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. § 8. Ideas of Beauty, how essentially moral; 3 It will now be understood why it was formerly said in the chapter respecting ideas of beauty, that those ideas were the subject of 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 * All this is right; and more sincerely and passionately written than its affected manner would permit many readers to believe. It unfortunately affects brevity as well as accuracy, and crowds the statements which should have been successively made and patiently explained, into a single sentence, by some tempers entirely inacceptable. [1883.] 1 ["I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock" (v. 5). The other Bible references here are, Mark xiv. 3, Luke vii. 37, John xii. 3, and Genesis xxvii. 27.] 2 [Ed. 1 read, "and that of Isaac concerning his son.] [The passage beginning here, and down to the end of § 9, was read by Ruskin in the first lecture (Nov. 6, 1877) of his Oxford course, "Readings in Modern Painters," in order to show that "whatever other changes or additions may have occurred in my teaching, in this [i.e. in protest against sensual theories of art] it has been consistent and reiterated."] 4 [Modern Painters, vol. i. pt. i. sec. i. ch. vi. § 2; Vol. III. p. 110 of this edition.] perfume and the fair writing, without understanding the contents of it, or 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.1 Dependent both for its truth and for its intensity, insomuch 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 § 9. How dethan this; at least in times of corrupt and over- graded by heartless reception. pampered civilization, when men build palaces, plant groves, and gather luxuries, that they and their devices. may hang in the corners of the world like fine-spun cobwebs, with greedy, puffed-up, 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 1 [In all eds. before 1883 there was only a comma here, and the word “dependent” did not occur. In breaking up the sentences in 1883, Ruskin noted : "I am shorter breathed at sixty-three than I was at six-and-twenty; and am obliged to help myself to a comfortable full-stop, before I can get on with my own sentence."] [Ephesians iv. 18, 19. The quotation marks and italics were introduced in the 1883 ed.; as in the case of the word "heart" at the end of § 10.] 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 § 10. How exalted by affec tion. 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. They loved the Hybla heather* 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 in what is kind: nay, even in all that seems coarse and commonplace, 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 coming out of the rock, than if all were harmonized into a less wondrous pleasure; hating only what is selfsighted 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." 1 *In the old edition, "the Hybla heather they loved," because I thought it classical and dignified to put subject before predicate. So above, "her teaching they understood never," with double inversion, verb before adverb. The contents of the paragraph are good, and were developed at length in the third volume.2 [1883.] CHAPTER III OF ACCURACY AND INACCURACY IN IMPRESSIONS OF SENSE * HITHERTO We have observed only the distinctions of dignity among pleasures of sense, considered merely as § 1. By what such, and the way in which any of them may test is the health become theoretic in being received with right tive faculty to feeling. of the Percep 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)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. * Without giving new headings to chapters, I think it will be useful to mark occasionally for the reader, in simpler terms than he finds in the text, the real progress of the argument. The first chapter asserts, and I think with sufficient force proves, that the external creation is not merely useful to man in furnishing him with food, but chiefly in giving him subjects of admiration and reflection. The second chapter asserts (but has not yet attempted to prove) that this creation cannot be rightly admired, nor truly thought of, but as the work and gift of a loving Creator. The third chapter now enters on the question, what parts or characters of natural things bear most clearly the evidence of having been so created; and by what faculties we discern and prefer them.2 [1883.] 1 [The chapter, referred to above (p. 48), on "Ideas of Beauty," in vol. i. of the book, Vol. III. p. 109 in this edition.] 2 [This note was in the ed. of 1883 printed at the head of the chapter.] Our first inquiry must evidently be, how we are authorized to affirm of any man's mind, that it is in a healthy state or otherwise, respecting impressions of sight;1 and 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. § 2. And in what sense may the terms Hence then arise two questions, according to the sense in which 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 "right" and "wrong" be attached to its conclusions? delinquency. 1 [The words "respecting impressions of sight," were transposed to this place in the 1883 ed.; in previous eds. they came after "any man's mind"; the 1883 ed. also inserted the "and" before "what canon.' ,, The latter passage was different in ed. 1, which reads thus : "What canon or test is there . . . beautiful? To what authority, when men are at variance with each other on this subject, shall it be deputed to judge which is right? or is there any such authority or canon at all ?* "For it does not. . . taste, it is frequently denied, when we press to particulars, by the assertion of each individual that he has a right to his opinion a right which is sometimes claimed even in moral matters, though then palpably without foundation, but which does not appear," etc.] |