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it would not exist for man. It makes itself known by sensible traits, whose entire beauty is merely the reflection of spiritual beauty." (pp. 107-113.)

We have now followed our author through what may be considered his Theory or Philosophy of the Beautiful; the remainder of his treatise being devoted to the consideration of art as "the expression of the beautiful," we will not now bring before the notice of our readers. It remains to consider the value of M. Cousin's theory. What has he accomplished? What new light has he thrown upon the subject which, to so many and such acute and powerful minds, has proved, as before taking up his theory we endeavored to show, a dark and perplexing problem? Has he given us any clearer and profounder idea of the nature of beauty than we had before? Are we better prepared, after reading him, to decide, when any object in nature or art is presented to us, the questions: Is this truly beautiful? and Why? If not, then, so far as this matter is concerned, all his admitted powers of reasoning and analysis, all his acuteness and logic, all his eloquence, have been vain. And yet no-not altogether vain: for though they may have failed to give us any specific and infallible test by which, (so to speak,) we may discover and detect beauty, by a sort of formal and scientific process, yet if they have given us higher and purer and nobler views of its nature, end and origin--if they have helped to invest it in our eyes with a deeper significancy-to throw around it a holier radiance, a diviner light, they have not been altogether useless and unprofitable. But, without attempting a critical and philosophical analysis of his theory, which, to be complete and thorough, would require an examination of his entire system of metaphysics, since this, whether consciously or not, must give shape and color to all of his speculations, on whatever subject, let us examine some of the distinct and more intelligiblo conclusions at which he arrives. We say the distinct and more intelligible conclusions, because we frankly confess that some of the conclusions at which he seems (to himself) to have arrived, by a series of vague, shadowy and intangible steps, seem to us quite as vague and shadowy as the steps themselves. And even sometimes when the steppingstones into the region of the obscure and undiscovered. are those which are firmest and most familiar, they are launched so far "into the infinite," and so far apart, that VOL. XVI.-No. 31.

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those of us who are ungifted with the seven-leagued boots of transcendentalism find it impossible to leap from the one to the other, and are therefore compelled to wait patiently until our author, who (if we may be excused the pun) "o'erleaps himself and falls on the other side," turns. round, looks back upon us, and assures us that we have safely arrived at the point proposed.

There are some points, however, which we think he has clearly shown-points, too, of the greatest importance, not only with reference to philosophy but to art and to morals. In the first place, he has drawn a broad distinction between the agreeable and the beautiful-things which preceding writers on the subject have so often confounded, especially the authors of such material and sensational theories as those of Kames and Burke. The agreeable appeals to the senses; the beautiful to the mind, the soul, About the first we cannot reason-it is a matter of individual sensation, depends upon each one's physical organization, and here the maxim, "De gustibus nil disputandum," strictly applies. But the beautiful appeals to the reason, the nobler and diviner part of man, and irresistibly commands its assent. Of course this reason must be a cultivated, an educated reason, for cultivation and education are necessary to elevate and purify it, clogged and fettered as it is by its union with our grosser nature, and dragged towards earth by earthly passions and appetites. It is true the agreeable and the beautiful may be, and often are, united in the same object; but then the emotion we feel is complex-it is not what our author considers the pure and disinterested sentiment of the beautiful. The following passage admirably expresses all this:

"We admit that physical sensibility can be united with moral sensibility-that is to say, the same object will arouse, by one of its aspects, the sentiment of the beautiful, and by another an agreeable sensation. Thus, a man in the presence of female beauty rarely experiences a sentiment wholly pure and simple. But, let the artist reproduce, and, as it were, ennoble this beauty, and it may possibly still occasion a mixture of sentiment and sensation in some few; but the sensation will be far more seldom felt in the presonce of works of art, and if it is at all developed, it distresses and enfeebles the sentiment of the beautiful." p. 70.

As illustrating this still further, we may be allowed to quote some of his remarks, where he considers and exposes the fallacy of the theory which sprang up in France in

the last century, that "the sentiment excited in us by the sight of external beauty is a pure sensation, followed by the desire of possession."

"We think the truth is in the very contrary to this opinion, that the sentiment of the beautiful is wholly disinterested; that, far from its occasioning the least desire in us to possess, to enjoy the object, to make it our own altogether, our sentiment, so to speak, is poised upon itself and spreads around a kind of veneration. *** This perhaps led Burke to make a remark which he did not see the full compass of, that the property of beauty is not to excite desire, but to repress it. In truth, the more beautiful a woman is, the more as you look upon her is desire displaced by a pure sentiment, a disinterested veneration. Such is the opinion of a true friend to art. If the sight of a beautiful statue awakens in us the desire of possession let us have nothing to do with the beautiful, for we are not made to enjoy it-we are not artists. And since the sentiment of the beautiful is not desire, what should be said of those painters who endeavor to beguile the senses, to exactly copy the real, and to represent such forms as can awaken sensual appetite and the desire of possession? They miss the great end of art," &c.

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If our author has done nothing more he has at least enforced a high and noble sentiment-he has at least removed beauty from the low sphere of sense and elevated it to the region of the spiritual-he has made it the imbodiment or expression of a moral idea. For this we thank him. Vague, though his theory be in a scientific point of view, (though surely not more so than those of "utility," or "uniformity amid variety," or "the 'happy medium" or association," &c., &c.,) yet how much more noble and elevated than those of the material and sensational philophy-how much more consistent and universally applicable than those of the common-sense school." We have spoken of his theory as vague--and so we must consider it if we go to it for the purpose of being furnished with any exact rule, and any precise standard, by which we may infallibly decide in any given case, whether an object is beautiful or not. Such a rule we never can hope to attain. The infinite forms of beauty can never be comprised in a formula. It can never be reached, never be expressed in art by the mere formal application of theorems, by closely following a lifeless rule. Nor except so far as the gratification of a philosophical curiosity is concerned, is it necessary to arrive at any such formula or lay down any such

rule. Whether its object be to enable us to perceive and appreciate the beautiful or to give it an outward and sensible expression (in which consists all art) it is alike unnecessary. The perception of beauty is in its very nature intuitive; every attempt, therefore, to awaken it by a process of reasoning or to show by such a process, in what it consists must prove futile. We perceive beauty by a sort of spiritual sense-call it taste* if you choose-analogous to the corporeal sense by which we perceive flavors. One thing is beautiful, another ugly-one substance is sweet, another bitter. We can no more say why a circle is more pleasing than an irregular figure--why green, or blue or pink, are more agreeable than brown-why the tones of the flute are more delightful than those of the fife-than we can say why sugar is more agreeable to the palate than aloes.†

Place yourself before a beautiful landscape. Let there be lofty mountains, undulating valleys, stately trees clothed with the richest foliage, bright and meandering streamsall that in natural scenery is most captivating and striking. What is it that charms and delights us-that fills the soul to overflowing with the most exquisite and at the same time elevating emotions? Or what is it that swells the breast-that seems to dilate the soul, when bending over the page of Shakspeare-gazing at the canvass of Raphael, or the marble of Canova, or listening to the pathetic tones of Rossini or Mozart? You may endeavor to analyze it by referring it to this or that faculty of the mind. You may say the imagination is roused-the fancy is pleased- but these are only phrases to conceal our ignorance. ""Tis the divinity that stirs within us"--that mysterious love of the beautiful which God himself has implanted in our

"I mean," says Burke, "by the word taste, no more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind which are affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and the elegant arts." He should have added, "or of the beauties of nature," since these fall as much within the province of taste as the Fine Arts.

Lucretius does undertake to say why some things taste sweet and others bitter. Because the particles of the one are round and smooth; those of the other rough and sharp!

"Hæc ubi lævia sunt manantis corpora succi,
Suaviter attingunt et suaviter omnia tractant,
Humidai linguæ circum sudantia templa.
At contra pungunt sensum, lacerant que coörta,
Quanto quæque magis sunt asperitate repleta."

De Re. Nat. Lib. iv.626.

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souls. If they are properly "attuned to harmony," with what is true and pure and elevated, then will beauty always reveal itself to us; not by any logical process of the understanding-but through that "electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound"--by touching the mysterious chord of sympathy with which our hearts, otherwise adrift through sin and corruption, are still drawn by a gentle, but,. to the spiritual, constraining force, towards the central and infinite beauty, goodness and truth.

But if by no formal rule-no "analysis" of sensible "qualities"-can we define beauty or perceive it, so by noformal rule can we give expression to it or become Artists. The true artist does not disdain or neglect the technical rules of his art, but these cannot supply the place of the informing energy, the life-infusing power which is what really gives birth to every work of art. This is furnished by what M. Cousin terms "the sentiment of the beautiful." His ideas of the pure and elevated nature of this we have already sufficiently dwelt upon and unfolded in his own words. This, every true artist must be endowed with by nature. This is his inspiration. The purer and stronger this light burns within his soul--the grander and nobler will be works that come from his hands. If this light be feeble, if it shine dim through the murky atmosphere of the senses the fogs that rise from earth-if this generativewarmth this Promethean spark be wanting-vain will be all efforts to supply its place by the factitious brilliancy of such formal and elaborate ornaments as mere technical precepts can enable one to form, upon whatever "theory of beauty" (even supposing it perfectly true and exact) they may be based. He who has within him the power of giving outward expression to the beautiful, of being an artist, will express it without the aid of theories and in spite of them. We believe that nature by conferring on a man a certain spiritual and intellectual organization sets him apart to be her "minister et interpres" through the medium best suited to that particular organization. Hence he has a mission to perform, which sometimes consciously, oftener unconsciously-sometimes blindly, sometimes with a clear conception of its dignity and importance-he labors at with life-long energy and perseverance. This is no transcendental theory. It is coeval with art itself. The ancient Egyptian believed it when he traced its origin to his god

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