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Preface to the Second Edition
I have endeavoured to make this
edition something more full and satisfactory than the first. I have
sought with the utmost care, and read with equal attention, everything
which has appeared in public against my opinions; I have taken advantage
of the candid liberty of my friends; and if by these means I have been
better enabled to discover the imperfections of the work, the indulgence
it has received, imperfect as it was, furnished me with a new motive to
spare no reasonable pains for its improvement. Though I have not found
sufficient reason, or what appeared to me sufficient, for making any
material change in my theory, I have found it necessary in many places
to explain, illustrate, and enforce it. I have prefixed an introductory
discourse concerning Taste: it is a matter curious in itself; and it
leads naturally enough to the principal inquiry. This, with the other
explanations, has made the work considerably larger; and by increasing
its bulk, has, I am afraid, added to its faults; so that,
notwithstanding all my attention, it may stand in need of a yet greater
share of indulgence than it required at its first appearance.
They who are accustomed to studies of
this nature will expect, and they will allow too for many faults. They
know that many of the objects of our inquiry are in themselves obscure
and intricate; and that many others have been rendered so by affected
refinements or false learning; they know that there are many impediments
in the subject, in the prejudices of others, and even in our own, that
render it a matter of no small difficulty to show in a clear light the
genuine face of nature. They know that, whilst the mind is intent on the
general scheme of things, some particular parts must be neglected; that
we must often submit the style to the matter, and frequently give up the
praise of elegance, satisfied with being clear.
The characters of nature are legible,
it is true; but they are not plain enough to enable those who run, to
read them. We must make use of a cautious, I had almost said a timorous,
method of proceeding. We must not attempt to fly, when we can scarcely
pretend to creep. In considering any complex matter, we ought to examine
every distinct ingredient in the composition, one by one; and reduce
everything to the utmost simplicity; since the condition of our nature
binds us to a strict law and very narrow limits. We ought afterwards to
re-examine the principles by the effect of the composition, as well as
the composition by that of the principles. We ought to compare our
subject with things of a similar nature, and even with things of a
contrary nature; for discoveries may be, and often are, made by the
contrast, which would escape us on the single view. The greater number
of the comparisons we make, the more general and the more certain our
knowledge is like to prove, as built upon a more extensive and perfect
induction.
If an inquiry thus carefully conducted
should fail at last of discovering the truth, it may answer an end
perhaps as useful, in discovering to us the weakness of our own
understanding. If it does not make us knowing, it may make us modest. If
it does not preserve us from error, it may at least from the spirit of
error; and may make us cautious of pronouncing with positiveness or with
haste, when so much labour may end in so much uncertainty.
I could wish that, in examining this
theory, the same method were pursued which I endeavoured to observe in
forming it. The objections, in my opinion, ought to be proposed, either
to the several principles as they are distinctly considered, or to the
justness of the conclusion which is drawn from them. But it is common to
pass over both the premises and conclusion in silence, and to produce,
as an objection, some poetical passage which does not seem easily
accounted for upon the principles I endeavour to establish. This manner
of proceeding I should think very improper. The task would be infinite,
if we could establish no principle until we had previously unravelled
the complex texture of every image or description to be found in poets
and orators. And though we should never be able to reconcile the effect
of such images to our principles, this can never overturn the theory
itself, whilst it is founded on certain and indisputable facts. A theory
founded on experiment, and not assumed, is always good for so much as it
explains. Our inability to push it indefinitely is no argument at all
against it. This inability may be owing to our ignorance of some
necessary mediums; to a want of proper application; to many other
causes besides a defect in the principles we employ. In reality, the
subject requires a much closer attention than we dare claim from our
manner of treating it.
If it should not appear on the face of
the work, I must caution the reader against imagining that I intended a
full dissertation on the Sublime and Beautiful. My inquiry went no
farther than to the origin of these ideas. If the qualities which I have
ranged under the head of the Sublime be all found consistent with each
other, and all different from those which I place under the head of
Beauty; and if those which compose the class of the Beautiful have the
same consistency with themselves, and the same opposition to those which
are classed under the denomination of Sublime, I am in little pain
whether anybody chooses to follow the name I give them or not, provided
he allows that what I dispose under different heads are in reality
different things in nature. The use I make of the words may be blamed,
as too confined or too extended; my meaning cannot well be
misunderstood.
To conclude: whatever progress may be
made towards the discovery of truth in this matter, I do not repent the
pains I have taken in it. The use of such inquiries may be very
considerable. Whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to
concentre its forces, and to fit it for greater and stronger flights of
science. By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and
enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose our
game, the chase is certainly of service. Cicero, true as he was
to the academic philosophy, and consequently led to reject the certainty
of physical, as of every other kind of knowledge, yet freely confesses
its great importance to the human understanding; "Est animorum
ingeniorumque nostrorum naturale quoddam quasi pabulum consideratio
contemplatioque naturae." If we can direct the lights we derive
from such exalted speculations, upon the humbler field of the
imagination, whilst we investigate the springs, and trace the courses of
our passions, we may not only communicate to the taste a sort of
philosophical solidity, but we may reflect back on the severer sciences
some of the graces and elegancies of taste, without which the greatest
proficiency in those sciences will always have the appearance of
something illiberal.
Introduction
On a superficial view, we may seem to
differ very widely from each other in our reasonings, and no less in our
pleasures: but notwithstanding this difference, which I think to be
rather apparent than real, it is probable that the standard both of
reason and Taste is the same in all human creatures. For if there were
not some principles of Judgment as well as of sentiment common to all
mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or their
passions, sufficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life. It
appears indeed to be generally acknowledged, that with regard to truth
and falsehood there is something fixed. We find people in their disputes
continually appealing to certain tests and standards which are allowed
on all sides, and are supposed to be established in our common nature.
But there is not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled
principles which relate to Taste. It is even commonly supposed that this
delicate and aerial faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the
chains of a definition, cannot be properly tried by any test, nor
regulated by any standard. There is so continual a call for the exercise
of the reasoning faculty, and it is so much strengthened by perpetual
contention, that certain maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly
settled amongst the most ignorant. The learned have improved on this
rude science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If Taste has not
been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject was barren, but
that the labourers were few or negligent; for to say the truth, there
are not the same interesting motives to impel us to fix the one, which
urge us to ascertain the other. And after all, if men differ in their
opinion concerning such matters, their difference is not attended with
the same important consequences, else I make no doubt but that the logic
of Taste, if I may be allowed the expression, might very possibly be as
well digested, and we might come to discuss matters of this nature with
as much certainty, as those which seem more immediately within the
province of mere reason. And indeed it is very necessary at the entrance
into such an enquiry, as our present, to make this point as clear as
possible; for if Taste has no fixed principles, if the imagination is
not affected according to some invariable and certain laws, our labour
is like to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be judged an
useless, if not an absurd undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice,
and to set up for a legislator of whims and fancies.
The term Taste, like all other
figurative terms, is not extremely accurate: the thing which we
understand by it, is far from a simple and determinate idea in the minds
of most men, and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion. I
have no great opinion of definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure
of this disorder. For when we define, we seem in danger of
circumscribing the nature within the bounds of our own notions, which we
often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited
and partial consideration of the object before us, instead of extending
our ideas to take in all that nature comprehends, according to her
manner of combining. We are limited in our enquiry by the strict laws to
which we have submitted at our setting out.
Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem
Unde pudor proferre pedem vetat aut operis lex.
[Misquoted: "we will be delayed throughout this worthless and expanding world where
shameful behaviour and disagreements prevent progress." Horace, De Arte
Poetica ii.132, 135.]
A definition may be very exact, and
yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the
thing defined; but let the virtue of a definition be what it will, in
the order of things, it seems rather to follow than to precede our
enquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result. It must be
acknowledged that the methods of disquisition and teaching may be
sometimes different, and on very good reason [something missing here]
edly; but for my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which
approaches most nearly to the method of investigation, is incomparably
the best; since not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless
truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew; it tends to set the
reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those
paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be
so happy as to have made any that are valuable.
But to cut off all pretence for
cavilling, I mean by the word Taste no more than that faculty, or those
faculties of the mind which are affected with, or which form a judgment
of the works of imagination and the elegant arts. This is, I think, the
most general idea of that word, and what is the least connected with any
particular theory. And my point in this enquiry is to find whether there
are any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to
all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning
satisfactorily about them. And such principles of Taste, I fancy there
are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial view
imagine, that there is so great a diversity of Tastes both in kind and
degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate.
All the natural powers in man, which I
know, that are conversant about external objects, are the Senses; the
Imagination; and the Judgment. And first with regard to the senses. We
do and we must suppose, that as the conformation of their organs are
nearly, or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of perceiving
external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference. We
are satisfied that what appears to be light to one eye, appears light to
another; that what seems sweet to one palate, is sweet to another; that
what is dark and bitter to this man, is likewise dark and bitter to
that; and we conclude in the same manner of great and little, hard and
soft, hot and cold, rough and smooth; and indeed of all the natural
qualities and affections of bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine,
that their senses present to different men different images of things,
this sceptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every
subject vain and frivolous, even that sceptical reasoning itself, which
had persuaded us to entertain a doubt concerning the agreement of our
perceptions. But as there will be very little doubt that bodies present
similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily be allowed,
that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one man,
it must raise in all mankind, whilst it operates naturally, simply, and
by its proper powers only; for if we deny this, we must imagine, that
the same cause operating in the same manner, and on subjects of the same
kind, will produce different effects, which would be highly absurd. Let
us first consider this point in the sense of Taste, and the rather as
the faculty in question has taken its name from that sense. All men are
agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as they
are all agreed in finding these qualities in those objects, they do not
in the least differ concerning their effects with regard to pleasure
again. They all concur in calling sweetness pleasant, and sourness and
bitterness unpleasant. Here there is no diversity in their sentiments;
and that there is not appears fully from the consent of all men in the
metaphors which are taken from the sense of Taste. A sour temper, bitter
expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms well and strongly
understood by all. And we are altogether as well understood when we say,
a sweet disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. It
is confessed, that custom, and some other causes, have made many
deviations from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these
several Tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural
and the acquired relish remains to the very last. A man frequently comes
to prefer the Taste of tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavour of
vinegar to that of milk; but this makes no confusion in Tastes, whilst
he is sensible that the tobacco and vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he
knows that habit alone has reconciled his palate to these alien
pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and with sufficient
precision, concerning Tastes. But should any man be found who declares,
that to him tobacco has a Taste like sugar, and that he cannot
distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and vinegar are
sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour, we immediately conclude that the
organs of this man are out of order, and that his palate is utterly
vitiated. We are as far from conferring with such a person upon Tastes,
as from reasoning concerning the relations of quantity with one who
should deny that all the parts together were equal to the whole. We do
not call a man of this kind wrong in his notions, but absolutely mad.
Exceptions of this sort in either way, do not at all impeach our general
rule, nor make us conclude that men have various principles concerning
the relations of quantity, or the Taste of things. So that when it is
said, Taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one can
strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find from
the Taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but
we may dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things
which are naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we
talk of any peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits,
the prejudices, or the distempers of this particular man, and we must
draw our conclusion from those.
This agreement of mankind is not
confined to the Taste solely. The principle of pleasure derived from
sight is the same in all. Light is more pleasing than darkness. Summer,
when the earth is clad in green, when the heavens are serene and bright,
is more agreeable than winter, when every thing makes a different
appearance. I never remember that any thing beautiful, whether a man, a
beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever shewn, though it were to an hundred
people, that they did not all immediately agree that it was beautiful,
though some might have thought that it fell short of their expectation,
or that other things were still finer. I believe no man thinks a goose
to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that what they call a
Friezland hen excels a peacock. It must be observed too, that the
pleasures of the sight are not near so complicated, and confused, and
altered by unnatural habits and associations, as the pleasures of the
Taste are; because the pleasures of the sight more commonly acquiesce in
themselves; and are not so often altered by considerations which are
independent of the sight itself. But things do not spontaneously present
themselves to the palate as they do to the sight; they are generally
applied to it, either as food or as medicine; and from the qualities
which they possess for nutritive or medicinal purposes, they often form
the palate by degrees, and by force of these associations. Thus opium is
pleasing to Turks, on account of the agreeable delirium it produces.
Tobacco is the delight of Dutchmen, as it diffuses a torpor and pleasing
stupefaction. Fermented spirits please our common people, because they
banish care, and all consideration of future or present evils. All of
these would lie absolutely neglected if their properties had originally
gone no further than the Taste; but all these, together with tea and
coffee, and some other things, have past from the apothecary's shop to
our tables, and were taken for health long before they were thought of
for pleasure. The effect of the drug has made us use it frequently; and
frequent use, combined with the agreeable effect, has made the Taste
itself at last agreeable. But this does not in the least perplex our
reasoning; because we distinguish to the last the acquired from the
natural relish. In describing the Taste of an unknown fruit, you would
scarcely say, that it had a sweet and pleasant flavour like tobacco,
opium, or garlic, although you spoke to those who were in the constant
use of these drugs, and had great pleasure in them. There is in all men
a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to
enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that
standard, and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it. Suppose one
who had so vitiated his palate as to take more pleasure in the Taste of
opium than in that of butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of
squills; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter
or honey to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which
he had not been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally
like that of other men in all things, that it is still like the palate
of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some particular
points. For in judging of any new thing, even of a Taste similar to that
which he has been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected
in the natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure
of all the senses, of the sight, and even of the Taste, that most
ambiguous of the senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and
unlearned.
Besides the ideas, with their annexed
pains and pleasures, which are presented by the sense; the mind of man
possesses a sort of creative power of its own; either in representing at
pleasure the images of things in the order and manner in which they were
received by the senses, or in combining those images in a new manner,
and according to a different order. This power is called Imagination;
and to this belongs whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and the
like. But it must be observed, that this power of the imagination is
incapable of producing any thing absolutely new; it can only vary the
disposition of those ideas which it has received from the senses. Now
the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as
it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions
that are connected with them; and whatever is calculated to affect the
imagination with these commanding ideas, by force of any original
natural impression, must have the same power pretty equally over all
men. For since the imagination is only the representative of the senses,
it can only be pleased or displeased with the images from the same
principle on which the sense is pleased or displeased with the
realities; and consequently there must be just as close an agreement in
the imaginations as in the senses of men. A little attention will
convince us that this must of necessity be the case.
But in the imagination, besides the
pain or pleasure arising from the properties of the natural object, a
pleasure is perceived from the resemblance, which the imitation has to
the original; the imagination, I conceive, can have no pleasure but what
results from one or other of these causes. And these causes operate
pretty uniformly upon all men, because they operate by principles in
nature, and which are not derived from any particular habits or
advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and finely observes of wit, that it is
chiefly conversant in tracing resemblances; he remarks at the same time,
that the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may
perhaps appear, on this supposition, that there is no material
distinction between the wit and the judgment, as they both seem to
result from different operations of the same faculty of comparing. But
in reality, whether they are or are not dependent on the same power of
the mind, they differ so very materially in many respects, that a
perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest things in the
world. When two distinct objects are unlike to each other, it is only
what we expect; things are in their common way; and therefore they make
no impression on the imagination: but when two distinct objects have a
resemblance, we are struck, we attend to them, and we are pleased. The
mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in
tracing resemblances than in searching for differences; because by
making resemblances we produce new images, we unite, we create, we
enlarge our stock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to
the imagination; the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what
pleasure we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect
nature. A piece of news is told me in the morning; this, merely as a
piece of news, as a fact added to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In
the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this, but
the dissatisfaction to find that I had been imposed upon ? Hence it is,
that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to incredulity.
And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant and barbarous
nations have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons, metaphors,
and allegories, who have been weak and backward in distinguishing and
sorting their ideas. And it is for a reason of this kind that Homer and
the oriental writers, though very fond of similitudes, and though they
often strike out such as are truly admirable, they seldom take care to
have them exact; that is, they are taken with the general resemblance,
they paint it strongly, and they take no notice of the difference which
may be found between the things compared.
Now as the pleasure of resemblance is
that which principally flatters the imagination, all men are nearly
equal in this point, as far as their knowledge of the things represented
or compared extends. The principle of this knowledge is very much
accidental, as it depends upon experience and observation, and not on
the strength or weakness of any natural faculty; and it is from this
difference in knowledge that what we commonly, with no great exactness,
call a difference in Taste proceeds. A man to whom sculpture is new,
sees a barber's block, or some ordinary piece of statuary; he is
immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like an human
figure; and entirely taken up with this likeness, he does not at all
attend to its defects. No person, I believe, at the first time of seeing
a piece of imitation ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this
novice lights upon a more artificial work of the same nature; he now
begins to look with contempt on what he admired at first; not that he
admired it even then for its unlikeness to a man, but for that general
though inaccurate resemblance which it bore to the human figure. What he
admired at different times in these so different figures, is strictly
the same; and though his knowledge is improved, his Taste is not
altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of knowledge in art, and
this arose from his inexperience; but he may be still deficient from a
want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man in question
may stop here, and that the master-piece of a great hand may please him
no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist; and this not
for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe
with sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge
properly of an imitation of it. And that the critical Taste does not
depend upon a superior principle in men, but upon superior knowledge,
may appear from several instances. The story of the ancient painter and
the shoemaker is very well known. The shoemaker set the painter right
with regard to some mistakes he had made in the shoe of one of his
figures, and which the painter, who had not made such accurate
observations on shoes, and was content with a general resemblance, had
never observed. But this was no impeachment to the Taste of the painter,
it only shewed some want of knowledge in the art of making shoes. Let us
imagine, that an anatomist had come into the painter's working room. His
piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good
attitude, and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet
the anatomist, critical in his art, may observe the swell of some muscle
not quite just in the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist
observes what the painter had not observed, and he passes by what the
shoemaker had remarked. But a want of the last critical knowledge in
anatomy no more reflected on the natural good Taste of the painter, or
of any common observer of his piece, than the want of an exact knowledge
in the formation of a shoe. A fine piece of a decollated head of St.
John the Baptist was shewn to a Turkish emperor; he praised many things,
but he observed one defect; he observed that the skin did not shrink
from the wounded part of the neck. The sultan on this occasion, though
his observation was very just, discovered no more natural Taste than the
painter who executed this piece, or than a thousand European
connoisseurs who probably never would have made the same observation.
His Turkish majesty had indeed been well acquainted with that terrible
spectacle, which the others could only have represented in their
imagination. On the subject of their dislike there is a difference
between all these people, arising from the different kinds and degrees
of their knowledge; but there is something in common to the painter, the
shoemaker, the anatomist, and the Turkish emperor, the pleasure arising
from a natural object, so far as each perceives it justly imitated; the
satisfaction in seeing an agreeable figure; the sympathy proceeding from
a striking and affecting incident. So far as Taste is natural, it is
nearly common to all.
In poetry, and other pieces of
imagination, the same parity may be observed. It is true, that one man
is charmed with Don Bellianis, and reads Virgil coldly; whilst another
is transported with the Eneid, and leaves Don Bellianis to
children. These two men seem to have a taste very different from each
other; but in fact they differ very little. In both these pieces, which
inspire such opposite sentiments, a tale exciting admiration is told;
both are full of action, both are passionate; in both are voyages,
battles, triumphs, and continual changes of fortune. The admirer of Don
Bellianis perhaps does not understand the refined language of the Eneid,
who, if it was degraded into the style of the Pilgrim's Progress, might
feel it in all its energy, on the same principle which made him an
admirer of Don Bellianis.
In his favourite author he is not
shocked with the continual breaches of probability, the confusion of
times, the offences against manners, the trampling upon geography; for
he knows nothing of geography and chronology, and he has never examined
the grounds of probability. He perhaps reads of a shipwreck on the coast
of Bohemia; wholly taken up with so interesting an event, and only
solicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least troubled at
this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a shipwreck on
the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be an
island in the Atlantic ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on
the natural good taste of the person here supposed?
So far then as taste belongs to the
imagination, its principle is the same in all men; there is no
difference in the manner of their being affected, nor in the causes of
the affection; but in the degree there is a difference, which arises
from two causes principally; either from a greater degree of natural
sensibility, or from a closer and longer attention to the object. To
illustrate this by the procedure of the senses, in which the same
difference is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble table to be set
before two men; they both perceive it to be smooth; and they are both
pleased with it because of this quality. So far they agree. But suppose
another, and after that another table, the latter still smoother than
the former, to be set before them. It is now very probable that these
men, who are so agreed upon what is smooth, and in the pleasure from
thence, will disagree when they come to settle which table has the
advantage in point of polish. Here is indeed the great difference
between tastes, when men come to compare the excess or diminution of
things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it easy,
when such a difference arises, to settle the point, if the excess or
diminution be not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities,
we can have recourse to a common measure, which may decide the question
with the utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what gives
mathematical knowledge a greater certainty than any other. But in things
whose excess is not judged by greater or smaller, as smoothness and
roughness, hardness and softness, darkness and light, the shades of
colours, all these are very easily distinguished when the difference is
any way considerable, but not when it is minute, for want of some common
measures, which perhaps may never come to be discovered. In these nice
cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal, the greater attention
and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the question about
the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine the most
accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common measure for
settling many disputes relative to the senses, and their representative
the imagination, we find that the principles are the same in all, and
that there is no disagreement until we come to examine into the
pre-eminence or difference of things, which brings us within the
province of the judgment.
So long as we are conversant with the
sensible qualities of things, hardly any more than the imagination seems
concerned; little more also than the imagination seems concerned when
the passions are represented, because by the force of natural sympathy
they are felt in all men without any recourse to reasoning, and their
justness recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all
these passions have, in their turns, affected every mind; and they do
not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain,
natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination
are not confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to
efforts upon the passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the
characters, the actions, and designs of men, their relations, their
virtues, and vices, they come within the province of the judgment, which
is improved by attention, and by the habit of reasoning. All these make
a very considerable part of what are considered as the objects of taste;
and Horace sends us to the schools of philosophy and the world for our
instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality
and the science of life; just the same degree of certainty have we in
what relates to them in the works of imitation. Indeed it is for the
most part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time and
place, and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those
schools to which Horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way
of distinction, consists; and which is in reality no other than a more
refined judgment. On the whole it appears to me, that what is called
taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but' is
partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the
secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the
reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations to these, and
concerning the human passions, manners, and actions. All this is
requisite to form taste, and the ground-work of all these is the same in
the human mind; for as the senses are the great originals of all our
ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain
and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and
therefore there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on
these matters.
Whilst we consider taste merely
according to its nature and species, we shall find its principles
entirely uniform; but the degree in which these principles prevail in
the several individuals of mankind, is altogether as different as the
principles themselves are similar. For sensibility and judgment, which
are the qualities that compose what we commonly call a taste, vary
exceedingly in various people. From a defect in the former of these
qualities arises a want of taste; a weakness in the latter constitutes a
wrong or a bad one. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt,
with tempers so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be
awake during the whole course of their lives. Upon such persons the most
striking objects make but a faint and obscure impression. There are
others so continually in the agitation of gross and merely sensual
pleasures, or so occupied in the low drudgery of avarice, or so heated
in the chase of honours and distinction, that their minds, which had
been used continually to the storms of these violent and tempestuous
passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate and refined play
of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause, become as
stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these happen
to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness, or with these
qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the same principle.
The cause of a wrong taste is a defect
of judgment. And this may arise from a natural weakness of
understanding, (in whatever the strength of that faculty may consist,)
or, which is much more commonly the case, it may arise from a want of
proper and well-directed exercise, which alone can make it strong and
ready. Besides that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness, levity,
obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices, which
pervert the judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its
more refined and elegant province. These causes produce different
opinions upon everything which is an object of the understanding,
without inducing us to suppose that there are no settled principles of
reason. And indeed, on the whole, one may observe that there is rather
less difference upon matters of taste among mankind, than upon most of
those which depend upon the naked reason; and that men are far better
agreed on the excellency of a description in Virgil, than on the truth
or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.
A rectitude of judgment in the arts,
which may be called a good taste, does in a great measure depend upon
sensibility; because, if the mind has no bent to the pleasures of the
imagination, it will never apply itself sufficiently to works of that
species to acquire a competent knowledge in them. But, though a degree
of sensibility is requisite to form a good judgment, yet a good judgment
does not necessarily arise from a quick sensibility of pleasure; it
frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely by force of a greater
complexional sensibility, is more affected by a very poor piece, than
the best judge by the most perfect; for as everything new,
extraordinary, grand, or passionate, is well calculated to affect such a
person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure
and unmixed; and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is
much higher than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment;
the judgment is for the greater part employed in throwing
stumbling-blocks in the way of the imagination, in dissipating the
scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us down to the disagreeable yoke
of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that men have in judging
better than others, consists in a sort of conscious pride and
superiority, which arises from thinking rightly; but then, this is an
indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from the
object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days, when
the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every
part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that surround
us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and
inaccurate the judgments we form of things? I despair of ever receiving
the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of
genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my present judgment
regards as trifling and contemptible. Every trivial cause of pleasure is
apt to affect the man of too sanguine a complexion: his appetite is too
keen to suffer his taste to be delicate; and he is in all respects what
Ovid says of himself in love,
Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis,
Et semper causa est, cur ego semper amem.
["my heart is tender and open to trifling darts, and always with good
reason: so always, let me love." Ovid, Heroides, xv.79-80]
One of this character can never be a
refined judge; never what the comic poet calls elegans formarum,
spectator. The excellence and force of a composition must always be
imperfectly estimated from its effect on the minds of any, except we
know the temper and character of those minds. The most powerful effects
of poetry and music have been displayed, and perhaps are still
displayed, where these arts are but in a very low and imperfect state.
The rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these
arts even in their rudest condition; and he is not skillful enough to
perceive the defects. But as the arts advance towards their perfection,
the science of criticism advances with equal pace, and the pleasure of
judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are discovered in
the most finished compositions.
Before I leave this subject I cannot
help taking notice of an opinion which many persons entertain, as if the
taste were a separate faculty of the mind, and distinct from the
judgment and imagination; a species of instinct, by which we are struck
naturally, and at the first glance, without any previous reasoning, with
the excellencies, or the defects, of a composition. So far as the
imagination and the passions are concerned, I believe it true, that the
reason is little consulted; but where disposition, where decorum, where
congruity are concerned, in short, wherever the best taste differs from
the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates, and nothing
else; and its operation is in reality far from being always sudden, or,
when it is sudden, it is often far from being right. Men of the best
taste, by consideration, come frequently to change these early and
precipitate judgments, which the mind, from its aversion to neutrality
and doubt, loves to form on the spot. It is known that the taste
(whatever it is) is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by
extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by
frequent exercise. They who have not taken these methods, if their taste
decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and their quickness is owing
to their presumption and rashness, and not to any sudden irradiation,
that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds. But they who
have cultivated that species of knowledge which makes the object of
taste, by degrees, and habitually, attain not only a soundness, but a
readiness of judgment, as men do by the same methods on all other
occasions. At first they are obliged to spell, but at least they read
with ease and with celerity; but this celerity of its operation is no
proof that the taste is a distinct faculty. Nobody, I believe, has
attended the course of a discussion, which turned upon matters within
the sphere of mere naked reason, but must have observed the extreme
readiness with which the whole process of the argument is carried on,
the grounds discovered, the objections raised and answered, and the
conclusions drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether as great as
the taste can be supposed to work with; and yet where nothing but plain
reason either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply principles
for every different appearance, is useless, and unphilosophical too in a
high degree.
This matter might be pursued much
further; but it is not the extent of the subject which must prescribe
our bounds, for what subject does not branch out to
infinity? It is the nature of our particular scheme, and the
single point of view in which we consider it, which ought to put a stop
to our researches.
A note on this
text:
The source of this text is
Edmund Burke, On taste. On the sublime and beautiful. Reflections on the French Revolution. A letter to a noble lord. With
introduction and notes. New York, Collier [c1909], Harvard Classics, v. 24.
This
text is in the public domain and may be freely reproduced. |
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