CHAPTER III.

OF ACCURACY AND INACCURACY IN IMPRESSIONS OF SENSE.

§ 1. By what

test is the health

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 of them may become theoretic in being received with right feeling.

tive faculty to 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 æsthetic pleasure, something 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 there is 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 æsthetic, 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 that of 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
"right" and
66 wrong" be

the terms

Hence then arise two questions, according to the sense in which § 2. And in the word "right" is taken: the first, in what way an impression of sense may be deceptive, and therefore a conclusion respecting it untrue; and the second, in what way an impression of sense, or the preference of 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, 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 from 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, seeing that 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. And this is precisely analogous to the law of the moral world, whereby men are supposed not only capable of governing their likes and

attached to its conclusions ?

§ 3. What power we have over impressions of

sense.

§ 4. Depends on

acuteness of attention.

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 thou shalt love, the Lord thy God; a vain command if men were not capable of governing and directing their affections.

I assert therefore, that even with respect to impressions of sense, we have a power of preference, and a corresponding duty; and I shall show first the nature of the power, and afterwards the nature of the duty.

Let us take an instance from one of the lowest of the senses, and observe the kind of power we have over the impressions of lingual taste. On the first offering of two different things to the palate, it is not in our power to prevent or command the instinctive preference. One will be unavoidably and helplessly preferred to the other. But if the same two things be submitted to judgment frequently and attentively, it will be often found that their relations change. The palate, which at first perceived only the coarse and violent qualities of either, will, as it becomes more experienced, acquire greater subtlety of discrimination, perceiving in both characters at first unnoticed, which on continued experience will probably become more influential than the first impressions; and whatever this final verdict may be, it is felt by the person who gives it, and received by others, as a more correct one than the first.

So, then, the power we have over the preference of impressions of taste is not actual nor immediate, but only a power of testing and comparing them frequently and carefully, until that which is the more permanent, the more consistently agreeable, be determined. But when the instrument of taste is thus in some degree perfected and rendered subtle, by its being practised upon a single object, its conclusions will be more rapid with respect to others, and it will be able to distinguish more quickly in other things, and even to prefer at once those qualities which are calculated finally to give it most pleasure, though more capable with respect to those on which it is more frequently exercised; whence people are called judges with respect to this or that particular object of Taste.

conclusions

Now, that verdicts of this kind are received as authoritative by § 5. Ultimate others, proves another and more important fact; namely, that not universal. only changes of opinion take place in consequence of experience, but that those changes are from variation of opinion to unity of opinion, and that whatever may be the differences of estimate among unpractised or uncultivated tastes, there will be unity of taste among the experienced; and that, therefore, the result of repeated trial and experience is to arrive at principles of preference in some sort common to all, and which are a part of our nature.

I select the sense of taste for an instance, because it is the least favourable to the position I hold, since there is more latitude allowed, and more actual variety of verdict, in the case of this sense than of any other; and yet, however susceptible of variety even the ultimate approximations of its preferences may be, the authority of judges is distinctly allowed; and we hear every day the admission, by those of unpractised palate, that they are, or may be, wrong in their opinions respecting the real pleasurableness of things either to themselves or to others.

is attached to

The sense, however, in which they thus use the word "wrong § 6. What duty is merely that of falseness or inaccuracy in conclusion, not of this power over moral delinquency. But there is, as I have stated, a duty, more impressions of or less imperative, attached to every power we possess, and therefore to this power over the lower senses as well as to all others.

And this duty is, evidently, to bring every sense into that state of cultivation in which it shall form the truest conclusions respecting all that is submitted to it, and procure us the greatest amount of pleasure consistent with its due relation to other senses and functions. Which three constituents of perfection in sense, true judgment, maximum sensibility, and right relation to others, are invariably coexistent and involved one by the other; for the true judgment is the result of the high sensibility, and the high sensibility of the right relation. Thus, for instance, with respect to pleasures of taste, it is our duty not to devote such inordinate attention to the discrimination of them as must be inconsistent with our pursuit, and destructive of our capacity, of higher and preferable pleasures, but to cultivate the sense of them in that way which is consistent with all other good; by temperance, namely,

sense.

§ 7. How rewarded,

§ 8. Errors induced by the power of habit.

and by such attention as the mind, at certain resting moments, may fitly pay even to so ignoble a source of pleasure as this. By which discipline we shall bring the faculty of taste itself to its real maximum of sensibility; for it cannot be doubted that health, hunger, and such general refinement of bodily habits as shall make the body a perfect and fine instrument in all respects, are better promoters of actual enjoyment of taste, than the sickened, sluggish, hard-stimulated fastidiousness of Epicurism.

So also it will certainly be found with all the senses, that they individually receive the greatest and purest pleasure when they are in right condition and degree of subordination to all the rest, and that by the over-cultivation of any one (for morbid sources of pleasure, and correspondent temptations to irrational indulgence, confessedly are attached to all) we shall add more to their power as instruments of punishment than of pleasure.

If then, as we find in this example of the lowest sense, the power we have over sensation depends mainly on the exercise of attention through certain prolonged periods, and if by this exercise we arrive at ultimate, constant, and common sources of agreeableness, casting off those which are external, accidental, and individual, that which is required in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the Essence of the beautiful is nothing more than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it, by which those which are shallow, false, or peculiar to times and temperaments, may be distinguished from those that are eternal. And this dwelling upon and fond contemplation of them (the Anschauung of the Germans) is perhaps as much as was meant by the Greek Theoria; and it is indeed a very noble exercise of the souls of men, and one by which they are peculiarly distinguished from the anima of lower creatures, which cannot, I think, be proved to have any capacity of contemplation at all, but only a restless vividness of perception and conception, the "fancy" of Hooker (Eccl. Pol. book i. chap. vi. 2.).

But two very important points are to be observed respecting the direction and discipline of the attention in the early stages of judgment. The first, that, for beneficent purposes, the nature of man has been made reconcileable by custom to many things naturally painful to it, and even improper for it, and that there