and we subsequently find, that all the emotions of Taste are reducible under two general heads. Now, although all the emotions produced in the way to which we have adverted, may be characterized by certain peculiarities, of which we may, perhaps, before we close, discover the cause; and although they are evidently susceptible of another and inferior distribution into the classes which have been already noticed, it does not follow that emotions similar in kind, may not, occasionally, originate in dissimilar causes..

Ideas are so associated, that a thousand circumstances may suggest the very same train of thought, and consequently, of emotion; which may be in other cases suggested by present sensation. If there be then any peculiarity of emotion in the latter case, there will be exactly the same peculiarity in the former; and the sentiments will themselves be characterized by no distinctive circumstance, whatever may be the dissimilarity of their exciting causes. Those objects, therefore, which excite the former class of feeling, like those which occa sion the latter, are called beautiful, or sublime; and the pleasure is in either case ranked amongst the pleasures of Taste. Here I cannot but anticipate an inquiry, which certainly deserves attention:-What, after all, do you mean by the primary acceptation of the words beauty and sublimity? You acknowledge, that they have subsequently obtained a more extensive signification; and what propriety is there in restricting that signification at all, if it be thus susceptible of enlargement? Perhaps it ought, in fairness, to be acknowledged, that this view of the subject appeared to present great facilities for the statement of my opinions; and that I was led to the arrangement by the current of my own thoughts, which, whenever it is my wish to form some distinct conception of the nature of beauty, revert almost imperceptibly to that description of beauty which exists in sensible objects. Independently, however, of this convenience, or of these impressions, it does appear to me that there are valid philosophical reasons for pursuing the course which has been adopted. In the earlier periods of society, the analysis and classification of our feelings are necessarily imperfect. It happens, however, that certain sensations, in consequence of the laws of our mental constitution cooperating with circumstances over which we may have no control, are associated with certain consequent emotions, We, in an advanced state of society, are accustomed to conduct lengthened trains of thought, and to encourage those sentimental reveries which are ultimately productive of

pleasing emotion.-The sentiment of beauty becomes an object of attention. We place ourselves in circumstances which are likely to contribute to its excitement; we not unfrequently labour to obtain the information necessary to its reception; and we even analyze its composition, and discover its elements. All this must naturally, and, we would think, inevitably, lead us to discern the dependence of feeling on thought, and the utter impropriety of considering the emotions of Taste as immediately consequent on the perception of their appropriate objects. Yet such is the force of early association, that philosophers, even in modern times, seem to have overlooked this mass of evidence; and, by the introduction of internal senses, either to have rejected the intervention of thought, or to have introduced it in a way altogether unintelligible. But to our lengthened trains of thoughtto our sentimental reveries-to our studious search for the beautiful and sublime-the men of earlier ages were total strangers. They were not indeed strangers to the sentiments of sublimity, or of beauty; for of these sentiments, human nature cannot, perhaps, entirely divest itself. If, however, we abstract all those sources of refined delight which are peculiar to civilized man, we shall so circumscribe the range of these sentiments, that their existence will prove to be, in almost every instance, ascribable to sensation, either present or recalled. To the beauty of language, primitive man must have been insensible; because language possessed no polish, and attracted no regard. Where mankind was conversant with the external world alone-unused to attend to the phenomena of consciousness, and destitute of any acquaintance with those abstract sciences by which the human race is elevated in the scale of intellectual beingthe beauty of thought must have entirely consisted in agreeable combinations of recollected sensation. Those sentiments also which are excited by the perception of design, contrivance, adaptation, and utility, would, although not entirely excluded, arise with comparative infrequence.

Few objects would present themselves, calculated to excite the emotion; and, where there was any thing like complexity of design, the undisciplined mind would be unable to comprehend, and, therefore, incapable of feeling. In such a state of society, thought must have been much more exclusively conversant with the sensible qualities of things than it is at present. The sentiments of beauty, or of sublimity, therefore, must have been almost uniformly traceable to some suggesting sensation; and the very circumstance,

that it was possible to trace them, implies the proximity of the two different states of mind, and the absence of that long intervening process of abstract thought, which is but rarely experienced by uncivilized man. Can we, therefore, wonder, if the occasion of the feeling was mistaken for its cause the more remote for the immediate antecedent? At such a period, when the emotions of beauty must almost always have appeared to be the immediate sequences of some organic feeling, the materials for comparison and induction would have been absent, could we even suppose metaphysical analysis to have attracted the attention of mankind. Unacquainted with those processes of thought through which the mind of civilized man is sometimes conducted, for the purpose of enabling him to seize that association on which is dependent a long train of ideas and feelings, and accustomed to experience emotion in a state of apparently immediate connexion with some impression on the external organ, it is difficult to conceive how mankind could at all have discovered the intervention of thought. Those who are accustomed to this kind of investigation, know how difficult it sometimes is to detect an intellectual process, where, nevertheless, no doubt of its actual existence can, in the present state of the science, be entertained. How often are we reduced to the necessity of reasoning analogically, and of thus supplying by inference the deficiencies of experience? In the case which has been described, however, the possibility of such reasoning would be almost precluded-unless, indeed, we can attribute to uninstructed man, a comprehensiveness of intellect, and a patience of research, with which even philosophers have not often shewn themselves to be endowed. In cases, therefore, where the association was so intimate, and the succession of ideas so instantaneous, as to escape detection, what would be the natural procedure of the human mind? Here are sensations and emotions widely differing from each other in their nature; but apparently ascribable to the same external cause. Certain impressions on the organ are followed, if not as invariably, yet, to all appearance, as immediately by feelings of the one class, as by those of the other. No unnatural conclusion certainly would be, that they are in each case attributable to some quality in the object; and that the same admirable mechanism, by means of which sensations are received from the external world, is employed in the transmission of feelings, in kind different, but similar in their origin, and in the mode of their communication.

The same train of reasoning would, if pursued, carry the human mind still farther. From causes which have been, or which will be mentioned, it does so happen, that those trains of pleasing emotion, which are thus rapidly consequent on the organic impression, are all characterized by certain circumstances of similarity. This, which would tend to confirm the erroneous opinion already imbibed, would also induce mankind to ascribe to the imagined causes of these feelings, some correspondent peculiarity. As, therefore, all smells, however different, are produced by effluvia-all sounds by vibrations and as we unavoidably attribute similarity of sensation to similarity in the qualities by which it is communicated, all these emotions would, in the spirit of unphilosophical generalization, be attributed to some one property existing in each several object, which might chance to be the occasion of their excitement. To the objects supposed to possess this property, some generic appellation was almost unavoidably applied; and an abstract term was invented, to express that quality in which they were imagined to agree. If these emotions were supposed to be at once distinguishable in their nature from our ordinary sensations, yet immediately attributable to the same cause in which sensation originates, the most ordinary notions of convenience must have suggested the necessity of some such classification as that which actually exists. The universal propensity to consider beauty in relation to the sensible qualities of objects, is generally observable; and is strongly confirmatory of the opinions which have just been advanced. One celebrated genius of the present age resolves the sentiment of beauty-if, indeed, his theory reduce it not at once to the rank of a sensation-into "relaxation of the fibres." Till very lately, philosophers have been inclined to search for some one quality to which the emotions of beauty, or of sublimity, might in every case be ascribed. All these erroneous opinions mark the process through which the human mind has passed; and seem to point out that primary signification with which our first associations are connected; and to which our thoughts are always prepared to revert.

If, therefore, to the terms in question, we assign the meaning, which, from a consideration of the early situation of man, we have been led to consider as originally belong. ing to them-we can, I think, easily trace that progressive extension, by means of which they have now become sus ceptible of a far less restricted application. If this peculiar

notion prove to be founded in mistake-our conclusion may be correct, should the steps, by means of which our progress has been effected, appear to be objectionable. While, therefore, I am naturally partial to the views which have been here brought forward, the more extended signification which we ultimately attach to the words, must be judged of by its apparent coincidence with fact.

Before concluding my remarks on this part of the subject, I shall beg leave to notice another point, with regard to which there is some apparent difference between the statements hazarded above, and the sentiments expressed by Mr. Alison. On those sentiments I have already said, that my own opinions are formed; and I may, perhaps, now be allowed to premise, that the difference is here only apparent. The writer, to whom we have just alluded, assures us, that "in those trains which are suggested by objects of sublimity or beauty, however slight the connexion of individual thoughts may be, it will be found that there is always some general principle of connexion, which pervades the whole, and gives them some certain and definite character." The question will naturally present itself why, if this be the case, have you not marked a fact of so much importance? Was it that all the reasoning employed to establish it, left you unconvinced? or did you keep it in the back ground, lest it should turn out to be inconsistent with some arbitrary definition of your own? By neither of these motives am I conscious of having been actuated. I am convinced, that the fact is as has been stated; and that the admission, so far from impugning, is favourable to the views which have now been offered. But, then, it appears to me to have been less a part of the idea which the epithet beautiful was originally invented to express, than a peculiarity necessarily resulting from the nature of those trains which are excited by the objects of Taste. I may be allowed once more to advert to the primary meaning I have assigned to the words beauty and sublimity, The original application of these words, I have restricted to those objects which are capable of giving rise to such trains of pleasing emotion, as obviously have, for their exciting cause, sensation either felt or recollected. Now, whenever this is the case, it is evident that the emotions produced must have some leading characteristic" some general principle of connexion which pervades the whole.' All these emotions must have some points of resemblance, because correspondent as they are * Alison's Essays, essay i. chap. ii. sect. 2.