The infinite variety of the affections of the soul will suggest to a good head,and skilful ear,a variety of such sounds as are fitted to raise them.It can be no prejudice to this,to clear and distinguished some few particulars,that belong to the same class,and are consistent with each other,from the immense crowd of different,and sometimes contradictory,ideas,that rank vulgarly under the standard of beauty.And of these it is my intention to mark such only of the leading points as show the conformity of the sense of Hearing with all the other senses,in the article of their pleasures.
XXVI
Taste And Smell This general agreement of the senses is yet more evident on minutely considering those of taste and smell.We metaphorically apply the idea of sweetness to sights and sounds;but as the qualities of bodies,by which they are fitted to excite either pleasure or pain in these senses,are not so obvious as they are in the others,we shall refer an explanation of their analogy,which is a very close one,to that part,wherein we come to consider the common efficient cause of beauty,as it regards all the senses.I do not think anything better fitted to establish a clear and settled idea of visual beauty than this way of examining the similar pleasures of other senses;for one part is sometimes clear in one of the senses,that is more obscure in another;and where there is a clear concurrence of all,we may with more certainty speak of any one of them.By this means,they bear witness to each other;nature is,as it were,scrutinized;and we report nothing of her but what we receive from her own information.
XXVII
The Sublime And Beautiful Compared On closing this general view of beauty,it naturally occurs,that we should compare it with the sublime;and in this comparison there appears a remarkable contrast.For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions,beautiful ones comparatively small:beauty should be smooth and polished;the great,rugged and negligent;beauty should shun the right line,yet deviate from it insensibly;the great in many cases loves the right line,and when it deviates it often makes a strong deviation:beauty should not be obscure;the great ought to be dark and gloomy:beauty should be light and delicate;the great ought to be solid,and even massive.They are indeed ideas of a very different nature,one being founded on pain,the other on pleasure;and however they may vary afterwards from the direct nature of their causes,yet these causes keep up an eternal distinction between them,a distinction never to be forgotten by any whose business it is to affect the passions.In the infinite variety of natural combinations,we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the same object.We must expect also to find combinations of the same kind in the works of art.But when we consider the power of an object upon our passions,we must know that when anything is intended to affect the mind by the force of some predominant property,the affection produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect,if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the same nature,and tending to the same design,as the principal.
If black and white blend,soften,and unite A thousand ways,are there no black and white?
If the qualities of the sublime and beautiful are sometimes found united,does this prove that they are the same;does it prove that they are any way allied;does it prove even that they are not opposite and contradictory?Black and white may soften,may blend;but they are not therefore the same.Nor,when they are so softened and blended with each other,or with different colours,is the power of black as black,or of white as white,so strong as when each stands uniform and distinguished.
