Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will

by Joseph Haven

I. Is beauty something objective, or merely subjective and emotional?

II. If the former, then what is it in the object that constitutes its beauty?

I. Question stated.—Is beauty merely subjective, an emotion of our own minds, or is it a quality of objects? When we speak, e. g., of the beauty of a landscape, or of a painting, do we mean merely a certain excitement of our sensitive nature, a certain feeling awakened by the object, or do we mean some quality or property belonging to that object? If the latter, then are we correct in attributing any such quality to the object?

Emotion admitted.—Unquestionably, certain pleasing emotions are awakened in the mind in view of certain objects which we term beautiful; unquestionably those objects are the cause or occasion of such emotions; they have, under favorable circumstances, the power of producing them; unquestionably they have this power by virtue, moreover, of some quality or property pertaining to them. All this will be admitted by those who deny the objective reality of beauty. The question is not, whether there is in the object any quality which is the occasion or cause of our emotion, but whether the term beauty is properly the name of that cause, or of the emotion it produces.

Beauty not an Emotion.—The question would seem a very plain one if submitted to common sense. It would seem strange that any one should deliberately and intelligently take the position that beauty and sublimity are merely emotions of our minds, and not qualities of objects: when we hear men speaking in this way, we are half inclined to suspect that we misunderstand them, or that they misunderstand themselves. I look upon a gorgeous sunset, and call it beautiful. What is it that is beautiful? That sky, that cloud, that coloring, those tints that fade into each other and change even as I behold them, those lines of fire that lie in brilliant relief upon the darker background, as if some radiant angel had thrown aside his robe of light as he flew, or had left his smile upon the cloud as he passed through the golden gates of Hesperus, these, these, are beautiful; there lies the beauty, and surely not in me, the beholder. An emotion is in my mind, but that emotion is not beauty; it is simple admiration, i. e., wonder and delight. There is no such emotion as beauty, common as is the ambiguous expression "emotion of beauty." There are emotions of fear, hope, joy, sorrow, and the like, and these emotions I experience; I know what they mean; but I am not conscious of having ever experienced an emotion of beauty, though I have often been filled with wonder and delight at the sight of the beautiful in nature or art. When I experience an emotion of fear, of hope, of joy, or of sorrow, what is it that is joyful or sorrowful, hopeful or fearful? My mind, of course, that is, I, myself. The object that occasions the emotion on my part, is in no other sense fearful or joyful than as it is the occasion of my being so. If, in like manner, beauty is an emotion, and I experience that emotion, it is, of course, my mind that is beautiful, and not the object contemplated. It is I, myself, that am beautiful, not the sunset, the painting, the landscape, or any thing of that sort, whatever. These things are merely the occasion of my being beautiful. Could any doctrine be more consoling to those who are conscious of any serious deficiency on the score of personal attractions! Can any thing be more absurd?

The common View correct.—I beg leave to take the common sense view of this question, which I cannot but think is, in the present instance, the most correct, and still to think and speak of the beauty of objects, and not of our own minds. Such is certainly the ordinary acceptation and use of the term, nor can any reason be shown why, in strictest philosophy, we should depart from it. There is no need of applying the term to denote the emotion awakened in the mind, for that emotion is not, in itself, either a new or a nameless one, but simply that mingled feeling of wonder and delight which we call admiration, and which passes, it may be, into love. To make beauty itself an emotion, is to be guilty of a double absurdity. It is to leave the quality of the object which gives rise to the emotion altogether without a name, and bestow that name where it is not needed, on that which has already a name of its own.

Beauty still objective, though reflected from the Mind.—If to this it be replied, that the beauty which we admire and which seems to be a property of the external object, is, nevertheless, of internal origin, being merely a transfer to the object, and association with it, of certain thoughts and feelings of our own minds, a reflection of our own consciousness gilding and lighting up the objects around us, which objects are then viewed by us as having a light and beauty of their own, I answer, that even on this supposition, the external object, as thus illumined, has the power of awakening the pleasing emotion within us, and that power is its beauty, a property or quality of the object still, although borrowed originally from the mind; just as the moon, though it give but a reflected light, still shines, and with a beauty of its own. So long as those thoughts and feelings lay hidden in the mind, untransferred, unassociated with the external object, they were not beauty. Not until the object is invested with them, and they have become a property of that object, do they assume, to the mental eye, the quality of beauty. So, then, beauty is even still an objective reality, something that lies without us, and not within us.

The Power of expressing an objective Quality, likewise.—In like manner, if it be contended that beauty is only the sign and expression of mental qualities, I reply, that power of signifying or expressing is certainly a property of the object, and that property is its beauty, and is certainly a thing objective, and not a mere emotion.

All Beauty not Reflection, nor Expression.—I am far from conceding, however, that all beauty is either the reflection or expression of what passes within the mind. There are objects which no play of the fancy, no transfer or association of the mental states, can ever render beautiful; while, on the other hand, there are others which require no such association, but of themselves shine forth upon us with their own clear and lustrous beauty. Suppose a child of lively sensibility, and with that true love of the beautiful, wherever discerned, which is one of the finest traits of the child's nature, to look for the first time upon the broad expanse of the ocean; it lies spread out before him a new and sudden revelation of beauty; its extent of surface, unbroken by the petty lines and boundaries that divide and mark off the lands upon the shore; its wonderful deep blue, a color he has seen hitherto only in the firmament above him, and not there as here—that deep blue relieved by the white sails, that, like birds of snowy wing, flit across its peaceful bosom, or lie motionless in the morning light on its calm expanse; its peculiar convexity of surface, as it stretches far out to the horizon, and lifts up its broad shoulders against the sky;—these things he beholds for the first time, they are associated with nothing in his past experience; he has never seen, never dreamed of such a vision; it is not the reflection of his own thoughts or fancies; but it is, nevertheless, to him a scene of rare and wondrous beauty, the recollection and first impression of which shall haunt him while he lives. If, in after life, he came to philosophize upon the matter, it would be difficult to convince him that what he thus admired was but the play of his own imagination, the transfer of his own mental state, the association of his own thought and feeling with the object before him; in a word, that the beauty which so charmed him lay not at all in the object contemplated, but only in his own mind.

A further Question.—That the beauty which we perceive is a quality of objects, and not merely a subjective emotion, that there is in the object something which, call it what we will, is the producing cause of the emotion in us, and that this objective cause, whatever it be, is, in the proper use of terms, to be recognized as beauty, this we have now sufficiently discussed. Admitting, however, these positions, the question may still arise, whether that which we call beauty in objects has, after all, an absolute existence, independent of the mind that is impressed by it? The beauty that I admire in yonder landscape, or in the wild flower that blooms at my feet, is, indeed, the beauty of the landscape or the flower, and not of my mind; it pertains to, and dwells in, the object, and not in me; but dwells it there independently of me, the observer, and when I do not behold it? If there were no intelligent, observing mind, to behold and feel that beauty, would the object still be beautiful, even as now? This admits of question. Is the beauty a fixed, absolute quality, inherent in the object as such, and per se, or is it something springing out of the relation between the mind of the observer and the object observed.