Part 21 (1/2)
Part 2, and may be easily discovered by any one, by the method above described; that is by laying a coloured circle of paper or silk on a sheet of white paper, and inspecting it some time with steady eyes, and then either gently closing them, or removing them on another part of the white paper, and the ocular spectrum or opposite colour becomes visible in the eye.
Sir Isaac Newton has observed, that the breadths of the seven primary colours in the sun's image refracted by a prism, are proportioned to the seven musical notes of the gamut; or to the intervals of the eight sounds contained in an octave.
From this curious coincidence, it has been proposed to produce a luminous music, consisting of successions or combinations of colours, a.n.a.logous to a tune in respect to the proportions above mentioned.
This might be performed by a strong light, made by means of Mr.
Argand's lamps, pa.s.sing through coloured gla.s.ses, and falling on a defined part of the wall, with moveable blinds before them, which might communicate with the keys of a harpsichord, and thus produce at the same time visible and audible music in unison with each other.
Now as the pleasure we receive from the sensation of melodious notes, independent of musical time, and of the previous a.s.sociations of agreeable ideas with them, must arise from our hearing some proportions of sounds after others more easily, distinctly, or agreeably; and as there is a coincidence between the proportions of the primary colours, and the primary sounds, if they may be so called; the same laws must probably govern the sensations of both. In this circ.u.mstance therefore consists the sisterhood of Music and Painting; and hence they claim a right to borrow metaphors from each other: musicians to speak of the brilliancy of sounds, and the light and shade of a concerto; and painters of the harmony of colours, and the tone of a picture.
This source of pleasure received from the melodious succession of colours or of sounds must not be confounded with the pleasure received from the repet.i.tion of them explained above, though the repet.i.tion, or division of musical notes into bars, so as to produce common or triple time, contributes much to the pleasure of music; but in viewing a fixed landscape nothing like musical time exists; and the pleasure received therefore from certain successions of colours must depend only on the more easy or distinct action of the retina in perceiving some colours after others, or in their vicinity, like the facility or even pleasure with which we act with contrary muscles in yawning or stretching after having been fatigued with a long previous exertion in the contrary direction.
Hence where colours are required to be distinct, those which are opposite to each other, should be brought into succession or vicinity; as red and green, orange and blue, yellow and violet; but where colours are required to intermix imperceptibly, or slide into each other, these should not be chosen; as they might by contrast appear too glaring or tawdry. These gradations and contrasts of colours have been practically employed both by the painters of landscape, and by the planters of ornamental gardens; though the theory of this part of the pleasure derived from visible objects was not explained before the publication of the paper on ocular spectra above mentioned; which is reprinted at the end of the first part of Zoonomia, and has thrown great light on the actions of the nerves of sense in consequence of the stimulus of external bodies.
IV. _a.s.sociation of agreeable sentiments with visible objects._
Besides the pleasure experienced simply by the perception of visible objects, it has been already shown, that there is an additional pleasure arising from the inspection of those, which possess novelty, or some degree of it; a second additional pleasure from those, which possess in some degree a repet.i.tion of their parts; and a third from those, which possess a succession of particular colours, which either contrast or slide into each other, and which we have termed melody of colours.
We now step forward to the fourth source of the pleasures arising from the contemplation of visible objects besides that simply of perception, which consists in our previous a.s.sociation of some agreeable sentiment with certain forms or combinations of them. These four kinds of pleasure singly or in combination const.i.tute what is generally understood by the word Taste in respect to the visible world; and by parity of reasoning it is probable, that the pleasurable ideas received by the other senses, or which are a.s.sociated with language, may be traced to similar sources.
It has been shown by Bishop Berkeley in his ingenious essay on vision, that the eye only acquaints us with the perception of light and colours; and that our idea of the solidity of the bodies, which reflect them, is learnt by the organ of touch: he therefore calls our vision the language of touch, observing that certain gradations of the shades of colour, by our previous experience of having examined similar bodies by our hands or lips, suggest our ideas of solidity, and of the forms of solid bodies; as when we view a tree, it would otherwise appear to us a flat green surface, but by a.s.sociation of ideas we know it to be a cylindrical stem with round branches. This a.s.sociation of the ideas acquired by the sense of touch with those of vision, we do not allude to in the following observations, but to the agreeable trains or tribes of ideas and sentiments connected with certain kinds of visible objects.
V. _Sentiment of Beauty._
Of these catenations of sentiments with visible objects, the first is the sentiment of Beauty or Loveliness; which is suggested by easy-flowing curvatures of surface, with smoothness; as is so well ill.u.s.trated in Mr. Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, and in Mr. Hogarth's a.n.a.lysis of Beauty; a new edition of which is much wanted separate from his other works.
The sentiment of Beauty appears to be attached from our cradles to the easy curvatures of lines, and smooth surfaces of visible objects, and to have been derived from the form of the female bosom; as spoken of in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Section XVI. on Instinct.
Sentimental love, as distinguished from the animal pa.s.sion of that name, with which it is frequently accompanied, consists in the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and saluting, a beautiful object.
The characteristic of beauty therefore is that it is the object of love; and though many other objects are in common language called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agreeable. A Grecian temple may give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity; a Gothic temple may give us the pleasurable idea of variety; and a modern house the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire our love by a.s.sociation of ideas; but none of these, except metaphorically, can be termed beautiful; as we have no wish to embrace or salute them.
Our perception of beauty consists in our recognition by the sense of vision of those objects, first which have before inspired our love by the pleasure, which they have afforded to many of our senses: as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste, hunger and thirst; and secondly, which bear any a.n.a.logy of form to such objects.
When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom, its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavour of it, afterwards the appet.i.tes of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness.
ADDITIONAL NOTES. XIV.
THE THEORY AND STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE
Next to each thought a.s.sociate sound accords, And forms the dulcet symphony of words.
CANTO III. l. 365.
Ideas consist of synchronous motions or configurations of the extremities of the organs of sense; these when repeated by sensation, volition, or a.s.sociation, are either simple or complex, as they were first excited by irritation; or have afterwards some parts abstracted from them, or some parts added to them. Language consists of words, which are the names or symbols of ideas. Words are therefore properly all of them nouns or names of things.
Little had been done in the investigation of the theory of language from the time of Aristotle to the present aera, till Mr. Horne Tooke, the ingenious and learned author of the Diversions of Purley, explained those undeclined words of all languages, which had puzzled the grammarians, and evinced from their etymology, that they were abbreviations of other modes of expression. Mr. Tooke observes, that the first aim of language was to communicate our thoughts, and the second to do it with dispatch; and hence he divides words into those, which were necessary to express our thoughts, and those which are abbreviations of the former; which he ingeniously styles the wings of Hermes.