Lectures on Art by Washington Allston
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Admitting this personal modification, we may then safely repeat our
position,--that to hate Good or to love Evil, solely for their own
sakes, is only possible with the irredeemably wicked, in other words,
with devils.
We now proceed to the latter clause of our general proposition. And here
it may be asked, on what ground we assume one intuitive universal
Principle as the true source of all those emotions which have just been
discussed. To this we reply, On the ground of their common agreement. As
we shall here use the words _effect_ and _emotion_ as convertible terms,
we wish it to be understood, that, when we apply the epithet _common_ or
_same_ to _effect_, we do so only in relation to _kind_, and for the
sake of brevity, instead of saying the same _class_ of effects; implying
also in the word _kind_ the existence of many degrees, but no other
difference. For instance, if a beautiful flower and a noble act shall be
found to excite a kindred emotion, however slight from the one or deep
from the other, they come in effect under the same category. And this we
are forced to admit, however heterogeneous, since a common ground is
necessarily predicated of a common result. How else, for instance, can
we account for a scene in nature, a bird, an animal, a human form,
affecting us each in a similar way? There is certainly no similitude in
the objects that compose a landscape, and the form of an animal and man;
they have no resemblance either in shape, or texture, or color, in
roughness, smoothness, or any other known quality; while their several
effects are so near akin, that we do not stop to measure even the wide
degrees by which they are marked, but class them in a breath by some
common term. It is very plain that this singular property of
assimilating to one what is so widely unlike cannot proceed from any
similar conformation, or quality, or attribute of mere being, that is,
of any thing essential to distinctive existence. There must needs, then,
be some common ground for their common effect. For if they agree not in
themselves one with the other, it follows of necessity that the ground
of their agreement must be in relation to something within our own
minds, since only _there_ is this common effect known as a fact.
We are now brought to the important question, _Where_ and
_what_ is this reconciling ground? Certainly not in sensation,
for that could only reflect their distinctive differences. Neither can
it be in the reflective faculties, since the effect in question, being
co-instantaneous, is wholly independent of any process of reasoning;
for we do not feel it because we understand, but only because we are
conscious of its presence. Nay, it is because we neither do nor can
understand it, being therefore a matter aloof from all the powers of
reasoning, that its character is such as has been asserted, and, as
such, universal.
Where, then, shall we search for this mysterious ground but in the
mind, since only there, as before observed, is this common effect
known as a fact? and where in the mind but in some inherent Principle,
which is both intuitive and universal, since, in a greater or less
degree, all men feel it _without knowing why?_
But since an inward Principle can, of necessity, have only a potential
existence, until called into action by some outward object, it is also
clear that any similar effect, which shall then be recognized through
it, from any number of differing and distinct objects, can only arise
from some mutual relation between a _something_ in the objects
and in the Principle supposed, as their joint result and proper
product.
And, since it would appear that we cannot avoid the admission of
some such Principle, having a reciprocal relation to certain outward
objects, to account for these kindred emotions from so many distinct
and heterogeneous sources, it remains only that we give it a name;
which has already been anticipated in the term Harmony.
The next question here is, In what consists this _peculiar relation?_ We
have seen that it cannot be in any thing that is essential to any
condition of mere being or existence; it must therefore consist in some
_undiscoverable_ condition indifferently applicable to the Physical,
Intellectual, and Moral, yet only applicable in each to certain kinds.
And this is all that we do or _can_ know of it. But of this we
may be as certain as that we live and breathe.
It is true that, for particular purposes, we may analyze certain
combinations of sounds and colors and forms, so as to ascertain their
relative quantities or collocation; and these facts (of which we shall
hereafter have occasion to speak) may be of importance both in Art and
Science. Still, when thus obtained, they will be no more than mere
facts, on which we can predicate nothing but that, when they are
imitated,--that is, when similar combinations of quantities, &c., are
repeated in a work of art,--they will produce the same effect. But
_why_ they should is a mystery which the reflective faculties do
not solve; and never can, because it refers to a living Power that is
above the understanding. In the human figure, for instance, we can
give no reason why eight heads to the stature please us better than
six, or why three or twelve heads seem to us monstrous. If we say, in
the latter case, _because_ the head of the one is too small and
of the other too large, we give no _reason_; we only state the
_fact_ of their disagreeable effect on us. And, if we make the
proportion of eight heads our rule, it is because of the fact of its
being more pleasing to us than any other; and, from the same feeling,
we prefer those statures which approach it the nearest. Suppose we
analyze a certain combination of sounds and colors, so as to ascertain
the exact relative quantities of the one and the collocation of the
other, and then compare them. What possible resemblance can the
understanding perceive between these sounds and colors? And yet a
something within us responds to both in a similar emotion. And so with
a thousand things, nay, with myriads of objects that have no other
affinity but with that mysterious harmony which began with our being,
which slept with our infancy, and which their presence only seems to
have _awakened_. If we cannot go back to our own childhood, we
may see its illustration in those about us who are now emerging into
that unsophisticated state. Look at them in the fields, among the
birds and flowers; their happy faces speak the harmony within them:
the divine instrument, which these have touched, gives them a joy
which, perhaps, only childhood in its first fresh consciousness can
know. Yet what do they understand of musical quantities, or of the
theory of colors?
And so with respect to Truth and Goodness; whose preexisting Ideas,
being in the living constituents of an immortal spirit, need but the
slightest breath of some outward condition of the true and good,--a
simple problem, or a kind act,--to awake them, as it were, from their
unconscious sleep, and start them for eternity.
We may venture to assert, that no philosopher, however ingenious,
could communicate to a child the abstract idea of Right, had the
latter nothing beyond or above the understanding. He might, indeed, be
taught, like the inferior animals,--a dog, for instance,--that, if he
took certain forbidden things, he would be punished, and thus do
right through fear. Still he would desire the forbidden thing,
though belonging to another; nor could he conceive why he should not
appropriate to himself, and thus allay his appetite, what was held by
another, could he do so undetected; nor attain to any higher notion of
right than that of the strongest. But the child has something higher
than the mere power of apprehending consequences. The simplest
exposition, whether of right or wrong, even by an ignorant nurse, is
instantly responded to by something _within him_, which, thus
awakened, becomes to him a living voice ever after; and the good and
the true must thenceforth answer its call, even though succeeding
years would fain overlay them with the suffocating crowds of evil and
falsehood.
We do not say that these eternal Ideas of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness
will, strictly speaking, always act. Though indestructible, they may
be banished for a time by the perverted Will, and mockeries of the
brain, like the fume-born phantoms from the witches' caldron in
Macbeth, take their places, and assume their functions. We have
examples of this in every age, and perhaps in none more startling than
in the present. But we mean only that they cannot be _forgotten_:
nay, they are but, too often recalled with unwelcome distinctness.
Could we read the annals which must needs be scored on every
heart,--could we look upon those of the aged reprobate,--who will
doubt that their darkest passages are those made visible by the
distant gleams from these angelic Forms, that, like the Three which
stood before the tent of Abraham, once looked upon his youth?
And we doubt not that the truest witness to the common source of these
inborn Ideas would readily be acknowledged by all, could they return
to it now with their matured power of introspection, which is, at
least, one of the few advantages of advancing years. But, though
we cannot bring back youth, we may still recover much of its purer
revelations of our nature from what has been left in the memory. From
the dim present, then, we would appeal to that fresher time, ere
the young spirit had shrunk from the overbearing pride of the
understanding, and confidently ask, if the emotions we then felt from
the Beautiful, the True, and the Good, did not seem in some way to
refer to a common origin. And we would also ask, if it was then
frequent that the influence from one was _singly_ felt,--if it
did not rather bring with it, however remotely, a sense of something,
though widely differing, yet still akin to it. When we have basked in
the beauty of a summer sunset, was there nothing in the sky that spoke
to the soul of Truth and Goodness? And when the opening intellect
first received the truth of the great law of gravitation, or felt
itself mounting through the profound of space, to travel with the
planets in their unerring rounds, did never then the kindred Ideas of
Goodness and Beauty chime in, as it were, with the fabled music,--not
fabled to the soul,--which led you on like one entranced?
And again, when, in the passive quiet of your moral nature, so predisposed
in youth to all things genial, you have looked abroad on this marvellous,
ever teeming Earth,--ever teeming alike for mind and body,--and have felt
upon you flow, as from ten thousand springs of Goodness, Truth, and
Beauty, ten thousand streams of innocent enjoyment; did you not then
_almost hear_ them shout in confluence, and almost _see_ them gushing
upwards, as if they would prove their unity, in one harmonious fountain?
But, though the preceding be admitted as all true in respect to
certain "gifted" individuals, it may yet be denied that it is equally
true with respect to all, in other words, that the Principle assumed
is an inherent constituent of the human being. To this we reply, that
universality does not necessarily imply equality.
The universality of a Principle does not imply _everywhere_ equal
energy or activity, or even the same mode of manifestation, any more
than do the essential Faculties of the Understanding. Of this we have
an analogous illustration in the faculty of Memory; which is almost
indefinitely differenced in different men, both in degree and mode. In
some, its greatest power is shown in the retention of thoughts, but
not of words, that is, not of the original words in which they were
presented. Others possess it in a very remarkable degree as to forms,
places, &c., and but imperfectly for other things; others, again,
never forget names, dates, or figures, yet cannot repeat a
conversation the day after it took place; while some few have the
doubtful happiness of forgetting nothing. We might go on with a long
list of the various modes and degrees in which this faculty, so
essential to the human being, is everywhere manifested. But this is
sufficient for our purpose. In like manner is the Principle of Harmony
manifested; in one person as it relates to Form, in another to Sound;
so, too, may it vary as to the degrees of truth and goodness. We say
degrees; for we may well doubt whether, even in the faculty of memory,
its apparent absence as to any one essential object is any thing more
than a feeble degree of activity: and the doubt is strengthened by the
fact, that in many seemingly hopeless cases it has been actually, as
it were, brought into birth. And we are still indisposed to admit its
entire absence in any one particular for which it was bestowed on man.
An imperfect developement, especially as relating to the intellectual
and moral, we know to depend, in no slight measure, on the _will_
of the subject. Nay, (with the exception of idiots,) it may safely be
affirmed, that no individual ever existed who could not perceive the
difference between what is true and false, and right and wrong. We
here, of course, except those who have so ingeniously _unmade_
themselves, in order to reconstruct their "humanity" after a better
fashion. As to the "_why_" of these differences, we know nothing;
it is one of those unfathomable mysteries which to the finite mind
must ever be hidden.
Though it has been our purpose, throughout this discourse, to direct
our inquiries mainly to the essential Elements of the subject, it may
not be amiss here to take a brief notice of their collateral product
in those mixed modes from which we derive so large a portion of our
mental gratification: we allude to the various combinations of the
several Ideas, which have just been examined, with each other as well
as with their opposites. To this prolific source may be traced much
of that many-colored interest which we take in their various forms as
presented by the imagination,--in every thing, indeed, which is true,
or even partially true, to the great Principle of Harmony, both in
nature and in art. It is to these mixed modes more especially, that we
owe all that mysterious interest which gives the illusion of life to a
work of fiction, and fills us with delight or melts with woe, whether
in the happiness or the suffering of some imagined being, uniting
goodness with beauty, or virtue with plainness, or uncommon purity and
intellect even with deformity; for even that may be so overpowered in
the prominent harmony of superior intellect and moral worth, as to be
virtually neutralized, at least, to become unobtrusive as a discordant
force. Besides, it cannot be expected that _complete_ harmony is
ever to be realized in our imperfect state; we should else, perhaps,
with such expectation, have no pleasures of the kind we speak of:
nor is this necessary, the imagination being always ready to supply
deficiencies, whenever the approximation is sufficiently near to
call it forth. Nay, if the interest felt be nothing more than mere
curiosity, we still refer to this presiding Principle; which is no
less essential to a simple combination of events, than to the higher
demands of Form or Character. But its presence must be felt, however
slightly. Of this we have the evidence in many cases, and, perhaps,
most conclusive where the partial harmony is felt to verge on a
powerful discord; or where the effort to unite them produces that
singular alternation of what is both revolting and pleasing: as in the
startling union of evil passions with some noble quality, or with a
master intellect. And here we have a solution of that paradoxical
feeling of interest and abhorrence, which we experience in such a
character as King Richard.
And may it not be that we are permitted this interest for a deeper
purpose than we are wont to suppose; because Sin is best seen in the
light of Virtue,--and then most fearfully when she holds the torch to
herself? Be this as it may, with pure, unintellectual, brutal evil
it is very different. We cannot look upon it undismayed: we take no
interest in it, nor can we. In Richard there is scarce a glimmer of
his better nature; yet we do not despise him, for his intellect and
courage command our respect. But the fiend Iago,--who ever followed
him through the weaving of his spider-like web, without perpetual
recurrence to its venomous source,--his devilish heart? Even the
intellect he shows seems actually animalized, and we shudder at its
subtlety, as at the cunning of a reptile. Whatever interest may have
been imputed to him should be placed to the account of his hapless
victim; to the first striving with distrust of a generous nature; to
the vague sense of misery, then its gradual developement, then the
final overthrow of absolute faith; and, last of all, to the throes
of agony of the noble Moor, as he writhes and gasps in his accursed
toils.
To these mixed modes may be added another branch, which we shall term the
class of Imputed Attributes. In this class are concerned all those natural
objects with which we connect (not by individual association, but by a
general law of the mind) certain moral or intellectual attributes; which
are not, indeed, supposed to exist in the objects themselves, but which,
by some unknown affinity, they awaken or occasion in us, and which we, in
our turn, impute to them. However this be, there are multitudes of objects
in the inanimate world, which we cannot contemplate without associating
with them many of the characteristics which we ascribe to the human being;
and the ideas so awakened we involuntarily express by the ascription of
such significant epithets as _stately, majestic, grand_, and so on. It is
so with us, when we call some tall forest stately, or qualify as majestic
some broad and slowly-winding river, or some vast, yet unbroken waterfall,
or some solitary, gigantic pine, seeming to disdain the earth, and to hold
of right its eternal communion with air; or when to the smooth and
far-reaching expanse of our inland waters, with their bordering and
receding mountains, as they seem to march from the shores, in the pomp of
their dark draperies of wood and mist, we apply the terms _grand_ and
_magnificent_: and so onward to an endless succession of objects,
imputing, as it were, our own nature, and lending our sympathies, till the
headlong rush of some mighty cataract suddenly thunders upon us. But how
is it then? In the twinkling of an eye, the outflowing sympathies ebb back
upon the heart; the whole mind seems severed from earth, and the awful
feeling to suspend the breath;--there is nothing human to which we can
liken it. And here begins another kind of emotion, which we call Sublime.
We are not aware that this particular class of objects has hitherto
been noticed, at least as holding a distinct position. And, if we
may be allowed to supply the omission, we should assign to it the
intermediate place between the Beautiful and the Sublime. Indeed,
there seems to be no other station so peculiarly proper; inasmuch as
they would thus form, in a consecutive series, a regular ascent from
the sensible material to the invisible spiritual: hence naturally
uniting into one harmonious whole every possible emotion of our higher
nature.
In the preceding discussion, we have considered the outward world
only in its immediate relation to Man, and the Human Being as the
predetermined centre to which it was designed to converge. As the
subject, however, of what are called the sublime emotions, he holds a
different position; for the centre here is not himself, nor, indeed,
can he approach it within conceivable distance: yet still he is drawn
to it, though baffled for ever. Now the question is, Where, and
in what bias, is this mysterious attraction? It must needs be in
something having a clear affinity with us, or we could not feel it.
But the attraction is also both pure and pleasurable; and it has just
been shown, that we have in ourselves but one principle by which
to recognize any corresponding emotion,--namely, the principle of
Harmony. May we not then infer a similar Principle without us, an
Infinite Harmony, to which our own is attracted? and may we not
further,--if we may so speak without irreverence,--suppose our own to
have emanated thence when "man became a living soul"? And though this
relation may not be consciously acknowledged in every instance, or
even in one, by the mass of men, does it therefore follow that it does
not exist? How many things act upon us of which we have no knowledge?
If we find, as in the case of the Beautiful, the same, or a similar,
effect to follow from a great variety of objects which have no
resemblance or agreement with one another, is it not a necessary
inference, that for their common effect they must all refer to
something without and distinct from themselves? Now in the case of
the Sublime, the something referred to is not in man: for the emotion
excited has an outward tendency; the mind cannot contain it; and the
effort to follow it towards its mysterious object, if long continued,
becomes, in the excess of interest, positively painful.
Could any finite object account for this? But, supposing the Infinite,
we have an adequate cause. If these emotions, then, from whatever
object or circumstance, be to prompt the mind beyond its prescribed
limits, whether carrying it back to the primitive past, the
incomprehensible _beginning_, or sending it into the future, to
the unknown _end_, the ever-present Idea of the mighty Author of
all these mysteries must still be implied, though we think not of it.
It is this Idea, or rather its influence, whether we be conscious of
it or not, which we hold to be the source of every sublime emotion. To
make our meaning plainer, we should say, that that which has the power
of possessing the mind, to the exclusion, for the time, of all other
thought, and which presents no _comprehensible_ sense of a whole,
though still impressing us with a full apprehension of such as a
reality,--in other words, which cannot be circumscribed by the forms
of the understanding while it strains them to the utmost,--that we
should term a sublime object. But whether this effect be occasioned
directly by the object itself, or be indirectly suggested by its
relations to some other object, its unknown cause, it matters not;
since the apparent power of calling forth the emotion, by whatever
means, is, _quoad_ ourselves, its sublime condition. Hence, if a
minute insect, an ant, for instance, through its marvellous instinct,
lift the mind of the amazed spectator to the still more inscrutable
Creator, it must possess, as to _him_, the same power. This is,
indeed, an extreme case, and may be objected to as depending on the
individual mind; on a mind prepared by cultivation and previous
reflection for the effect in question. But to this it may be replied,
that some degree of cultivation, or, more properly speaking, of
developement by the exercise of its reflective faculties, is obviously
essential ere the mind can attain to mature growth,--we might almost
say to its natural state, since nothing can be said to have attained
its true nature until all its capacities are at least called into
birth. No one, for example, would refer to the savages of Australia
for a true specimen of what was proper or natural to the human mind;
we should rather seek it, if such were the alternative, in a civilized
child of five years old. Be this as it may, it will not be denied
that ignorance, brutality, and many other deteriorating causes, do
practically incapacitate thousands for even an approximation, not only
to this, but to many of the inferior emotions, the character of
which is purely mental. And this, we think, is quite sufficient to
neutralize the objection, if not, indeed, to justify the application
of the term to all cases where the _immediate_ effect, whether
directly or indirectly, is such as has been described. But, to reduce
this to a common-sense view, it is only saying,--what no one will
deny,--that a man of education and refinement has not only more, but
higher, pleasures of the mind than a mere clown.
But though the position here advanced must necessarily exclude many
objects which have hitherto, though, as we think, improperly, been
classed with the sublime, it will still leave enough, and more than
enough, for the utmost exercise of our limited powers; inasmuch as, in
addition to the multitude of objects in the material world, not only
the actions, passions, and thoughts of men, but whatever concerns the
human being, that in any way--by a hint merely--leads the mind, though
indirectly, to the Infinite attributes,--all come of right within the
ground assumed.
It will be borne in mind, that the conscious presence of the Infinite
Idea is not only _not_ insisted on, but expressly admitted to be, in
most cases, unthought of; it is also admitted, that a sublime effect is
often powerfully felt in many instances where this Idea could not truly
be predicated of the apparent object. In such cases, however, some kind
of resemblance, or, at least, a seeming analogy to an infinite
attribute, is nevertheless essential. It must _appear_ to us, for the
time, either limitless, indefinite, or in some other way beyond the
grasp of the mind: and, whatever an object may _seem_ to be, it must
needs _in effect_ be to _us_ even that which it seems. Nor does this
transfer the emotion to a different source; for the Infinite Idea, or
something analogous, being thus imputed, is in reality its true cause.
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