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 segre gated 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

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efore, 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.

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, In the first place, then, it seems evident, cannot be the same with those which give that agreeableness, in general, cannot be the pleasure to the ear. But it is by the eye and same with beauty, because there are very by the ear that all material beauty is per many things in the highest degree agreeable, ceived; and yet the beauty which discloses that can in no sense be called beautiful. itself to these two separate senses, and conse Moderate heat, and savoury food, and rest,quently must depend upon qualities which 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 easy chair by the fire, or delight us in a philosophical discovery. The truth is, that agreeableness 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.

The class of agreeable objects, thanks to the bounty of Providence, is exceedingly large. Certain things are agreeable to the palate, and others to the smell and to the touch. Some again are agreeable to our faculty of imaginabon, or to our understanding, or to our moral feelings; and none of all these we call beautiful. But there are others which we do call beautiful; and those we say are agreeable to our faculty of taste;-but when we come to ask what is the faculty of taste, and what are the qualities which recommend the subjects to that faculty?--we have no such answer te

have no sort of affinity, is supposed to be one distinct quality, and to be perceived by a peculiar sense or faculty! The perplexity be comes 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 universally felt to mean something much more definite than agreeableness or gratification in general: and while it is confessedly by no means easy 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 emotion is or is not properly described as beauty.

What we have already said, we confess, appears to us conclusive against the idea of this beauty being any fixed or inherent property of the objects to which it is ascribed, or itself the object of any separate and independent faculty; and we will no longer conceal from the reader what we take to be the true solution of the difficulty. In our opinion, then, our sense of beauty depends entirely on our previous experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and consists in the suggestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we had formerly been made familiar by the

should present themselves under a different aspect, and move the mind somewhat differ ently 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 inge nuity 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 apon 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.

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 This theory, which, we believe, is now very from a small number of instances, and have generally adopted, though under many need- rather given examples of the occurrence of less qualifications, shall be farther developed beauty in some few classes of objects, than and illustrated in the sequel. But at present afforded any light as to that upon which it we shall only remark, that it serves, at least, essentially depended in all; while those who to solve the great problem involved in the felt its full force have very often found no discussion, by rendering it easily conceivable other resource, than to represent beauty as how objects which have no inherent resem- consisting in properties so extremely vague blance, nor, indeed, any one quality in com- and general, (such, for example, as the power mon, should yet be united in one common of exciting ideas of relation,) as almost to 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

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 in the 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

beauty depends on the perception of utility, gests that beauty may be the mere organic or of design, or fitness, or in tracing associa- delight of the eye or the car; to which, after tions between its objects and the common stating very slightly the objection, that it joys or emotions of our nature. Which of would be impossible to account upon this these two classes of speculation, to one or ground for the beauty of poetry or eloquence, other of which, we believe, all theories of he proceeds to rear up a more refined and beauty may be reduced, is the most philo- elaborate refutation, upon such grounds as sophical in itself, we imagine can admit of these:-If beauty be the proper name of that no question; and we hope in the sequel to which is naturally agreeable to the sight and leave it as little doubtful, which is to be con- hearing, it is plain, that the objects to which sidered as most consistent with the fact. In it is ascribed must possess some common and the mean time, we must give a short account distinguishable property, besides that of being of some of the theories themselves. agreeable, in consequence of which they are separated and set apart from objects that are agreeable to our other senses and faculties, and, at the same time, classed together under the common appellation of beautiful. Now, we are not only quite unable to discover what this property is, but it is manifest, that objects which make themselves known to the ear, can have no property as such, in common with objects that make themselves known to the eye; it being impossible that an object which is beautiful by its colour, can be beautiful, from the same quality, with another which is beautiful by its sound. From all which it is inferred, that as beauty is admitted to be something real, it cannot be merely what is agreeable to the organs of sight or hearing.

The most ancient of which it seems necessary to take any notice, is that which may be traced in the Dialogues of Plato-though we are very far from pretending that it is possible to give any intelligible or consistent account of its tenor. It should never be forgotten, however, that it is to this subtle and ingenious spirit that we owe the suggestion, that it is mind alone that is beautiful; and that, in perceiving beauty, it only contemplates the shadow of its own affections; a doctrine which, however mystically unfolded in his writings, or however combined with extravagant or absurd speculations, unquestionably carries in it the the germ of all the truth that has since been revealed on the subject. By far the largest dissertation, however, that this There is no practical wisdom, we admit, in great philosopher has left upon the nature of those fine-drawn speculations; nor any of that beauty, is to be found in the dialogue entitled spirit of patient observation by which alone The Greater Hippias, which is entirely de- any sound view of such objects can ever voted to that inquiry. We do not learn a be attained. There are also many marks great deal of the author's own opinion, in- of that singular incapacity to distinguish deed, from this performance; for it is one of between what is absolutely puerile and the dialogues which have been termed Ana- foolish, and what is plausible, at least, and treptic, or confuting-in which nothing is ingenious, which may be reckoned among concluded in the affirmative, but a series of the characteristics of "the divine philososophistical suggestions or hypotheses are suc-pher," and in some degree of all the philosocessively exposed. The plan of it is to lead on Hippias, a shallow and confident sophist, to make a variety of dogmatical assertions as to the nature of beauty, and then to make him retract and abandon them, upon the statement of some obvious objections. Socrates and he agree at first in the notable proposition, "that beauty is that by which all beautiful things are beautiful;" and then, after a great number of suggestions, by far too childish and absurd to be worthy of any notice such as, that the beautiful may peradventure be gold, or a fine woman, or a handsome mare-they at last get to some suppositions, which show that almost all the theories that have since been propounded on this interesting subject had occurred thus early to the active and original mind of this keen and curious inquirer. Thus, Socrates first suggests that beauty may consist in the fitness or suitableness of any object to the place it occupies; and afterwards, more generally and directly, that it may consist in utility-a notion which is ultimately rejected, however, upon the subtle consideration that the useful is that which produces good, and that the producer and the product being necessarily different, it would follow, upon that supposition, that beauty could not be good not good beautiful. Finally, he sug

phers of antiquity: but they show clearly enough the subtle and abstract character of Greek speculation, and prove at how early a period, and to how great an extent, the inherent difficulties of the subject were felt, and produced their appropriate effects.

There are some hints on these subjects in the works of Xenophon; and some scattered observations in those of Cicero; who was the first, we believe, to observe, that the sense of beauty is peculiar to man; but nothing else, we believe, in classical antiquity, which requires to be analysed or explained. It appears that St. Augustin composed a large treatise on beauty; and it is to be lamented, that the speculations of that acute and ardent genius on such a subject have been lost. We discover, from incidental notices in other parts of his writings, that he conceived the beauty of all objects to depend on their unity, or on the perception of that principle or design which fixed the relations of their various parts, and presented them to the intellect or imagination as one harmonious whole. It would not be fair to deal very strictly with a theory with which we are so imperfectly acquainted: but it may be observed, that, while the author is so far in the right as to make beauty consist in a relation to mind, and not in any physical quality, he has taken

far too narrow and circumscribed a view of the matter, and one which seems almost exclusively applicable to works of human art; it being plain enough, we think, that a beautiful landscape, or a beautiful horse, has no more unity, and no more traces of design, than one which is not beautiful.

ingenious author that these qualities of un formity and variety were not of themselves agreeable to any of our known senses or facul ties, except when considered as symbols of utility or design, and therefore could not intelligibly account for the very lively emotions which we often experience from the percep We do not pretend to know what the tion of beauty, where the notion of design or schoolmen taught upon this subject during the utility is not at all suggested. He was condark ages; but the discussion does not seem strained, therefore, either to abandon this view to have been resumed for long after the re- of the nature of beauty altogether, or to imavival of letters. The followers of Leibnitz gine a new sense or faculty, whose only func were pleased to maintain that beauty con- tion it should be to receive delight from the sisted in perfection; but what constituted combinations of uniformity and variety, withperfection (in this respect) they did not at-out any consideration of their being significant tempt to define. M. Crouzas wrote a long of things agreeable to our other faculties; and essay, to show that beauty depended on these this being accomplished by the mere force five elements, variety, unity, regularity, order, of the definition, there was no room for farther and proportion; and the Pere André, a still dispute or difficulty in the matter. longer one to prove, that, admitting these to Some of Hucheson's followers, such as Gebe the true foundations of beauty, it was still rard and others, who were a little startled at most important to consider, that the beauty the notion of a separate faculty, and yet which results from them is either essential, wished to retain the doctrine of beauty deor natural, or artificial-and that it may be pending on variety and uniformity, endea greater or less, according as the character-voured, accordingly, to show that these qualiistics of each of these classes are combined or set in opposition.

Among ourselves, we are not aware of any considerable publication on the subject till the appearance of Lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics; in which a sort of rapturous Platonic doctrine is delivered as to the existence of a primitive and Supreme Good and Beauty, and of a certain internal sense, by which both beauty and moral merit are distinguished. Addison published several ingenious papers in The Spectator, on the pleasures of the imagination, and was the first, we believe, who referred them to the specific sources of beauty, sublimity, and novelty. He did not enter much, however, into the metaphysical discussion of the nature of beauty itself; and the first philosophical treatise of note that appeared on the subject, may be said to have been the Inquiry of Dr. Hucheson, first published, we believe, in 1735.

ties were naturally agreeable to the mind, and were recommended by considerations arising from its most familiar properties. Uniformity or simplicity, they observed, renders our con ception of objects easy, and saves the mind from all fatigue and distraction in the consideration of them; whilst variety, if circum scribed and limited by an ultimate uniformity, gives it a pleasing exercise and excitement, and keeps its energies in a state of pleasur able activity. Now, this appears to us to be mere trifling. The varied and lively emotions which we receive from the perception of beauty, obviously have no sort of resemblance to the pleasure of moderate intellectual exertion; nor can any thing be conceived more utterly dissimilar than the gratification we have in gazing on the form of a lovely woman, and the satisfaction we receive from working an easy problem in arithmetic or geometry. If a triangle is more beautiful than a regular In this work, the notion of a peculiar in-polygon, as those authors maintain, merely be ternal sense, by which we are made sensible of the existence of beauty, is very boldly promulgated, and maintained by many ingenious arguments: Yet nothing, we conceive, can be more extravagant than such a proposition; and nothing but the radical faults of the other parts of his theory could possibly have driven the learned author to its adoption. Even after the existence of the sixth sense was assumed, he felt that it was still necessary that he should explain what were the qualities by which it was gratified; and these, he was pleased to allege, were nothing but the combinations of variety with uniformity; all objects, as he has himself expressed it, which are equally uniform, being beautiful in proportion to their variety and all objects equally various being beautiful in proportion to their uniformity. Now, not to insist upon the obvious and radical objection that this is not true in fact, as to flowers, landscapes, or indeed of any thing but architecture, if it be true of that it could not fail to strike the

cause its figure is more easily comprehended, the number four should be more beautiful than the number 327, and the form of a gibbet far more agreeable than that of a branching oak. The radical error, in short, consists in fixing upon properties that are not interesting in themselves, and can never be conceived, therefore, to excite any emotion, as the fountain-spring of all our emotions of beauty: and it is an absurdity that must infallibly lead to others-whether these take the shape of a violent attempt to disguise the truly different nature of the properties so selected, or of the bolder expedient of creating a peculiar faculty, whose office it is to find them interesting.

The next remarkable theory was that proposed by Edmund Burke, in his Treatise of the Sublime, and Beautiful. But of this, in spite of the great name of the author, we cannot persuade ourselves that it is necessary to say much. His explanation is founded upon a species of materialism-not much to have been expected from the general character of