What we have already said, we confess, appears to us conclusive against the idea of this Beauty being any fixed or inherent property of the objects to which it is ascribed, or itself the object of any separate and in dependent faculty; and we will no longer conceal from the reader what we take to be the true solution of the difficulty. In. our opinion, then, our sense of Beauty depends entirely on our previous experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and consists in the suggestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we had formerly been made familiar by the direct and in telligible agency of our common sensibilities :--and that vast variety of objects, to which we give the com mon name of Beautiful, become entitled to that appel lation, merely because they all possess the power of recalling or reflecting those !sensations of which they have been the accompaniments, or with which they have been associated m our imagination by any more casual bond of connection. According to this view of the matter, therefore, Beauty is not an inherent property or quality of objects at all, but the resultofthe accidental relations in which they may stand to our experience of pleasures or emotions — and does net depend upon any particular configt;ra tion of parts, proportions, or colours, in external things, nor upon the unity, coherence, or simplicity cif intellectual creations,--but merely upon the associa tions which, in the case of every hAvidual, may enable these inherent, and otherwise indifibreet qualities, to suggest or recal to the mind emotions of a pleasur able or interesting description. It follows, therefore, that no object is beautiful in itself,—or could. appear so, antecedent to our experience of direct pleasures or emotions; and that, as an infinite variety of ob jects may thus reflect interesting ideas, so all of them may acquire the title of Beautiful, although utterly diverse and disparate in their nature, and possessing nothing in common but this accidental power of re minding us of other emotions.
This theory, which, we believe, is now very generally adopted, though under many needless qualifications, shall be farther developed and il lustrated in the sequel. But at present we shall only remark, that it serves at least to solve the great problem involved in the discussion, by rendering it easily conceivable how objects which have no inhe rent resemblance, nor, indeed, any one quality in common, should yet be united in one common rela tion, and consequentlyacquire one common epithet, just as all the things that belonged to a beloved in dividual may serve to remind us of him, and thus to awake a. kindred class of emotions, though just as un like each other as any of the objects that are classed under the general name of Beautiful. His poetry, for instance, or his slippers,—his acts of bounty, or his —may lead to the same chain of in teresting remembrances, and thus agree in possessing a power of excitement, for the sources of which we should look in vain through all the variety of their physical or metaphysical qualities.
By the help of the same consideration, we get rid of all the mystery of a peculiar sense or faculty, imagined fir the express purpose of perceiving Beau ty ; and discover that the power of Taste is nothing more than the habit of tracing those associations, by which almost all objects may be connected with in teresting emotions. It is easy to understand, that the recollection of any scene of delight or emotion must produce a certain agreeable sensation, and that the objects which introduce these recollections should not appear altogether indifferent to us : Nor is it, per haps, very difficult to imagine, that recollections thus strikingly suggested by some real and present exist eace, should present themselves under a different as pect, and move the mind somewhat differently from these which arise spontaneously in the ordinary course of our reflections, and do ' not thus grow out of a direct and peculiar impression.
The whole of this doctrine, however, we shall en deavour by and bye to establish upon more direct evidence; but having now explained, in a general way, both the difficulties of the subject, and our sug gestion as to their true solution, it is proper that we . should take a short review of the mere considerable theories that have been proposed for the elucidation of this curious question ; which is one of the most delicate, as well as the most popular in the science of metaphysica,—was one of the earliest which exercised the speculative ingenuity of philosophers —and has at last, we think, been more euccessfi;lly treated than any other of a similar description.
In most of these speculations, ea shall findirether imperfect truth, than fundamental error 1.--on at all such errors only &wise natorallyfromthat pe culiar difficulty which we have already.endesvottred explain, as consisting in. the prodigious multitude and Beatty.. diversity of the objects in which the common quality `•1'' of Beauty was to be accounted. for. Those who have not been sufficiently aware of the difficulty have gene rally dogmatised from a small number of instances, and have rather given examples of the occurrence of Beauty in some few classes of objects, than afforded any light. as to that upon which it essentially depended in all—. while those who felt its full force have very often found. no other resource, than to represent Beauty as.
consisting in properties so extremely vague and ge- neral (such, for example, as the power of exciting ideas of relation), as almost to elude our comprehen sion, and, at the same time, of so abstract and meta physical a description, as not to be very intelligibly' stated, as the raclicals of a strong, familiar, and plea surable emotion. This last observation leads us to make one other remark upon the general character of these theories ; and this is, that some of them. seem necessarily to imply the existence of a pe• culler sense or faculty for the perception of Beauty ;, as they resolve it into properties that are not in. any way interesting or agreeable to any of our known faculties. Such are all those which make it. consist in Proportion,—or in Variety, combined with, Regularity,--or in waving lines,—or in Unity,—or the perception of Relations,—without explaining, or attemptimi to explain, how any of these things should. affect us with any delight or emotion. Others, again„, do not require the supposition of any such separate fa-• culty ; because in them the sense of Beauty is consi dered as arising from other more simple and familiar emotions, which are in themselves and beyond all dis pute agreeable. Such are those which teach that Beauty depends on the perception of Utility, or of Design, or Fitness, or in tracing Associations between. its objects and the common.joys or emotions of our nature. Which of these two classes ofispeculation, to one or other of which, we believe, all theories of Beau ty may be reduced, is the most philosophical in itself, we imagine can admit of no question; and we hope in the to leave it as little doubtful, which is be considered as most consistent with the fact. la the mean time, we must give a short account of some of the theories themselves.