第158章

He dwells at length on the different sources of the beauty or sublimity of the countenance of man.It arises, first, from physical beauty, or the beauty of certain colors and forms considered simply as forms or colors; secondly, from the beauty of expression and character, or that habitual form of features and {313} color of complexion which, from experience, we consider as significant of those habitual dispositions of the human mind which we love or approve or admire; thirdly, from the beauty of emotion, or the expression of certain local or temporary affections of mind which we approve or love or admire.Each of these species of beauty will be perfect when the composition of the countenance is such as to preserve, pure and unmingled, the expression which it predominantly conveys -- and when no feature or color is admitted but which is subservient to the unity of this expression.The last or highest degree of beauty or sublimity of the human countenance will alone be attained when <all> these expressions are united when the physical beauty corresponds to the characteristic when the beauty of temporary emotion harmonizes with the beauty of character; and when all fall upon the heart of the spectator as one whole, in which matter, in all its most exquisite forms, is only felt as the sign of one great or amiable character of mind."In criticising this theory, I am prepared to admit that the ingenious author has seized and unfolded to our view a large body of truth which had never been so fully developed before.He is surely right in saying that there is a train of ideas in all those operations of mind in which we contemplate what is called beautiful and sublime: it is so, as we listen to music, grave or gay; as we gaze at a waterfall, or into the starry vault of heaven.It is also certain that all these ideas are emotional: that is, accompanied with emotion; and that the ideas and emotions are all of a connected kind, and thus produce the one effect.On these points his views seem to me to be just, and they are to a great extent original.It should farther be allowed that in all this there is the influence of association of ideas, regulated by such principles as contiguity and resemblance: this had been shown fully before his time by Hutcheson, by Beattie, and others of the Scottish school.But is this all? It seems as if we needed, besides, both a start to the movement and a principle of connection to make it proceed in one direction.In music there are sounds which produce a pleasant sensation: these are regulated, as has been known since the time of Pythagoras, by mathematical relations.This pleasant sensation gives the impulse to the train of emotional thought, it sustains it, and gives to it a congruity.Again, it has been shown that there {314} are melodious and harmonious colors, which are pleasing to the eye; and these set out the mind on a pleasant train of association, and keep it on the one tract.Attempts have been made, since the days of Plato, to discover forms which are essentially beautiful; and these have so far been successful.There are proportions and there are curves which are adapted to the laws of light on the one hand, and to our sensory organs on the other.Are not these the roots from which our associated ideas and emotions spring? Are not the objects possessing them entitled to be called beautiful and sublime?