Concerning the final cause of our taste for variety, it will be considered, that human affairs, complex by variety as well as number, require the distributing our attention and activity, in measure and proportion. Nature therefore, to secure a just distribution corresponding to the variety of human affairs, has made too great uniformity or too great variety in the course of our perceptions equally unpleasant. And indeed, were we addicted to either extreme, our internal constitution would be ill suited to our external circumstances. At the same time, where a frequent reiteration of the same operation is required, as in several manufactures, or a quick circulation, as in law or physic, Nature, attentive to all our wants, hath also provided for these cases. She hath implanted in the breast of every person, an efficacious principle, which leads to habit. By an obstinate perseverance in the same occupation, the pain of excessive uniformity vanisheth; and by the like perseverance in a quick circulation of different occupations, the pain of excessive variety vanisheth. And thus we come to take delight in several occupations, that by nature, without habit, are not a little disgustful.
A middle rate also in our train of perceptions betwixt uniformity and variety, is not less pleasant, than betwixt quickness and slowness. The mind of man thus constituted, is wonderfully adapted to the course of human affairs, which are continually changing, but not without connection. It is equally adapted to the acquisition of knowledge, which results chiefly from discovering resemblances among differing objects, and differences among resembling objects. Such occupation, even abstracting from the knowledge we acquire, is in itself delightful, by preserving a middle rate betwixt too great uniformity and too great variety.
We are now arrived at the chief purpose of the present chapter; and that is to examine how far uniformity or variety ought to be studied in the fine arts. And the knowledge we have obtained, will even at first view suggest a general observation, That in every work of art, it must be agreeable to find that degree of variety which corresponds to the natural course of our perceptions; and that an excess in variety or in uniformity, must be disagreeable by varying that natural course. For this reason, works of art admit more or less variety according to the nature of the subject. In a picture that strongly attaches the spectator to a single object, the mind relisheth not a multiplicity of figures or of ornaments. A picture again representing a gay subject, admits great variety of figures and ornaments; because these are agreeable to the mind in a chearful tone. The same observation is applicable to poetry and to music.
It must at the same time be remarked, that one can bear a greater variety of natural objects than of objects in a picture; and a greater variety in a picture than in a description. A real object presented to the view, makes an impression more readily than when represented in colours, and much more readily than when represented in words. Hence it is, that the profuse variety of objects in some natural landscapes, neither breed confusion nor fatigue. And for the same reason, there is place for greater variety of ornament in a picture, than in a poem.
From these general observations I proceed to particulars. In works exposed continually to public view, variety ought to be studied. It is a rule accordingly in sculpture, to contrast the different limbs of a statue, in order to give it all the variety possible. Though the cone in a single view be more beautiful than the pyramid; yet a pyramidal steeple, because of its variety, is justly preferred. For the same reason, the oval in compositions is preferred before the circle; and painters, in copying buildings or any regular work, endeavour to give an air of variety by representing the subject in an angular view: we are pleased with the variety without losing sight of the regularity. In a landscape representing animals, those especially of the same kind, contrast ought to prevail. To draw one sleeping another awake, one sitting another in motion, one moving toward the spectator another from him, is the life of such a performance.
In every sort of writing intended for amusement, variety is necessary in proportion to the length of the work. Want of variety is sensibly felt in Davila’s history of the civil wars of France. The events are indeed important and various: but the reader languisheth by a tiresome uniformity of character; every person engaged being figured a consummate politician, governed by interest only. It is hard to say, whether Ovid disgusts more by too great variety or too great uniformity. His stories are all of the same kind, concluding invariably with the transformation of one being into another. So far he is tiresome with excess in uniformity. He also fatigues with excess in variety, by hurrying his reader incessantly from story to story. Ariosto is still more fatiguing than Ovid, by exceeding the just bounds of variety. Not satisfied, like Ovid, with a succession in his stories, he distracts the reader by jumbling together a multitude of unconnected events. Nor is the Orlando Furioso less tiresome by its uniformity than the Metamorphoses, though in a different manner. After a story is brought to a crisis, the reader, intent upon the catastrophe, is suddenly snatched away to a new story, which is little regarded so long as the mind is occupied with the former. This tantalizing method, from which the author never once swerves during the course of a long work, beside its uniformity, hath another bad effect: it prevents that sympathy which is raised by an interesting event when the reader meets with no interruption.
The emotions produced by our perceptions in a train, have been little considered, and less understood. The subject therefore required an elaborate discussion. It may surprise some readers, to find variety treated as only contributing to make a train of perceptions pleasant, when it is commonly held to be a necessary ingredient in beauty of whatever kind; according to the definition, “That beauty consists in uniformity amidst variety.” But after the subject is explained and illustrated as above, I presume it will be evident, that this definition, however applicable to one or other species, is far from being just with respect to beauty in general. Variety contributes no share to the beauty of a moral action, nor of a mathematical theorem; and numberless are the beautiful objects of sight that have little or no variety in them. A globe, the most uniform of all figures, is of all the most beautiful; and a square, though more beautiful than a trapezium, hath less variety in its constituent parts. The foregoing definition, which at best is but obscurely expressed, is only applicable to a number of objects in a group or in succession, among which indeed a due mixture of uniformity and variety is always agreeable, provided the particular objects, separately considered, be in any degree beautiful. Uniformity amidst variety among ugly objects, affords no pleasure. This circumstance is totally omitted in the definition; and indeed to have mentioned it, would at first glance show the definition to be imperfect. To define beauty as arising from beautiful objects blended together in a due proportion of uniformity and variety, would be too gross to pass current; as nothing can be more gross, than to employ in a definition the very term that is proposed to be explained.
Appendix to Chap. IX.
Concerning the works of nature.
IN natural objects, whether we regard their internal or external structure, beauty and design are equally conspicuous. We shall begin with the outside of nature, as what first presents itself.