Part 1 (1/2)
The Connexion Between Taste and Morals.
by Mark Hopkins.
LECTURE I.
Is the prevalence of a cultivated taste, favorable to morals? Is there a connexion, either in individuals, or in communities, between good taste and good morals?
When I began to reflect upon this point with reference to a public discussion of it, I put the above questions to three educated men, as I happened to meet them. The first said, he had not thought of it, but that, at the first view, he did not believe there was any such connexion; the second said he should wish to see it proved before he would believe it; and the third said, he thought there was such a connexion. This difference of opinion among educated men, led me to think that an investigation of the subject might be a matter of interest, and perhaps of profit. As every thing, in this country, depends upon a sound state of morals in the community, whatever bears upon that, deserves our most careful scrutiny.
To discuss this subject understandingly, we must know precisely what we are talking about. What then is taste? This term is sometimes used to express mere desire, as a taste for dress, or for low pleasures. It can hardly be necessary to say that that is not the meaning now attached to it. Taste is defined by Alison, to be, ”That faculty of the human mind by which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature or of art.” According to this definition, which is sufficiently correct for our present purpose, it will be perceived that there is, first, a perception of certain qualities in external objects, and then, according to the nature of the object, an emotion of beauty, or of sublimity in the mind. These emotions are, of course, incapable of definition except by stating the occasions on which they arise, and can be known only by being felt. To talk of an emotion to those who have not felt it, is like talking of colors to the blind. And here I may remark, that these terms, beauty and sublimity, have, in common with those denoting sensations, an ambiguity which has often produced confusion. As the term heat is used to denote both the sensation we feel on approaching the fire, and that quality in the fire which produces the sensation, so beauty and sublimity are sometimes used to express the emotions in the mind, and sometimes those qualities in external objects which are fitted to produce them, though there is, of course, in the external object, no emotion, nor any thing resembling one.
If this account of taste be correct, it will be perceived that it cannot, with any propriety, be compared, as it often has been, to a bodily sense. The impression upon a bodily sense, necessarily follows the presence of the object, and is uniform in all mankind. A tree clothed in fresh foliage is necessarily seen, and seen to be green by all who turn their eyes upon it. The same tree, when seen, may be p.r.o.nounced by one individual to be beautiful, by another, from some peculiar a.s.sociation, to be the reverse, and by a third, however beautiful in itself, it may be looked upon without any emotion at all.
It is, therefore, a great mistake to suppose, as many do, that those qualities in objects which awaken the emotions of taste, act directly and necessarily upon us, like those which affect the senses.
A second preliminary inquiry is, What are the causes which produce these emotions? And here I barely remark, without inquiring after any common principle by which they produce similar results, that these causes differ widely from each other. The emotions may be awakened by natural objects, by sound, by the products of the imagination, by the combinations of the intellect, and by certain manifestations of the affections and moral character.
A third inquiry is, how the taste can be cultivated? This obviously can be done only on two conditions. The first is, that we put ourselves in situations adapted to produce the emotions of taste; and the second is, that we preserve a state of mind that will permit those emotions to arise. This last, a proper state of mind, though less often considered, is quite as important as the first. ”It is,” says the poet,
”The soul that sees; the outward eyes Present the object, but the mind descries, And thence delight, disgust, or cool indifference rise.”
Upon him whose mind is engrossed by care, or ruffled by pa.s.sion, the most beautiful objects make no impression. To perceive and enjoy them, the mind must be calm. The beauties and sublimities of nature are like the stars, which the storm shuts out, but when the heavens are serene, they come out, one after another, to the eye that is watching for them, till the firmament glows with their light. He, therefore, and he only, who, in a proper state of mind, will place himself in the presence of beautiful or sublime objects, and will compare the effects produced under different circ.u.mstances, will improve his taste, both in its susceptibility to emotion, and in its power of discrimination.
The question then, which we are now prepared to discuss, is, whether such a cultivation and improvement of the taste, has a favorable effect upon the moral character?
That it has such an effect, I infer, first, because we find in the emotions of taste, to say the least, an innocent source of enjoyment for our leisure hours, and the mind that is innocently happy, is less accessible to temptation. Indolence, mere vacuity, we all know, is the porch of vice, and the great dangers to the young arise from their leisure hours--from the want of some means of innocent mental exhilaration, in which they can be induced to spend those hours. It was said by Franklin, that leisure was a time in which to do something useful; but all are not Franklins. If leisure time can be, as it is by many, usefully employed, so much the better; but he who should provide for our youth the means and the inducements to spend their leisure time innocently, would be a public benefactor. In our cities, where the temptations to mere sensual gratification are so numerous and obtrusive, and where natural objects are very much excluded, this is a point of great importance, and of great difficulty. Until of late very little of this kind has been attempted, unless theatres may be called an attempt.
But theatres with us are out of the question, for Miss Martineau says that ”the Americans have very little dramatic taste; and that the spirit of puritanism still rises up in such fierce opposition to the stage, as to forbid the hope that this grand means of intellectual exercise will ever be made the instrument of moral good to society there, that it might be made.” She says, moreover, so hopeless is our case, that ”those who respect dramatic entertainments the most highly, will be the most anxious that the American theatres should be closed.” Theatres are indeed out of the question, and I trust it will be a long time before we shall make progress backwards, to that state of morals which is produced by the instructions even of an English theatre.
It is in view of the want now under consideration, that the establishment of a.s.sociations for literary purposes, and for procuring popular lectures open to all, is not only a new, but a most promising feature in the history of our cities. Man needs, and must have, excitement and mental exhilaration, and our Creator, if we would but see it, has not been inattentive to this want of our frame. No; to supply it, we have the pleasures of rational social converse, the play of the affections, the duties of kindness and benevolence--does a man feel depressed, let him do a good action--and last, but not least, the gratifications of taste: all the pleasure to be derived from the concord of sweet sounds, from the charms of literature, from the forms and colors and groupings of nature, from her sunrisings and sunsettings, from her landscapes of mountain and valley and lake and river, from the stars that roll in their courses, and the flowers that nod to each other by the way-side.--These are the sources of mental exhilaration which G.o.d has provided; and they are, to the artificial stimulants of theatrical exhibitions and of gambling, what the cold water that was drank in Eden is to brandy and gin. May I not here venture to say to young men, 'Beware how you spend your _leisure_ hours! your character and destiny in life will probably turn upon it.' Among the means, as I have already said, of spending these hours at least innocently, the gratifications of taste are conspicuous. They seem for this very purpose to have been had distinctly in view in the fitting up of this world; and so far as they lure the mind from the lower gratifications of sense, they must be favorable to morals.
The remarks now made respect taste chiefly as a guard against evil; but I cannot dismiss this head without noticing more fully its positive influence, as a source of innocent enjoyment, upon morals. A good taste, and I do not hold myself answerable for its perversions, involves a ready susceptibility to the emotions of beauty and sublimity, and of course a readiness to receive pleasure from the common appearances of nature, and from every free and natural expression of good feeling. It is, in my view, of the first importance both to character and to happiness, that the young should cultivate a relish for those simple and natural pleasures, the sources of which are open to all. It is important to happiness. How much happiness does the young florist secure, who can look upon the common violet as it opens its eye from under the snows of the early spring, with much the same pleasure as upon the choice exotic which is resorted to and exclusively admired by those who have unfortunately been taught that it is vulgar to admire what is common!
How much happiness does he secure who is touched by a beautiful action wherever he sees it, who appreciates sympathy wherever he finds it, and however expressed! A mind rightly const.i.tuted in this respect, drinks in enjoyment from the objects and occurrences of daily life, as the eye does light. It is also essential to character. How many young men enter life with a false estimate of the advantages which wealth and fas.h.i.+on can confer; who find their happiness, not in the contemplation and pursuit of appropriate objects, but in what others think of them, and to whom the world becomes insipid unless _they_ make a figure in it! Let now misfortune come upon such men, and the world fails them. _Their_ world is gone; they have no resource; they become, generally dishonest, sometimes inefficient and gloomy, and commit suicide. These persons come to consider the common and truly great blessings which G.o.d has given as nothing unless they may possess those artificial and egotistical enjoyments which arise from conventional society. They see not the splendid ornaments and rich provisions which, to adopt, with a slight accommodation, the beautiful language of another, are gathered round the earth for them;--”its ocean of air above, its ocean of water beneath, its zodiac of lights, its tent of dropping clouds, its striped coat of climates, its fourfold year.” It is nothing to them, if they have not man for their servant, that ”all the parts of nature incessantly work into each other's hands for their profit; that the wind sows the seed, the sun evaporates the sea, the wind blows the vapor to the field, the ice on the other side of the planet condenses the rain on this, and thus the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man.” What a change when such a person is brought back to a true relish of the simple pleasures of nature! Even sickness, depriving him for a time of what he had undervalued, if it bring him back to this, is a blessing; and then the result may be stated in the words of Gray:--
”See the wretch who long has tost On the th.o.r.n.y bed of pain, At length regain his vigor lost, And breathe and walk again.”
Then,
”The meanest flow'ret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening paradise!”
Then, though he may hold little property by that t.i.tle which the law gives, he yet feels that the universe is his for those n.o.bler purposes for which it was intended to act on the spirit:
”His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers;”
and he looks back upon his former discontent as the petulance of a child. The simple beauties and the glad voices of nature have made him a man again.
But again, I infer that there is a connexion between good taste and good morals, because there is an a.n.a.logy between those qualities in matter which excite the emotions of taste, and those relations on which morals depend. So much is this the case, that some philosophers found morality upon a theory of the beautiful, considering it a sublime harmony. In all beautiful objects in nature, or in art, there is an order, a propriety, a fitness, a proportion; and the impression which these make upon us is so a.n.a.logous to that which is made by virtuous conduct, that we use the same terms to express both. To me, indeed, it seems that beauty in matter is to moral beauty what instinct is to reason, or what the light of the moon is to that of the sun; containing some of the same elements, but dest.i.tute of the highest. Hence, as we should naturally expect, morals furnish that region in the province of taste in which she gathers those flowers that are richest in beauty and sweetest in perfume.
”Is aught so fair, In all the dewy landscape of the spring, In the bright eye of Hesper, or the morn, In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair As virtuous friends.h.i.+p?”
But I observe again, that as there is the a.n.a.logy just pointed out between their causes, so there is an affinity between the emotions themselves of taste and correct moral feeling, and the transition from one to the other is obvious. This point requires ill.u.s.tration. That our emotions are a.s.sociated in groups, is practically known to every body.
Even the child does not ask his father for a sixpence when he is in an ill temper, because he knows the transition is not easy from ill temper to generosity. Deep grief cannot pa.s.s at once to sudden joy. It must be by a gradual transition, first to a tender melancholy, and then to cheerfulness, and then to joy. ”The garment of sorrow,” as Coleridge expresses it, ”must be drawn off so gradually, and that to be put in its stead so gradually slipt on and feel so like the former, that the sufferer shall be sensible of the change only by the refreshment.” It is by understanding well these affinities of the feelings that the orator can continue to control them as they pa.s.s over their widest range. The necessity of a suitable state of mind in order that the emotions of taste may arise, has already been noticed, and what I now observe is, that a state of correct moral feeling is more favorable to these emotions than any other. There is between them such an affinity that they readily a.s.sociate with each other; while there is, between the emotions of taste and a vicious state of mind, no such affinity, but they are to a great extent incompatible.