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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 considerable, is the want of agreement as to the presence and existence of beauty in particular objects, among men whose organization is perfect, and who are plainly possessed of the faculty, whatever it may be, by which beauty is discerned. Now, no such thing happens, we imagine, or can be conceived to happen, in the case of any other simple sensation, or the exercise of any other distinct faculty. Where one man sees light, all men who have eyes see light also. All men allow grass to be green, and sugar to be sweet, and ice to be cold; and the unavoidable inference from any apparent disagreement in such matters necessarily is, that the party is insane, or entirely destitute of the sense or organ concerned in the perception. With regard to beauty, however, it is obvious, at first sight, that the case is entirely different. One man sees it perpetually, where to another it is quite invisible, or even where its reverse seems to be conspicuous. Nor is this owing to the insensibility of either of the parties; for the same contrariety exists where both are keenly alive to the influences of the beauty they respectively discern. A Chinese or African lover would probably see nothing at all attractive in a belle of London or Paris; and, undoubtedly, an elegans formarum spectator from either of those cities would discover nothing but deformity in the Venus of the Hottentots. A little distance in time often produces the same effects as distance in place; -the gardens, the furniture, the dress, which appeared beautiful in the eyes of our grandfathers, are odious and ridiculous in ours. Nay, the difference of rank, education, or employments, gives

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rise to the same diversity of sensation. The little shopkeeper 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 time possess so much unity as to pass universally by the same name, and be recognised as the peculiar object of a separate sense or faculty. All simple qualities that are perceived in any one object, are immediately recognised to be the same, when they are again perceived in another; and the objects in which they are thus perceived are at once felt so far to resemble each other, and to partake of the same nature. Thus snow is seen to be white, and chalk is seen to be white; but this is no sooner seen, than the two substances, however unlike in other respects, are felt at once to have this quality in common, and to resemble each other completely in all that relates to the quality of

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colour, and the sense of seeing. But is this felt, or could it even be intelligibly asserted, with regard to the quality of beauty? Take even a limited and specific sort of beauty, -for instance, the beauty of form. The form of a fine tree is beautiful, and the form of a fine woman, and the form of a column, and a vase, and a chandelier. Yet how can it be said that the form of a woman has any thing in common with that of a tree or a temple? or to which of the senses by which forms are distinguished can it be supposed to appear that they have any resemblance or affinity?

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

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NATURE OF BEAUTY.

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, therefore, 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 not 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 philoso

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phical 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 imagination, 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 to give; and find ourselves just where we were at the beginning of the discussion, and embarrassed 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 faculties, has no effect whatever on the other. We know that bright colours afford no delight to the ear, nor sweet tones to the eye; and are therefore perfectly assured that the qualities which make the visible objects agreeable, cannot be the same with those which give pleasure to the ear. But it is by the eye and by the ear that all material beauty is perceived; and yet the beauty which discloses itself to these two separate senses, and consequently must depend upon qualities. which have no sort of affinity, is supposed to be one distinct quality, and to be perceived by a peculiar sense or faculty! The perplexity becomes still greater when we