Theoretic. Thus Aristotle has subtly noted that " we call not men intemperate so much with respect to the scents of roses or herb-perfumes as of ointments and of condiments," (though the reason that he gives for this be futile enough.) For the fact is, that of scents artificially prepared the extreme desire is intemperance; but of natural and God-given scents, which take their part in the harmony and pleasantness of creation, there can hardly be intemperance; not that there is any absolute difference between the two kinds, but that these are likely to be received with gratitude and joyfulness rather than those; so that we despise the seeking of essences and unguents, but not the sowing of violets along our garden banks. But all things may be elevated by affection, as the spikenard of Mary, and in the Song of Solomon, the myrrh upon the handles of the lock, and the sense of Isaac of the field-fragrance upon his son. And the general law for all these pleasures is, that when sought in the abstract and ardently, they are foul things; but when received with thankfulness and with reference to God's glory, they become Theoretic; and so we may find something divine in the sweetness of wild fruits, as well as in the pleasantness of the pure air, and the tenderness of its natural perfumes that come and go as they list.

It will now be understood why it was formerly said in the chapter § 8. Ideas of Beauty how esrespecting ideas of beauty, that those ideas were the subject of moral sentially moral. and not of intellectual, nor altogether of sensual, perception; and why I spoke of the pleasures connected with them as derived from “those material sources which are agreeable to our moral nature in its purity and perfection." For, as it is necessary to the existence of an idea of beauty, that the sensual pleasure which may be its basis, should be accompanied first with joy, then with love of the object, then with the perception of kindness in a superior intelligence, finally, with thankfulness and veneration towards that intelligence itself; and as no idea can be at all considered as in any way an idea of beauty, until it be made up of these emotions, any more than we can be said to have an idea of a letter of which we perceive the perfume and the fair writing, without understanding the contents of it, nor intent of it; and as these emotions are in no way resultant from, nor obtainable by, any operation of the Intellect, it is evident that the sensation of beauty is not sensual on the one hand, nor is it intellectual on the other, but is dependent on a pure, right, and open state of the heart, both for its truth, and for its intensity, insomuch

§ 9. How degraded by heartless reception.

that even the right after action of the Intellect upon facts of beauty so apprehended, is dependent on the acuteness of the heart feeling about them; and thus the Apostolic words come true, in this minor respect as in all others, that men are alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, having the Understanding darkened because of the hardness of their hearts, and so being past feeling, give themselves up to lasciviousness; for we do indeed see constantly that men having naturally acute perceptions of the Beautiful, yet, not receiving it with a pure heart, nor into their hearts at all, never comprehend it, nor receive good from it, but make it a mere minister to their desires, and accompaniment and seasoning of lower sensual pleasures, until all their emotions take the same earthly stamp, and the sense of beauty sinks into the servant of lust.

Nor is what the world commonly understands by the cultivation of taste, anything more or better than this; at least in times of corrupt and over-pampered civilization, when men build palaces and plant groves and gather luxuries, that they and their devices may hang in the corners of the world like fine-spun cobwebs, with greedy, puffedup, spider-like lusts in the middle. And this, which, in Christian times, is the abuse and corruption of the sense of beauty, was in that Pagan life of which St. Paul speaks, little less than the essence of it, and the best they had: I do not know that of the expressions of affection towards external nature to be found among Heathen writers, there are any of which the leading thought leans not towards the sensual parts of her. Her beneficence they sought, and her power they shunned; her teaching through both they understood never. The pleasant influences of soft winds and ringing streamlets, and shady coverts; of the violet couch, and plane tree shade, they received, perhaps, in a more noble way than we; but they found not anything except fear, upon the bare mountain, or in the ghostly glen. The Hybla heather they alted by affec- loved more for its sweet hives than its purple hues.' But the Christian Theoria seeks not, though it accepts, and touches with its own purity, what the Epicurean sought; but finds its food and the objects of its love everywhere, in what is harsh and fearful, as well as what is kind: nay, even in all that seems coarse and common-place, seizing that which is good; and sometimes delighting more at finding its table spread in strange places, and in the presence of its enemies, and its honey

§ 10. How ex

tion.

coming out of the rock, than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous pleasure; hating only what is self-sighted and insolent of men's work, despising all that is not of God, unless reminding it of God, yet able to find evidence of him still, where all seems forgetful of him, and to turn that into a witness of his working which was meant to obscure it; and so with clear and unoffended sight beholding him for ever, according to the written promise,-Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

CHAPTER III.

OF ACCURACY AND INACCURACY IN IMPRESSIONS OF SENSE.

test is the health

§ 1. By what HITHERTO we have observed only the distinctions of dignity among of the Percep- pleasures of sense, considered merely as such, and the way in which any tive faculty to of them may become theoretic in being received with right feeling.

be determined?

But as we go farther, and examine the distinctive nature of ideas of beauty, we shall, I believe, perceive something in them besides aesthetic pleasure, which attests a more important function belonging to them than attaches to other sensual ideas, and exhibits a more exalted character in the faculty by which they are received. And this was what I alluded to, when I said in the chapter already referred to (§ 1), that "we may indeed perceive, as far as we are acquainted with the nature of God, that we have been so constructed as in a healthy state of mind to derive pleasure from whatever things are illustrative of that nature.” This point it is necessary now farther to develope.

Our first inquiry must evidently be, how we are authorized to affirm of any man's mind, respecting impressions of sight, that it is in a healthy state or otherwise. What canon or test is there by which we may determine of these impressions that they are or are not rightly esteemed beautiful; for it does not at first appear easy to prove that men ought to like one thing rather than another; and although this is granted generally by men's speaking of bad or good taste, yet the right of individual opinion sometimes claimed even in moral matters, though then palpably without foundation, does not appear altogether irrational in matters aesthetic, wherein little operation of voluntary choice is supposed possible. It would appear strange, for instance, to assert, respecting a particular person who preferred the scent of

violets to roses, that he had no right to do so. And yet, while I have said that the sensation of beauty is intuitive and necessary, as men derive pleasure from the scent of a rose, I have assumed that there are some sources from which it is rightly derived, and others from which it is wrongly derived; in other words that men have no right to think some things beautiful, and no right to remain apathetic with regard to others.

what sense may

and Wrong be

Hence then arise two questions, according to the sense in which the § 2. And in word right is taken; the first, in what way an impression of sense the terms Right may be deceptive, and therefore a conclusion respecting it untrue; and attached to its the second, in what way an impression of sense, or the preference of conclusions. one, may be a subject of will, and therefore of moral duty or delinquency.

To the first of these questions, I answer that we cannot speak of the immediate impression of sense as false, nor of its preference to others as mistaken; for no one can be deceived respecting the actual sensation he perceives or prefers. But falsity may attach to his assertion or supposition, either that what he himself perceives is from the same object perceived by others, or is always to be by himself perceived, or is always to be by himself preferred; and when we speak of a man as wrong in his impressions of sense, we either mean that he feels differently from all, or a majority, respecting a certain object, or that he prefers at present those of his impressions, which ultimately he will not prefer.

To the second I answer, that over immediate impressions and immediate preferences we have no power, but over ultimate impressions, and especially ultimate preferences, we have; and that, though we can neither at once choose whether we shall see an object red, green, or blue, nor determine to like the red better than the blue, or the blue better than the red, yet we can, if we choose, make ourselves ultimately susceptible of such impressions in other degrees, and capable of pleasure in them in different measure; and because, wherever power of any kind is given, there is responsibility attached, it is the duty of men to prefer certain impressions of sense to others, because they have the power of doing so; this being precisely analogous to the law of the moral world, whereby men are supposed not only capable of governing their likes and dislikes, but the whole culpability or propriety of actions is dependent upon this capability; so that men are guilty or otherwise, not for what they do, but for what they desire, the command being not, thou shalt obey, but