Contributions to the Edinburgh Review

GENERAL LITERATURE

AND

LITERARY BIOGRAPHY. .

(May, 1811.)

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

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.

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 the colour of grass, and red of roses or of appeared more simple to the unreflecting, than the perceptions we have of Beauty, and the circumstances under which these are presented to us. If we ask one of the latter (and larger) 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 It becomes of importance, therefore, in the some have alleged, that our perception of very outset of this inquiry, to consider whether beauty was a simple sensation, like our per- our sense of beauty be really a simple senception of colour, and that the faculty of taste sation, like some of those we have enume was an original and distinct sense, like that rated, or a compound or derivative feeling, of seeing or hearing; this would be truly the the sources or elements of which may be inonly account that could be given, either of the vestigated and ascertained. If it be the sense or of its object;-and all that we could former, we have then only to refer it to the do, in investigating the nature of the latter, peculiar sense or faculty of which it is the would be to ascertain and enumerate the cir- object; and to determine, by repeated obsercumstances under which it was found to indi-vation, under what circumstances that sense cate 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 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 Brittannica, 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.

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.

able, is the want of agreement as to the time possess so much unity as to pass univerpresence and existence of beauty in particular sally by the same name, and be recognised objects, among men whose organization is as the peculiar object of a separate sense or perfect, and who are plainly possessed of the faculty. All simple qualities that are perceived faculty, whatever it may be, by which beauty in any one object, are immediately recognised is discerned. Now, no such thing happens, to be the same, when they are again perceived we imagine, or can be conceived to happen, in another; and the objects in which they are in the case of any other simple sensation, or thus perceived are at once felt so far to rethe exercise of any other distinct faculty. semble each other, and to partake of the same Where one man sees light, all men who have nature. Thus snow is seen to be white, and eyes see light also. All men allow grass to chalk is seen to be white; but this is no be green, and sugar to be sweet, and ice to be sooner seen, than the two substances, howcold; and the unavoidable inference from any ever unlike in other respects, are felt at once apparent disagreement in such matters neces-to have this quality in common, and to resarily is, that the party is insane, or entirely semble each other completely in all that redestitute of the sense or organ concerned in lates to the quality of colour, and the sense the perception. With regard to beauty, how-of seeing. But is this felt, or could it even be ever, it is obvious, at first sight, that the case intelligibly asserted, with regard to the quality is entirely different. One man sees it per- of beauty? Take even a limited and specific sort petually, where to another it is quite invisible, of beauty-for instance, the beauty of form. or even where its reverse seems to be con- The form of a fine tree is beautiful, and the spicuous. Nor is this owing to the insensi- form of a fine woman, and the form of a column, bility of either of the parties; for the same and a vase, and a chandelier. Yet how can it contrariety exists where both are keenly alive be said that the form of a woman has any to the influences of the beauty they respect- thing in common with that of a tree or a temively discern. A Chinese or African lover ple? or to which of the senses by which forms would probably see nothing at all attractive are distinguished can it be supposed to appear in a belle of London or Paris; and, undoubt- that they have any resemblance or affinity? edly, 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 matter, however, becomes still more inextricable when we recollect that beauty does not belong merely to forms or colours but to sounds, and perhaps to the objects of other senses; nay, that in all languages and in all nations, it is not supposed to reside exclusively in material objects, but to belong also to sentiments and ideas, and intellectual and moral existences. Not only is a tree beautiful, as well as a palace or a waterfall; but a poem is beautiful, and a theorem in mathematics, and a contrivance in mechanics. But if things intellectual and totally segregated from matter may thus possess beauty, how can it possibly be a quality of material objects? or what sense or faculty can that be, whose proper office it is to intimate to us the existence of some property which is common to a flower and a demonstration, a valley and an eloquent discourse?

The only answer which occurs to this is plainly enough a bad one; but the statement of it, and of its insufficiency, will serve better, perhaps, than any thing else, to develope the actual difficulties of the subject, and the true state of the question with regard to them. It may be said, then, in answer to the questions we have suggested above, that all these objects, however various and dissimilar, agree at least in being agreeable, and that this agreeableness, which is the only quality they possess in common, may probably be the beauty which is ascribed to them all. Now, to those who are accustomed to such discussions, it would be quite enough to reply, that though the agreeableness of such objects depend plainly enough upon their beauty, it by no means follows, but quite the contrary, that their beauty depends upon their agreeableness; the latter being the more comprehensive or generic term, under which beauty must rank as one of the species. Its nature, there

fore, is no more explained, nor is less absurdity substantially committed, by saying that things are beautiful because they are agreeable, than if we were to give the same explanation of the sweetness of sugar; for no 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 agreeable. For the benefit, however, of those who wish or require to be more regularly initiated in these mysteries, we beg leave to add a few observations.

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 none of these can be called beautiful; and among 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, to say that beauty consists in agreeableness, without specifying in consequence of what it is agreeable or to hold that any thing whatever is taught as to its nature, by merely classing it among our pleasurable emotions.

In the second place, however, we may remark, that among all the objects that are agreeable, whether they are also beautiful or not, scarcely any two are agreeable on account of the same qualities, or even suggest their agreeableness to the same faculty or organ. Most certainly there is no resemblance or affinity whatever between the qualities which make a peach agreeable to the palate, and a beautiful statue to the eye; which soothe us in an casy chair by the fire, or delight us in a philosophical discovery. The truth is, that agrecableness is not properly a quality of any object whatsoever, but the effect or result of certain qualities, the nature of which, in every particular instance, we can generally define pretty exactly, or of which we know at least with certainty that they manifest themselves respectively to some one particular sense or faculty, and to no other; and consequently it would be just as obviously ridiculous to suppose a faculty or organ, whose office it was to perceive agreeableness in general, as to suppose that agreeableness was a distinct quality that could thus be perceived.

give; and find ourselves just where we were at the beginning of the discussion, and em. barrassed with all the difficulties arising from the prodigious diversity of objects which seem to possess these qualities.

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 facul ties, 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 and by the ear that all material beauty is perceived; and yet the beauty which discloses itself to these two separate senses, and conse quently 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 ir common with the agreeable modifications of light or of sound.

It is in these considerations undoubtedly that the difficulty of the subject consists. The faculty of taste, plainly, is not a faculty like any of the external senses, the range of whose objects is limited and precise, as well as the qualities by which they are gratified or of fended; and beauty, accordingly, is discovered in an infinite variety of objects, among which it seems, at first sight, impossible to discover any other bond of connexion. Yet boundless as their diversity may appear, it is plain that they must resemble each other in something, and in something more definite and definable than merely in being agreeable; since they are all classed together, in every tongue and nation, under the common appellation of beautiful, and are felt indeed to produce emotions in the mind that have some sort of kindred or affinity. The words beauty and beautiful, in short, do and must mean something; and are univéreally felt to mean something much more definite than agreeableness or gratification in general: and while it is confessedly by no means casy to describe or define what that something is, the force and clearness of our perception of it is demonstrated by the readiness with which we determine, in any particular instance, whether the object of a given pleasurable cmotion is or is not properly described as beauty.

The class of agreeable objects, thanks to 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 agreeable to the palate, and this beauty being any fixed or inherent propothers 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 tion, or to our understanding, or to our moral pendent faculty; and we will no longer confeelings; 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, beautiful; and those we say are agreeable to then, our sense of beauty depends entirely on our faculty of taste;-but when we come to our previous experience of simpler pleasures ask what is the faculty of taste, and what are or emotions, and consists in the suggestion of the qualities which recommend the subjects agreeable or interesting sensations with which to that faculty? we have no such answer tc i we had formerly been made familiar by the

should present themselves under a different aspect, and move the mind somewhat differently from those which arise spontaneously in the ordinary course of our reflections, and do not thus grow out of a direct, present, and peculiar impression.

The whole of this doctrine, however, we shall endeavour by and bye to establish upon more direct evidence. But having now explained, in a general way, both the difficulties of the subject, and our suggestion as to their true solution, it is proper that we should take a short review of the more considerable theories that have been proposed for the elucidation of this curious question; which is one of the most delicate as well as the most popular in the science of metaphysics-was one of the earliest which exercised the speculative ingenuity of philosophers-and has at last, we think, been more successfully treated than any other of a similar description.

direct and intelligible agency of our common to imagine, that recollections thus strikingly sensibilities; and that vast variety of objects, suggested by some real and present existence, to which we give the common name of beautiful, become entitled to that appellation, merely because they all possess the power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they have been the accompaniments, or with which they have been associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of connection. According to this view of the matter, therefore, beauty is not an inherent property or quality of objects at all, but the result of the accidental relations in which they may stand to our experience of pleasures or emotions; and does not depend upon any particular configuration of parts, proportions, or colours, in external things, nor upon the unity, coherence, or simplicity of intellectual creations-but merely upon the associations which, in the case of every individual, may enable these inherent, and otherwise indifferent qualities, to suggest or recall to the mind emotions of a pleasurable or interesting description. It follows, therefore, that no object is beautiful in itself, or could appear so antecedent to our experience of direct pleasures or emotions; and that, as an infinite variety of objects may thus reflect interesting ideas, so all of them may acquire the title of beautiful, although utterly diverse and disparate in their nature, and possessing nothing in common but this accidental power of reminding us of other emotions.

This theory, which, we believe, is now very generally adopted, though under many needless qualifications, shall be farther developed and illustrated in the sequel. But at present we shall only remark, that it serves, at least, to solve the great problem involved in the discussion, by rendering it easily conceivable how objects which have no inherent resemblance, nor, indeed, any one quality in common, should yet be united in one common relation, and consequently acquire one common name; just as all the things that belonged to a beloved individual may serve to remind us of him, and thus to awake a kindred class of emotions, though just as unlike each other as any of the objects that are classed under the general name of beautiful. His poetry, for instance, or his slippers-his acts of bounty or his saddle-horse-may lead to the same chain of interesting remembrances, and thus agree in possessing a power of excitement, for the sources of which we should look in vain through all the variety of their physical or metaphysical qualities.

By the help of the same consideration, we get rid of all the mystery of a peculiar sense or faculty, imagined for the express purpose of perceiving beauty; and discover that the power of taste is nothing more than the habit of tracing those associations, by which almost all objects may be connected with interesting emotions. It is easy to understand, that the recollection of any scene of delight or emotion must produce a certain agreeable sensation, and that the objects which introduce these recollections should not appear altogether indifferent to us: nor is it, perhaps, very difficult

In most of these speculatious we shall find rather imperfect truth than fundamental error; or, at all events, such errors only as arise naturally from that peculiar difficulty which we have already endeavoured to explain, as consisting in the prodigious multitude and diversity of the objects in which the common quality of beauty was to be accounted for. Those who have not been sufficiently aware of the difficulty have generally dogmatised from a small number of instances, and have rather given examples of the occurrence of beauty in some few classes of objects, than afforded any light as to that upon which it essentially depended in all; while those who felt its full force have very often found no other resource, than to represent beauty as consisting in properties so extremely vague and general, (such, for example, as the power of exciting ideas of relation,) as almost to elude our comprehension, and, at the same time, of so abstract and metaphysical a description, as not to be very intelligibly stated, as the elements of a strong, familiar, and pleasurable emotion.

This last observation leads us to make one other remark upon the general character of these theories; and this is, that some of them, though not openly professing that doctrine, seem necessarily to imply the existence of a peculiar sense or faculty for the perception of beauty; as they resolve it into properties that are not in any way interesting or agreeable to any of our known faculties. Such are all those which make it consist in proportion-or in variety, combined with regularity-or in waving lines-or in unity-or inthe perception of relations-without explaining, or attempting to explain, how any of these things should, in any circumstances, affect us with delight or emotion. Others, again, do not require the supposition of any such separate faculty; because in them the sense of beauty is considered as arising from other more simple and familiar emotions, which are in themselves and beyond all disputo agreeable. Such are those which teach that

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