ADDITIONAL NOTES. XIII.
ANALYSIS OF TASTE.
Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine,
And Taste sits smiling upon Beauty's shrine.
Canto III. l. 221.
The word Taste in its extensive application may express the pleasures received by any of our senses, when excited into action by the stimulus of external objects; as when odours stimulate the nostrils, or flavours the palate; or when smoothness, or softness, are perceived by the touch, or warmth by its adapted organ of sense. The word Taste is also used to signify the pleasurable trains of ideas suggested by language, as in the compositions of poetry and oratory. But the pleasures, consequent to the exertions of our sense of vision only, are designed here to be treated of, with occasional references to those of the ear, when they elucidate each other.
When any of our organs of sense are excited into their due quantity of action, a pleasurable sensation succeeds, as shown in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. IV. These are simply the pleasures attending perception, and not those which are termed the pleasures of Taste; which consist of additional pleasures arising from the peculiar forms or colours of objects, or of their peculiar combinations or successions, or from other agreeable trains of ideas previously associated with them.
There are four sources of pleasure attendant on the excitation of the nerves of vision by light and colours, besides that simply of perception above mentioned; the first is derived from a degree of novelty of the forms, colours, numbers, combinations, or successions, and visible objects. The second is derived from a degree of repetition of their forms, colours, numbers, combinations, or successions. Where these two circumstances exist united in certain quantities, and compose the principal part of a landscape, it is termed picturesque by modern writers. The third source of pleasure from the perception of the visible world may be termed the melody of colours, which will be shown to coincide with melody of sounds: this circumstance may also accompany the picturesque, and will add to the pleasure it affords. The fourth source of pleasure from the perception of visible objects is derived from the previous association of other pleasurable trains of ideas with certain forms, colours, combinations, or successions of them. Whence the beautiful, sublime, romantic, melancholic, and other emotions, which have not acquired names to express them. We may add, that all these four sources of pleasure from perceptions are equally applicable to those of sounds as of sights.
I. Novelty or infrequency of visible objects.
The first circumstance, which suggests an additional pleasure in the contemplation of visible objects, besides that of simple perception, arises from their novelty or infrequency; that is from the unusual combinations or successions of their forms or colours. From this source is derived the perpetual cheerfulness of youth, and the want of it is liable to add a gloom to the countenance of age. It is this which produces variety in landscape compared with the common course of nature, an intricacy which incites investigation, and a curiosity which leads to explore the works of nature. Those who travel into foreign regions instigated by curiosity, or who examine and unfold the intricacies of sciences at home, are led by novelty; which not only supplies ornament to beauty or to grandeur, but adds agreeable surprise to the point of the epigram, and to the double meaning of the pun, and is courted alike by poets and philosophers.
It should be here premised, that the word Novelty, as used in these pages, admits of degrees or quantities, some objects, or the ideas excited by them, possessing more or less novelty, as they are more or less unusual. Which the reader will please to attend to, as we have used the word Infrequency of objects, or of the ideas excited by them, to express the degrees or quantities of their novelty.
The source, from which is derived the pleasure of novelty, is a metaphysical inquiry of great curiosity, and will on that account excuse my here introducing it. In our waking hours whenever an idea occurs, which is incongruous to our former experience, we instantly dissever the train of imagination by the power of volition; and compare the incongruous idea with our previous knowledge of nature, and reject it. This operation of the mind has not yet acquired a specific name, though it is exerted every minute of our waking hours, unless it may be termed Intuitive Analogy. It is an act of reasoning of which we are unconscious except by its effects in preserving the congruity of our ideas; Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XVII. 5. 7.