V. The Idea of the Beautiful, and of Right.
These Ideas Intuitive.—- Among the primary ideas awakened in the mind by the faculty of original or intuitive conception, ideas of reason, as some writers would prefer to call them, must be included the notion of the beautiful, and also that of right—ideas more important in themselves, and in their bearing on human happiness, than almost any others which the mind entertains. That these ideas are to be traced, ultimately, to the originative or intuitive faculty, there can be little doubt. They are simple and primary ideas. They have the characteristics of universality and necessity. They are awakened intuitively and instantaneously in the mind, when the appropriate occasion is presented by sense. There are certain objects in nature and art, which, so soon as perceived, strike us as beautiful. There are certain traits of character and courses of conduct, which, so soon as observed, strike us as morally right and wrong. The ideas of the beautiful and the right are thus awakened in the mind on the perception of the corresponding objects.
Things to be considered respecting them.—Viewed as notions of the intuitive faculty, or original conceptions, it would be in place to consider more particularly the circumstances under which each of these ideas originates, and the characteristics of each; also what constitutes, in either case, the object, what constitutes the beautiful and the right.
These Topics reserved for separate Discussion.—These matters deserve a wider and fuller discussion, however, than would here be in place. The ideas under consideration are to be viewed, not merely as conceptions of the reason or intuition, but as constituting the material of two distinct and important departments of mental activity, two distinct classes of judgments, viz., the æsthetic and the moral. The conceptions of the beautiful and the right, furnished by the originative or intuitive power of the mind, constitute the material and basis on which the reflective power works, and as thus employed, the mental activity assumes the form, and is known under the familiar names of taste and conscience, or, as we may term them, the æsthetic and moral faculties. As such, we reserve them for distinct consideration in the following pages, bearing in mind, as we proceed, that these faculties, so called, are not properly new powers of the mind, but merely forms of the reflective faculty, as exercised upon this particular class of ideas.
CHAPTER III.
THE CONCEPTION AND COGNIZANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL
§ I.—Conception of the Beautiful.
The Science which treats of this.—The investigation of this topic brings us upon the domain of a science as yet comparatively new, and which, in fact, has scarcely yet assumed its place among the philosophic sciences—Æsthetics, the science of the beautiful.