature; and I shall only adduce as much of the evidence as may teach those of my readers, to whom these inquiries may be new, the mode in which the truth of the proposition becomes apparent. I also think it useful to avail myself, not only of the illustrations, but as much as possible of the words, of Mr. Alison, as exhibiting the clear conviction of the wonderful effects of association, in one instance, on the part of a writer, who seems to have had no idea of its affording an equally satisfactory solution of the other complex phenomena of mind.

What are called the external objects of Taste, are mostly objects of Hearing, objects of Sight, or objects of that Muscular Sense, from which we derive the idea of extension.

That the feelings we have by these senses are generically distinct from the emotions of Sublimity and Beauty, might, I imagine, be trusted to an appeal to each man’s consciousness. There are innumerable cases, however, which may be regarded as decisive experiments upon the subject.

Of the sounds which can be adduced as Sublime or Beautiful, there is, perhaps, not one, which is not often heard in circumstances, wherein no tendency to Emotion is felt. The circumstances in which the Emotion is felt, and those in which it is not felt, are those in which a train of pleasurable ideas is, or is not, introduced by association.

“All sounds,” says Mr. Alison, “are in general SUBLIME, which are associated with Ideas of great Power or Might: the Noise of a Torrent,—the Fall of a Cataract,—the Uproar of a Tempest,—the Explosion of Gunpowder,—the Dashing of the Waves, &c.

238 “All sounds, in the same manner, are sublime, which are associated with Ideas of Majesty, or Solemnity, or deep Melancholy, or any other strong Emotion: the Sound of the Trumpet, and all other warlike instruments,—the Note of the Organ,—the Sound of the Curfew,—the Tolling of the Passing bell, &c.

“There is a great variety of sounds also, that occur in the scenes of Nature, which are productive of the Emotion of BEAUTY: the Sound of a Waterfall,—the Murmuring of a Rivulet,—the Whispering of the Wind,—the Sheepfold-bell,—the sound of the Curfew, &c.

“That the Notes or Cries of some Animals, are Sublime, every one knows: the Roar of the Lion, the Growling of Bears, the Howling of Wolves, the Scream of the Eagle, &c. In all those cases, those are the notes of animals remarkable for their strength, and formidable for their ferocity. It would seem very natural, therefore, that the sublimity of such sounds should arise from the qualities of which they are expressive.

“The Bleating of a Lamb, is beautiful in a fine day in spring: the Lowing of a Cow at a distance, amid the scenery of a pastoral landscape in summer. The Call of a Goat among rocks is strikingly beautiful, as expressing wildness and independence. The Hum of the Beetle is beautiful in a fine summer evening, as appearing to suit the stillness and repose of that pleasing season. The Twitter of the Swallow is beautiful in the morning, and seems to be expressive of the cheerfulness of that time.”

This enumeration of cases, which is only a selection from those of Mr. Alison, is far more than 239 sufficient for the purpose, as indeed it is one defect of his book that his propositions are overlaid with evidence.

That these sounds, as sensations, do not constitute the pleasures enjoyed, he demonstrates, by shewing that on many occasions, on which the sensations exist as perfectly as on any other occasion, no pleasure is felt. He also shews, that when the pleasures are felt, a train of pleasurable ideas is introduced by association.

“The sound of Thunder, he says, is perhaps of all others in Nature, the most Sublime.” Yet the rolling of stones from a cart, produces a sound so exactly the same, that it is often mistaken for thunder. While the mistake lasts, the feeling of sublimity lasts. When the mistake is corrected, it instantly vanishes; that is, the association is dissolved.

“There is scarcely in nature,” says Mr. Alison, “a more trifling sound than the buzz of Flies; yet, I believe, there is no man of common Taste, who, in the deep silence of a summer’s noon, has not found something strikingly sublime, in this inconsiderable sound. The falling of a drop of water, produces in general a very insignificant and unexpressive sound; yet sometimes in Vaults, and in large Cathedrals, a single drop is heard to fall, at distant intervals, from the roof; than which, I know not if there is a single sound more strikingly sublime.”

Mr. Alison further remarks, that to those who have no trains of pleasurable ideas associated with sounds, “or who consider them simply as sounds, they have no beauty. It is long before children shew any sensibility to the beauty of sounds. To the greater 240 number of the sounds which we denominate beautiful, the common people, in the same manner, are altogether indifferent. To the peasant, the Curfew is only the mark of the hour of the evening,—the Sheep-bell, the sign of the neighbourhood of the flock,—the sound of a Cascade, the sign of the falling of water, &c. Give him the associations which men of cultivated imagination have with such sounds, and he will infallibly feel their beauty.”

Mr. Alison shews, that when the notes or cries of animals are stripped of certain associations, they are unproductive of Emotions of sublimity or beauty. “There is not one of these sounds,” he says, “which may not be imitated in some manner or other; and which, while we are ignorant of the deception, does not produce the same Emotion with the real sound: when we are undeceived, however, we are conscious of no other Emotion, but that, perhaps, of simple pain from its loudness. The howl of the Wolf is little distinguished from the howl of the Dog, either in its tone or in its strength, but there is no comparison between their sublimity. Few, if any, of the sounds felt as sublime are so loud as the most common of all sounds, the lowing of a Cow; yet this is the very reverse of sublimity. Imagine this sound, on the contrary, expressive of Fierceness and Strength, and there can be no doubt, that it would become sublime. The scream of the Eagle is simply disagreeable, when the bird is either tamed or confined; it is Sublime, only when it is heard amid Rocks and Deserts, and when it is expressive to us, of Liberty and Independence, and savage Majesty. The noise of the Rattlesnake (that most dangerous animal of all his tribe) 241 is very little different from the noise of a child’s play-thing; yet who will deny its sublimity? The growl of the Tiger, resembles the purring of a Cat; the one is sublime, the other insignificant.”

Mr. Alison, with great propriety, adds, “Upon the principle of the absolute and independent Sublimity or Beauty of Sounds, it is very difficult to account for the different sounds which have been mentioned as productive of these Emotions. There is certainly no resemblance, as sounds, between the noise of Thunder, and the hissing of a Serpent,—between the growling of a Tiger, and the explosion of Gunpowder,—between the scream of an Eagle, and the shouting of a multitude; yet all of these are sublime. In the same manner, there is as little resemblance, between the tinkling of the Sheepfold-bell, and the murmuring of the Breeze; between the hum of the Beetle and the song of the Lark; between the twitter of the Swallow, and the sound of the Curfew; yet all of these are beautiful. Upon the principle of association, they are all perfectly accountable.”

I shall not follow Mr. Alison in his illustrations of the beauty and sublimity felt in the tones of the human voice, or in the composition of sounds, called Music; because I have no doubt but it will be allowed that they derive the whole of what is called their expression,—in other words, their power of pleasing,—from the associations connected with them.46 I 242 shall also produce a very few specimens of the illustrations which he adduces to show that what is called the Beauty and Sublimity of objects of sight, is derived wholly from association.

46 What the author thinks himself dispensed from either proving or illustrating because he has no doubt that it will be allowed, is, on the contrary, one of the most disputable parts of his theory. That very much of the pleasure afforded by Music is the effect of its expression, i.e. of the associations connected with sound, most people will admit: but it can scarcely be doubted that there is also an element of direct physical and sensual pleasure. In the first place, the quality of some single sounds is physically agreeable, as that of others is disagreeable. Next, the concord or harmony of pleasant sounds adds a further element of purely physical enjoyment. And thirdly, certain successions of sounds, constituting melody or tune, are delightful, as it seems to me, to the mere sense. With these pleasures those of the associated ideas and feelings are intimately blended, but may, to a certain extent, be discriminated by a critical ear. It is possible to say, of different composers, that one (as Beethoven) excels most in that part of the effect of music which depends on expression, and another (as Mozart) in the physical part.

That the full physical pleasure of tune is often not experienced at the first hearing, is a consequence of the fact, that the pleasure depends on succession, and therefore on the coexistence of each note with the remembrance of a sufficient number of the previous notes to constitute melody: a remembrance which, of course, is not possessed in perfection, until after a number of repetitions proportioned to the complexity and to the unfamiliar character of the combination.—Ed.

The following observations are general, and very instructive.

“The greatest part of colours are connected with a kind of established Imagery in our minds, and are considered as expressive of many very pleasing and affecting Qualities.

“These Associations may perhaps be included in the following Enumeration: 1st, Such as arise from 243 the nature of the objects thus permanently coloured: 2ndly, Such as arise from some analogy between certain Colours, and certain Dispositions of mind: and, 3rdly, Such as arise from accidental connexions, whether national or particular.

“1. When we have been accustomed to see any object capable of exciting Emotion, distinguished by some fixed or permanent colour, we are apt to extend to the Colour the Qualities of the object thus coloured, and to feel from it, when separated, some degree of the same emotion which is properly excited by the object itself. Instances of this kind are within every person’s observation. White, as it is the colour of Day, is expressive to us of the cheerfulness or gaiety which the return of day brings. Black, as the colour of Darkness, is expressive of gloom and melancholy. The colour of the heavens, in serene weather, is Blue: Blue, is therefore expressive to us of somewhat of the same pleasing and temperate character. Green, is the colour of the Earth, in Spring: it is, consequently, expressive to us of some of those delightful Images which we associate with that season. The expressions of those colours, which are the signs of particular passions in the Human countenance, and which, from this connexion, derive their effect, every one is acquainted with.

“2. There are many colours which derive expression from some analogy we discover between them and certain affections of the Human Mind. Soft or Strong, Mild or Bold, Gay or Gloomy, Cheerful or Solemn, &c., are terms, in all languages, applied to colours; terms obviously metaphorical, and the use of which indicates their connexion with particular 244 qualities of Mind. In the same manner, different degrees or shades of the same colour have similar characters, as Strong, or Temperate, or Gentle, &c. In consequence of this Association,—which is, in truth, so strong, that it is to be found in all mankind,—such colours derive a character from this resemblance, and produce in our mind some faint degree of the same Emotion, which the qualities they express are fitted to produce.

“3. Many colours acquire character from accidental Association. Purple, for instance, has acquired a character of Dignity, from its accidental connexion with the Dress of Kings. The colours of Ermine have a similar character, from the same cause. The colours, in every country, which distinguish the Dress of Magistrates, &c., acquire dignity in the same manner. Every person will, in the same manner, probably, recollect the particular colours which are pleasing to him, from their having been worn by people whom he loved, or from some other accidental association.”

That it is not from the sensation, but from those trains of associated Ideas, that the feeling of Beauty in colours, whenever we have it, is derived, he demonstrates, by adducing some well-chosen instances to shew that the sensation may exist as well without the association as with it; and that, as often as it is unaccompanied with the association, it is unaccompanied with any feeling of Beauty. When it has the association. Beauty is felt: when it has not the association, Beauty is not felt. The association, therefore, is the cause of the Beauty.

245 “Black,” says Mr. Alison, “is to us an unpleasant colour, because it is the colour appropriated to mourning. In Venice and Spain, it is agreeable, because it is the colour which distinguishes the dress of the Great. White is beautiful to us, in a supreme degree, as emblematical both of Innocence and Cheerfulness. In China, on the other hand, it is the colour appropriated to Mourning, and, consequently, very far from being generally beautiful.

“The common colours of the indifferent things which surround us,—of the Earth, of Stone, of Wood, &c.,—have no kind of Beauty. The things themselves are so indifferent to us, that they excite no kind of emotion; and, of consequence, their colours produce no greater emotion as the signs of such qualities, than the qualities themselves. The colours, in the same manner, which distinguish the ordinary Dress of the Common People, are never considered as beautiful. It is the colours only of the Dress of the Great, of the Opulent, or of Distinguished Professions, which are ever considered in this light.

“No new colour is ever beautiful, until we have acquired some pleasing associations with it. This is peculiarly observable in the article of Dress; and indeed it is the best instance of it, because no other circumstance intervenes by which the experiment can be influenced. Every man must have observed, that, in the great variety of new colours, which the caprice of Fashion is perpetually introducing, no new colour appears at first sight as beautiful. A few weeks, even a few days alter our opinion; as soon as it is generally adopted by those who lead 246 the public Taste, and has become in consequence the mark of Rank and Elegance, it immediately becomes beautiful.

“When the particular associations we have with such colours, are destroyed, their beauty is destroyed at the same time.

“The different machines, instruments, &c., which minister to the convenience of Life, have, in general, from the materials of which they are composed, or from the uses to which they are applied, a fixed and determinate colour. This colour becomes accordingly in some degree beautiful, from its being the sign of such qualities; change the accustomed colour of such objects, and every man feels a kind of disappointment. This is so strong, that, even if a colour more generally beautiful is substituted, yet still our dissatisfaction is the same; and the new colour, instead of being beautiful, becomes the reverse. Rose-colour, for instance, is a more beautiful colour than that of Mahogany: yet, if any man were to paint his doors and windows with Rose-colour, he would certainly not add to their beauty. The colour of a polished steel grate is agreeable, but is not in itself very beautiful. Suppose it painted green, or violet, or crimson, all of them colours much more beautiful, and the beauty of it is altogether destroyed. Instances of this kind are innumerable.”47

47 The elements contributed by association are certainly more predominant in the pleasure of colours than in that of musical sounds; yet I am convinced that there is a direct element of physical pleasure in colours, anterior to association. My own memory recals to me the intense and mysterious delight which in early childhood I had in the colours of certain flowers; a delight far exceeding any I am now capable of receiving from colour of any description, with all its acquired associations. And this was the case at far too early an age, and with habits of observation far too little developed, to make any of the subtler combinations of form and proportion a source of much pleasure to me. This last pleasure was acquired very gradually, and did not, until after the commencement of manhood, attain any considerable height. The examples quoted from Alison do not prove that there is no original beauty in colours, but only that the feeling of it is capable, as no one doubts that it is capable, of being overpowered by extraneous associations.

Whether there is any similar organic basis of the pleasure derived from form, so far at least as this depends on proportion, I would not undertake to decide.

The susceptibility to the physical pleasures produced by colours and musical sounds, (and by forms if any part of the pleasure they afford is physical), is probably extremely different in different organisations. In natures in which any one of these susceptibilities is originally faint, more will depend on association. The extreme sensibility of this part of our constitution to small and unobvious influences, makes it certain that the sources of the feelings of beauty and deformity must be, to a material extent, different in different individuals.—Ed.

247 Mr. Alison produces a very long line of illustrations to show that the Beauty of FORMS is not the mere sensation of Form, but consists, as in the case of sounds and colours, in the train of pleasurable ideas associated with the sensation. Mr. Alison is less happy, and more tedious, in the illustration of this than the preceding parts of his subject. We shall make little use of his proofs; because we can arrive, by a short process, at a very satisfactory conclusion.

Mr. Alison seems not to have been aware of the 248 origin of our ideas of Form; and thence in expounding them has found many difficulties which do not in reality belong to the subject. He supposes that Form is altogether a sensation of sight. In a former part of this Inquiry, we ascertained the sensations: we saw that Form, in all its cases, is merely a modification of extension; that it is made known to us, by those feelings, which accompany the motion of certain of our members, as that of a finger, or a hand. Those feelings are in no danger of being confounded with the emotion of Beauty. They are feelings so completely indifferent, that in most of the associations into which the ideas of them enter as essential ingredients they are overlooked, and the very existence of them is commonly unknown.

If the sensation is no cause of the Pleasure derived from Forms, it will not be questioned that association is the cause.

Forms are either Animate or Inanimate. The associations with the Animate only differ from those with the Inanimate, in holding some additional ingredients. Some Forms affect us, by their magnitude, naturally associated with the idea of Power; some, by the uses to which they are applied, as the more powerful instruments of war; some, by the extent of their duration, with which we have obvious associations; some, by the splendour or magnificence, with the ideas of which they are associated,—the Throne, the Diadem, the Triumphal Car.

The natural movements of the arm, from its turning in its socket as round a centre, are all waving; circles, or portions of circles, running into one another. All other movements are forced upon it, 249 and the effect of constraint. Hence the beauty of waving lines, because associated with the agreeable ideas of Ease, and absence of Restraint.

As nothing is more agreeable to us than to trace the operation of design, of successful contrivance, some Forms affect us strongly by the idea of their Fitness, of their adaptation to an End.

Others affect us not only by the idea of their adaptation to an end, but by the value which we attach to the end. In this case it is by their utility that they are said to please us.

We associate with the idea of certain states of the Human Body, or at least of the Bodies of Animals in general, certain inward Dispositions; with great strength we associate great Wilfulness, and little regard of others; with frailness, we associate Delicacy, the ideas of gentleness, compliance, and regard for others. The forms of inanimate objects sometimes bear such an analogy to the Delicate and Frail in human Forms, that the ideas associated with the animate, are called up by the inanimate, and produce the emotion of Beauty.

This emotion, however, is altogether prevented, when the more potent idea of Fitness intervenes. Any thing analogous to the slender form, which is so exquisitely beautiful in the more elegant grasses, would be a real deformity in the oak.

More than one of those sources of agreeable association are often united in the same subject, and increase the emotion produced by it.

Mr. Alison goes on to the exposition of the associations which constitute the Beauty of Motion, and the Beauty of the Human Form and Countenance. 250 But after what has been said, these associations are not difficult to trace; and I have already carried the illustration of this subject farther than I should have done, if I had not regarded this case of Association as affording most important aid toward the developement of all the more mysterious phenomena of the Human Mind.

We have here a class of Pleasures; the Feeling of Beauty, the Feeling of Sublimity; exercising a great influence over all cultivated minds. These Feelings, when taken as objects of general contemplation, appear perfectly simple. To such a degree have they assumed the appearance of simple and original feelings of our nature, even to Philosophers of eminence, that a particular sense has been supposed necessary to account for their existence. Yet all this apparent simplicity is only an exemplification of that association, by which a multitude of ideas are so intimately, and instantaneously blended together, that they appear to be not many ideas, but one idea.

Of this highly important fact, we have had occasion to take notice of various leading cases, before. In the present case, however, there is a peculiarity; which it has in common with the various cases called Affection, which we have recently been engaged in considering. In the cases which occurred for examination, in the earlier part of this Inquiry, where we found long trains of Ideas so blended together, by association, as to appear not many ideas, but one; that of Motion, that of Space, that of Time, that of Personal Identity; the ideas associated were those of indifferent sensations. The ideas, on the other hand, which are associated under the terms 251 Beauty and Sublimity, are ideas of pleasurable sensations. The difference is that which is testified by every man’s consciousness.

That there should be a remarkable difference between a train composed of ideas of the indifferent class, and a train composed of ideas of the pleasurable class, can be easily supposed. It is necessary further to observe, that between two trains, both of the pleasurable class, there are such important differences, as to have suggested the use of marking them by different names. Thus, even in the class which we have been now considering, one train is composed of pleasurable ideas, of such a kind, that we call it sublime; another, of pleasurable ideas of such a kind, that we call it Beautiful. From the train of ideas associated with the form of the statue called the Venus de Medicis, we call it beautiful. We have a train of ideas, also pleasurable, associated with the bust of Socrates. But this is a train not reckoned to belong to the class either of the beautiful or the sublime; it is a train including all the grand associations connected with the ideas of intellectual, and moral, worth.

A particular description of the sort of ideas which constitute each of the more remarkable cases of our pleasurable trains (that they are of one kind in one train, of another kind in another train,—of one kind, for example, in the trains called Sublimity, another in the trains called Beauty, another in the trains for which we have no better name than moral approbation, no one can doubt) would be highly necessary in a detailed account of Human Nature. It is not necessary for the Analysis which is the object of this 252 Work; and would engage us in too tedious an exposition.48

48 The objection commonly made to the psychological analyses which resolve Beauty into association, is that they confound the Beautiful with the merely agreeable. This objection is urged, for example, by Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria. He admits, with every one else, that things not in themselves agreeable, are often made agreeable by association; that is, the pleasantness which belongs to the ideas with which they are associated, adheres to themselves: but this cannot, it is asserted, be the cause of their producing the particular emotion to which we attach the name of Beauty; because, as no feeling of beauty belongs to the ideas that are supposed to generate the emotion, no such feeling can be transferred from them to what they are associated with.

Any one who has studied the Analysis up to this point, is aware of the inconclusiveness of this last argument. That a complex feeling generated out of a number of single ones, should be as unlike to any of those from which it is generated, as the sensation of white is unlike the sensations of the seven prismatic colours, is no unexampled or rare fact in our sensitive nature.

But it will also, I think, be found, in the case of our feelings of Beauty, and still more, of Sublimity, that the theory which refers their origin mainly to association, is not only not contradictory to facts, but is not even paradoxical. For if our perceptions of beauty and sublimity are of a more imposing character than the feelings ordinarily excited in us by the contemplation of objects, it will be found that the associations which form those impressions are themselves of a peculiarly imposing nature. This is apparent even from Alison; and if the Author of the Analysis had written later, he might have referred to a deeper thinker than Alison, and a more valuable because an unconscious witness to the truth of the Association theory. Mr. Ruskin, with profounder and more thoughtful views respecting the beauties both of Nature and of Art than any 253 psychologist I could name, undertakes, in the second volume of “Modern Painters,” to investigate the conditions of Beauty. The result he brings out is, that every thing which gives us the emotion of the Beautiful, is expressive and emblematic of one or other of certain lofty or lovely ideas, which are, in his apprehension, embodied in the universe, and correspond to the various perfections of its Creator. He holds these ideas to be, Infinity, Unity, Repose, Symmetry, Purity, Moderation, and Adaptation to Ends. And he is, in my judgment, to a very considerable degree successful in making out his case. Mr. Ruskin, it is true, never thinks of inferring that our feelings of Beauty are the actual consequence of our having those elevating or cheering ideas recalled to us through manifold channels of association. He deems the emotion to be arbitrarily attached to these ideas by a pre-established harmony. But the evidence which he adduces goes far to prove the other point. If he succeeds, as I think he does, in showing that the things which excite the emotions of beauty or sublimity are always things which have a natural association with certain highly impressive and affecting ideas (whether the catalogue which he has made of those ideas is correct and complete or not), we need no other mode of accounting for the peculiar character of the emotions, than by the actual, though vague and confused, recal of the ideas. It cannot be deemed surprising that a state of consciousness made up of reminiscences of such ideas as Mr. Ruskin specifies, and of the grand and interesting objects and thoughts connected with ideas like those, must be of a more elevated character, and must stir our nature to a greater depth, than those associations of commonplace and every-day pleasures, which often combine with them as parts of the mass of pleasurable feeling set up in us by the objects of Nature and Art. In a windy country, a screen of trees so placed as to be a barrier against the prevailing winds, excites ideas of warmth, comfort, and shelter, which belong to the “agreeable,” as distinguished by Coleridge from the Beautiful; and these enter largely into the pleasurable feeling with which we contemplate the trees, without contributing to give 254 them the peculiar character distinctive of æsthetic feelings. But besides these there are other elements constituting the beauty, properly speaking, of the trees, which appeal to other, and what we are accustomed, not without meaning, to call higher, parts of our nature; which give a stronger stimulus and a deeper delight to the imagination, because the ideas they call up are such as in themselves act on the imagination with greater force.

As is observed by the author of the Analysis, the exposition in detail of the associations which enter into our various feelings of the sublime and beautiful, would require the examination of the subject on a scale not suited to the character nor proportioned to the dimensions of this Treatise. Of all our feelings, our acquired pleasures and pains, especially our pleasures, are the most complex; resulting from the whole of our nature and of our past lives, and involving, consequently, a greater multitude and variety of associations than almost any other phenomena of the mind. And among our various pleasures, the æsthetic are without doubt the most complex. It may also be remarked, and is a considerable confirmation of the association theory, that the feelings of beauty or sublimity with which different people are affected by the contemplation of the same object, are evidently as different, as the pleasurable associations of different persons with the same object are likely to be. But there are some ingredients which are universally, or almost universally, present, when the emotions have their characteristic peculiarity; and to which they seem to be mainly indebted for the extraordinary power with which they act on the minds which have the greatest susceptibility to them. These ingredients are probably more numerous and various than is commonly suspected; but some of the most important and powerful of them are undoubtedly pointed to, and illustrated with great force, in the discussion which I have mentioned, by Mr. Ruskin; to whose work I willingly refer the psychological student, as a copious source of at least far-reaching suggestions, and often of much more.

Supposing that all Beauty had been successfully analysed 255 into a lively suggestion of one or more of the ideas to which it is referred by Mr. Ruskin, the question would still remain for psychologists, why the suggestion of those ideas is so impressive and so delightful. But this question may, in general, be answered with little difficulty. It is no mystery, for example, why anything which suggests vividly the idea of infinity, that is, of magnitude or power without limit, acquires an otherwise strange impressiveness to the feelings and imagination. The remaining ideas in Mr. Ruskin’s list (at least if we except those which, like Moderation, are chiefly ancillary to the others, by excluding what would jar with their effect) all represent to us some valuable or delightful attribute, in a completeness and perfection of which our experience presents us with no example, and which therefore stimulates the active power of the imagination to rise above known reality, into a more attractive or a more majestic world. This does not happen with what we call our lower pleasures. To them there is a fixed limit at which they stop: or if, in any particular case, they do acquire, by association, a power of stirring up ideas greater than themselves, and stimulate the imagination to enlarge its conceptions to the dimensions of those ideas, we then feel that the lower pleasure has, exceptionally, risen into the region of the æsthetic, and has superadded to itself an element of pleasure of a character and quality not belonging to its own nature.—Ed.

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