But we must no longer be detained from the more immediate task before us. We must now follow Mr Ruskin to his second volume of Modern Painters, where he explains his theory of the beautiful; and although this will not be to readers in general the most attractive portion of his writings, and we ourselves have to practise some sort of self-denial in fixing our attention upon it, yet manifestly it is here that we must look for the basis or fundamental principles of all his criticisms in art. The order in which his works have been published was apparently deranged by a generous zeal, which could brook no delay, to defend Mr Turner from the censures of the undiscerning public. If the natural or systematic order had been preserved, the materials of this second volume would have formed the first preliminary treatise, determining those broad principles of taste, or that philosophical theory of the beautiful, on which the whole of the subsequent works were to be modelled. Perhaps this broken and reversed order of publication has not been unfortunate for the success of the author—perhaps it was dimly foreseen to be not altogether impolitic; for the popular ear was gained by the bold and enthusiastic defence of a great painter; and the ear of the public, once caught, may be detained by matter which, in the first instance, would have appealed to it in vain. Whether the effect of chance or design, we may certainly congratulate Mr Ruskin on the fortunate succession, and the fortunate rapidity with which his publications have struck on the public ear. The popular feeling, won by the zeal and intrepidity of the first volume of Modern Painters, was no doubt a little tried by the graver discussions of the second. It was soon, however, to be again caught, and pleased by a bold and agreeable miscellany under the magical name of "The Seven Lamps;" and these Seven Lamps could hardly fail to throw some portion of their pleasant and bewildering light over a certain rudimentary treatise upon building, which was to appear under the title of "The Stones of Venice."
We cannot, however, congratulate Mr Ruskin on the manner in which he has acquitted himself in this arena of philosophical inquiry, nor on the sort of theory of the Beautiful which he has contrived to construct. The least metaphysical of our readers is aware that there is a controversy of long standing upon this subject, between two different schools of philosophy. With the one the beautiful is described as a great "idea" of the reason, or an intellectual intuition, or a simple intuitive perception; different expressions are made use of, but all imply that it is a great primary feeling, or sentiment, or idea of the human mind, and as incapable of further analysis as the idea of space, or the simplest of our sensations. The rival school of theorists maintain, on the contrary, that no sentiment yields more readily to analysis; and that the beautiful, except in those rare cases where the whole charm lies in one sensation, as in that of colour, is a complex sentiment. They describe it as a pleasure resulting from the presence of the visible object, but of which the visible object is only in part the immediate cause. Of a great portion of the pleasure it is merely the vehicle; and they say that blended reminiscences, gathered from every sense, and every human affection, from the softness of touch of an infant's finger to the highest contemplations of a devotional spirit, have contributed, in their turn, to this delightful sentiment.
Mr Ruskin was not bound to belong to either of these schools of philosophy; he was at liberty to construct an eclectic system of his own;—and he has done so. We shall take the precaution, in so delicate a matter, of quoting Mr Ruskin's own words for the exposition of his own theory. Meanwhile, as some clue to the reader, we may venture to say that he agrees with the first of these schools in adopting a primary intuitive sentiment of the beautiful; but then this primary intuition is only of a sensational or "animal" nature—a subordinate species of the beautiful, which is chiefly valuable as the necessary condition of the higher and truly beautiful; and this last he agrees with the opposite school in regarding as a derived sentiment—derived by contemplating the objects of external nature as types of the Divine attributes. This is a brief summary of the theory; for a fuller exposition we shall have recourse to his own words.
The term Æsthetic, which has been applied to this branch of philosophy, Mr Ruskin discards; he offers as a substitute Theoria, or The Theoretic Faculty, the meaning of which he thus explains:—
"I proceed, therefore, first to examine the nature of what I have called the theoretic faculty, and to justify my substitution of the term 'Theoretic' for 'Æsthetic,' which is the one commonly employed with reference to it.
"Now the term 'æsthesis' properly signifies mere sensual perception of the outward qualities and necessary effects of bodies; in which sense only, if we would arrive at any accurate conclusions on this difficult subject, it should always be used. But I wholly deny that the impressions of beauty are in any way sensual;—they are neither sensual nor intellectual, but moral; and for the faculty receiving them, whose difference from mere perception I shall immediately endeavour to explain, no terms can be more accurate or convenient than that employed by the Greeks, 'Theoretic,' which I pray permission, therefore, always to use, and to call the operation of the faculty itself, Theoria."—(P. 11.)
We are introduced to a new faculty of the human mind; let us see what new or especial sphere of operation is assigned to it. After some remarks on the superiority of the mere sensual pleasures of the eye and the ear, but particularly of the eye, to those derived from other organs of sense, he continues:—
"Herein, then, we find very sufficient ground for the higher estimation of these delights: first, in their being eternal and inexhaustible; and, secondly, in their being evidently no meaner instrument of life, but an object of life. Now, in whatever is an object of life, in whatever may be infinitely and for itself desired, we may be sure there is something of divine: for God will not make anything an object of life to his creatures which does not point to, or partake of himself,"—
"Out of what perception arise Joy, Admiration, and Gratitude?
"Now, the mere animal consciousness of the pleasantness I call Æsthesis; but the exulting, reverent, and grateful perception of it I call Theoria. For this, and this only, is the full comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful as a gift of God; a gift not necessary to our being, but adding to and elevating it, and twofold—first, of the desire; and, secondly, of the thing desired."
We find, then, that in the production of the full sentiment of the beautiful two faculties are employed, or two distinct operations denoted. First, there is the "animal pleasantness which we call Æsthesis,"—which sometimes appears confounded with the mere pleasures of sense, but which the whole current of his speculations obliges us to conclude is some separate intuition of a sensational character; and, secondly, there is "the exulting, reverent, and grateful perception of it, which we call Theoria," which alone is the truly beautiful, and which it is the function of the Theoretic Faculty to reveal to us. But this new Theoretic Faculty—what can it be but the old faculty of Human Reason, exercised upon the great subject of Divine beneficence?
Mr Ruskin, as we shall see, discovers that external objects are beautiful because they are types of Divine attributes; but he admits, and is solicitous to impress upon our minds, that the "meaning" of these types is "learnt." When, in a subsequent part of his work, he feels himself pressed by the objection that many celebrated artists, who have shown a vivid appreciation and a great passion for the beautiful, have manifested no peculiar piety, have been rather deficient in spiritual-mindedness, he gives them over to that instinctive sense he has called Æsthesis, and says—"It will be remembered that I have, throughout the examination of typical beauty, asserted our instinctive sense of it; the moral meaning of it being only discoverable by reflection," (p. 127.) Now, there is no other conceivable manner in which the meaning of the type can be learnt than by the usual exercise of the human reason, detecting traces of the Divine power, and wisdom, and benevolence, in the external world, and then associating with the various objects of the external world the ideas we have thus acquired of the Divine wisdom and goodness. The rapid and habitual regard of certain facts or appearances in the visible world, as types of the attributes of God, can be nothing else but one great instance (or class of instances) of that law of association of ideas on which the second school of philosophy we have alluded to so largely insist. And thus, whether Mr Ruskin chooses to acquiesce in it or not, his "Theoria" resolves itself into a portion, or fragment, of that theory of association of ideas, to which he declares, and perhaps believes, himself to be violently opposed.
In a very curious manner, therefore, has Mr Ruskin selected his materials from the two rival schools of metaphysics. His Æsthesis is an intuitive perception, but of a mere sensual or animal nature—sometimes almost confounded with the mere pleasure of sense, at other times advanced into considerable importance, as where he has to explain the fact that men of very little piety have a very acute perception of beauty. His Theoria is, and can be, nothing more than the results of human reason in its highest and noblest exercise, rapidly brought before the mind by a habitual association of ideas. For the lowest element of the beautiful he runs to the school of intuitions;—they will not thank him for the compliment;—for the higher to that analytic school, and that theory of association of ideas, to which throughout he is ostensibly opposed.