Part 5 (1/2)
The characters of the minor beauty or prettiness, with relation to ourselves, are smallness, subordination, and subjection. Hence female beauty, in relation to the male.
The characters of grandeur or sublimity, with relation to ourselves, are greatness, superordination, and power. Hence male beauty, in relation to the female.
By the preceding brief train of a.n.a.lysis and definition, is, I believe, answered the question--”whether the emotion of grandeur make a branch of the emotion of beauty, or be entirely distinct from it.”
Having, by this concise statement of my own views on these subjects, made the reader acquainted with some of the materials of future consideration here employed, I may now examine the opinions of some philosophers, in order to see how far they accord with these first principles, and what answer can be given to them where they differ.
That _beauty_, _generally considered_, has nothing to do with particular size, is very well shown by Payne Knight, who, though he argues incorrectly about it in many other respects, here truly says: ”All degrees of magnitude contribute to beauty in proportion as they show objects to be perfect in their kind. The dimensions of a beautiful horse are very different from those of a beautiful lapdog; and those of a beautiful oak from those of a beautiful myrtle; because, nature has formed these different kinds of animals and vegetables upon different scales.
”The notion of objects being rendered beautiful by being gradually diminished, or tapered, is equally unfounded; for the same object, which is small by degrees, and beautifully less, when seen in one direction, is large by degrees, and beautifully bigger, when seen in another. The stems of trees are tapered upward; and the columns of Grecian architecture, having been taken from them, and therefore retaining a degree of a.n.a.logy with them, were tapered upward too: but the legs of animals are tapered downward, and the inverted obelisks, upon which busts were placed, having a similar a.n.a.logy to them, were tapered downward also; while pilasters, which had no a.n.a.logy with either, but were mere square posts terminating a wall, never tapered at all.”
Speaking of beauty generally, and without seeing the distinctions I have made above, Burke, on the contrary, states the first quality of beauty to be comparative smallness, and says: ”In ordinary conversation, it is usual to add the endearing name of little to everything we love;” and ”in most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets.”
This is evidently true only of the objects of _minor_ or _subordinate beauty_, which Burke confusedly thought the only kind of it, though he elsewhere grants, that beauty may be connected with sublimity! It shows, however, that relative littleness is essential to that first kind of beauty.
With greater knowledge of facts than Burke possessed, and with as feeble reasoning powers, but with less taste, and with a perverse whimsicality which was all his own, Payne Knight similarly, making no distinction in beauty, considered smallness as an accidental a.s.sociation, failed to see that it characterized a kind of beauty, and argued, that ”if we join the diminutive to a term which precludes all such affection, or does not even, in some degree, express it, it immediately converts it into a term of contempt and reproach: thus, a bantling, a fondling, a darling, &c., are terms of endearment; but a witling, a changeling, a lordling, &c., are invariably terms of scorn: so in French, '_mon pet.i.t enfant_,' is an expression of endearment; but '_mon pet.i.t monsieur_,' is an expression of the most pointed reproach and contempt.”
Now, this chatter of grammatical termination and French phrase, though meant to look vastly clever, is merely a blunder. There is no a.n.a.logy in the cases compared: a ”darling” or little dear unites _dear_, an expression of love, with _little_, implying that dependance which enhances love; while ”witling” or little wit unites _wit_, an expression of talent, with _little_, meaning the small quant.i.ty or absence of the talent alluded to; and it is because the latter term means, not physical littleness, which well a.s.sociates with love, but moral littleness and mental degradation, that it becomes a term of contempt.
Even from the little already said, it seems evident that much of the confusion on this subject has arisen from not distinguis.h.i.+ng the two genera of beauty, and not seeing that ”the emotion of grandeur” is merely ”a branch of the emotion of beauty.”
The other genus of beauty, _grand_ or _sublime beauty_, is well described by the names given to it, grandeur or sublimity. Some have considered sublimity as expressing grandeur in the highest degree: it would perhaps be as well to express the cause of the emotion by grandeur, and the emotion itself by sublimity.
Nothing is sublime that is not vast or powerful, or that does not make him who feels it sensible of its physical or moral superiority.
The simplest cause of sublimity is presented by all objects of vast magnitude or extent--a seemingly boundless plain, the sky, the ocean, &c.; and the particular direction of the magnitude or extent always correspondingly modifies the emotion--height giving more especially the idea of power, breadth of resistance, depth of danger, &c. Of the objects mentioned above, the ocean is the most sublime, because, to vastness in length and breadth, it adds depth, and a force perpetually active.
Now, that these objects, though sublime, are beautiful, is very evident; and it is therefore also evident how much Burke erred in a.s.serting comparative smallness to be the first character of beauty generally considered. This and similar errors, as already said, have greatly obscured this subject, and have led Burke and others so to modify and qualify their doctrines, as to take from them all precision and certainty.
Hence, in one place, Burke says: ”As, in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities that const.i.tute _beauty_ may _possibly_ be united to things of _greater dimensions_ [that is, littleness may be united with bigness!]; when they are so united they const.i.tute _a species something different both from the sublime and beautiful_, which I have before called, Fine.”
So also he says: ”Ugliness I imagine likewise to be consistent enough with an idea of the sublime. But I would by no means insinuate that ugliness of itself is a sublime idea, unless united with such qualities as excite a strong terror.”
Here, he confounds sublimity with terror, as do Blair and other writers, when they say that ”exact proportion of parts, though it enters often into the beautiful, is much disregarded in the sublime.” It is a fact, that exactly in proportion as ugliness is subst.i.tuted for beauty in vast objects, is sublimity taken away, until at last it is utterly lost in the terrible.
Even Blair shows that sublimity may exist without terror or pain. ”The proper sensation of sublimity appears,” he observes, ”to be distinguishable from the sensation of either of these, and, on several occasions, to be entirely separated from them. In many grand objects, there is no coincidence with terror at all; as in the magnificent prospect of wide-extended plains, and of the starry firmament; or in the moral dispositions and sentiments, which we view with high admiration; and in many painful and terrible objects also, it is clear, there is no sort of grandeur. The amputation of a limb, or the bite of a snake, is exceedingly terrible, but is dest.i.tute of all claim whatever to sublimity.”
Payne Knight shows that terror is even opposed to sublimity: ”All the great and terrible convulsions of nature; such as storms, tempests, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, &c., excite sublime ideas, and impress sublime sentiments by the prodigious exertions of energy and power which they seem to display: for though these objects are, in their nature, terrible, and generally known to be so, it is not this attribute of terror that contributes, in the smallest degree to render them sublime.... Timid women fly to a cellar, or a darkened room, to avoid the sublime effects of a thunder-storm; because to them they are not sublime, but terrible. To those only are they sublime, '_qui formidine nulla imbuti spectant_,' who behold them without any fear at all; and to whom, therefore, they are in no degree terrible.”
This farther confirms the distinction which I made of beauty into minor or subordinate, and grand or sublime beauty, although Knight adopted other principles, if principles they may be called, and neglected such distinction.
There is but one other error on this subject which I need to notice. Burke says: ”To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary. When we know the full extent of any danger, when we can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes. Every one will be sensible of this, who considers how greatly night adds to our dread, in all cases of danger.... Those despotic governments which are founded on the pa.s.sions of men, and princ.i.p.ally upon the pa.s.sion of fear, keep their chief as much as may be from the public eye. The policy has been the same in many cases of religion. Almost all the heathen temples were dark.”
From what has already been said, it is evident that all this contributes to terror, not to sublimity; and that the same error is made by Blair when he says, ”As obscurity, so disorder, too, is very compatible with grandeur, nay, frequently heightens it.”
To expose the weakness and to destroy the authority of some writers on this subject, can only set the mind free for the investigation of truth.
I may, therefore, conclude this chapter by quoting the shrewd remarks of Knight on some of the principles of Burke. I shall afterward be forced critically to examine the notions of Knight in their turn.