CHAP. Of Imagina tion. politics, its effects will be the same, provided it has sufficient influence to enslave the natural affections of the soul, and induce men to prefer a theorem of the head to a sentiment of the heart. 114. Had Lord Bacon seen such events, as have lately happened, he would not have said that atheism did never perturb states*: for if men once unite to maintain systematically that there are many Gods, one God, or no God, the moral effects will be exactly the same: the dogma instantly becomes the rallying point of a sect or faction; and all the selfish, violent, and atrocious passions are collected into its vortex. It is true, that a negative dogma is less likely, than an affirmative one, to engage such passions †; because it is less flattering to that opinionative pride and presumption, which is necessary to give them vigour and energy sufficient for any great exertions: but, nevertheless, that it may become the rallying point of a faction, and be a motive for very bloody persecution, we have had abundant proof. If men can once suppose an opinion to be infallibly certain, they will feel an inclination to propagate it; and * Essays, 18. "Is humano intellectui error est proprius et perpetuus, ut magis moveatur et excitetur affirmativis quem negativis."-VERULAM. in Nov. Org. Scient. lib. i. xlvi. CHAP. II. tion. consequently square their morality to that inclination; which will lead them to employ Of Imaginaforce, if persuasion do not prevail. Truth, they say, is the foundation of all virtue; and truth is, to every man, that which he himself thinks *. 115. Rules and systems have exactly the same influence upon taste and manners, as dogmas have upon morals. If a person be polite by rule; how just soever his rules may be, or with whatever strictness and exactitude he may observe them, his behaviour will be constrained and formal; and void of all that graceful ease, and ready adaptation to every varying shade of circumstance and situation, which constitute what is called good breeding; and which can only proceed from a just and discriminating tact, cultivated and refined by habitual exercise. Persons, who attempt to display their taste and talents in art or literature by rule, always err in exactly the same manner. Their rules and systems can never reach every possible case; and, even if they could, the very act of applying them would distract the attention from the sentiment excited; and, consequently, prevent or destroy all just feeling, by making * Quod enim mavult homo verum esse, id potius credit." Ibid. xlix. CHAP. Of Imagina tion. them hesitate and doubt whether they ought to feel or not, till they had tried their sentiments by the standard of their opinions: but sentiment, that is checked or impeded, is at the same time enfeebled; and thus, though rules and theories may prevent those, who have no just feeling or natural tact, from judging totally wrong, they in an equal degree, prevent those who have, from judging entirely right. 116. More than a century has now elapsed, since the taste and magnificence of the principal sovereigns of Europe first formed academies in their respective kingdoms, for the study of the arts of painting, sculpture, &c.; in which professors of all the different sciences, connected with those arts, were appointed, models provided, and such of the students, as seemed to make the greatest progress, and possess the most promising talents, sent to travel at the expence of the institution, that they might profit by a comparative view of the different styles and manners of all the different schools, and acquire all the information, which the remains of antiquity, and the most perfect works of their predecessors in the respective arts, could afford. Under the fostering influence of institutions so favourable, it might naturally be supposed that these arts must have been ever since in a progressive state of im 1 provement; and, considering the high degree of excellence, from which that of painting started, that it must now be little short of abstract perfection. This is, however, so far from being the case, that not one of these academies has yet produced an artist, whom public opinion has ranked among painters. Heaven The candid reader will observe that I am speaking only of the regular students of academies, and not of those who have incidentally belonged to them. The most complete establishment of the kind, that has ever existed, is the French academy: but though France produced several great painters before its institution, it has not produced one since. Generations of academicians have arisen and passed away one after the other, each the pride and wonder of their day; but we look in vain for a Poussin, a Le Sueur, or Bourdon among them. Happily our own academy has hitherto escaped the contagion of system; and every artist taken up a style of his own, suited to his taste or talents; so that an English exhibition displays more variety than all those on the continent together. By thus continuing to apply the principles of British liberty to British àrt, we may reasonably hope to reach a degree of excellence in painting, which has never yet been attained: for painting, in modern Europe, has never approached that state of abstract perfection, which we admire in the sculpture of ancient Greece; and there can be no reason in the nature of things why it should not attain it. The system of all the foreign academies, whose productions I have seen, is not only one, but a very bad one; so that, as Mr. Hopner has observed, they are not only not approaching the excellence of the great painters of Italy and Flanders, but going in a road which leads directly from it. R CHAP. II. Of Imagina tion. CHAP. 11. Of Imagination. born genuises have been continually announced by them; and students of the highest expectation, every year, sent forth; but all went and returned through the same beaten track of mediocrity, and just acquired enough of the art to make them miraculous boys, and contemptible men. 117. This effect has been so uniform and universal, during so long a period of time, and in so many different countries, that it cannot be merely accidental, or proceed from the casual incapacity of individuals; but must be owing to some radical vice in the institutions themselves: which radical vice, I believe to be nothing more than system; which whether it be good or bad, true or false, equally teaches men to work by rule, instead of by feeling and observation. Those, who live and study together, naturally and imperceptibly imitate each other whence every academy acquires a style and principle of its own; which, by degrees, limits and cramps all the exertions of those who belong to it. Whatever they look at, either in nature or art, is seen through a particular medium of their own, which characterizes and vitiates every copy or imitation, which they make from it. Hence whatever acquisitions they make, either of theoretical knowledge or practical facility, are merely the knowledge and facility of doing wrong; so |