Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 431, September 1851

by Various

This Theoria divides itself into two parts. We shall quote Mr Ruskin's own words and take care to quote from them passages where he seems most solicitous to be accurate and explanatory:—

"The first thing, then, we have to do," he says, "is accurately to discriminate and define those appearances from which we are about to reason as belonging to beauty, properly so called, and to clear the ground of all the confused ideas and erroneous theories with which the misapprehension or metaphorical use of the term has encumbered it.

"By the term Beauty, then, properly are signified two things: first, that external quality of bodies, already so often spoken of, and which, whether it occur in a stone, flower, beast, or in man, is absolutely identical—which, as I have already asserted, may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine attributes, and which, therefore, I shall, for distinction's sake, call Typical Beauty; and, secondarily, the appearance of felicitous fulfilment of functions in living things, more especially of the joyful and right exertion of perfect life in man—and this kind of beauty I shall call Vital Beauty."—(P. 26.)

The Vital Beauty, as well as the Typical, partakes essentially, as far as we can understand our author, of a religious character. On turning to that part of the volume where it is treated of at length, we find a universal sympathy and spirit of kindliness very properly insisted on, as one great element of the sentiment of beauty; but we are not permitted to dwell upon this element, or rest upon it a moment, without some reference to our relation to God. Even the animals themselves seem to be turned into types for us of our moral feelings or duties. We are expressly told that we cannot have this sympathy with life and enjoyment in other creatures, unless it takes the form of, or comes accompanied with, a sentiment of piety. In all cases where the beautiful is anything higher than a certain "animal pleasantness," we are to understand that it has a religious character. "In all cases," he says, summing up the functions of the Theoretic Faculty, "it is something Divine; either the approving voice of God, the glorious symbol of Him, the evidence of His kind presence, or the obedience to His will by Him induced and supported,"—(p. 126.) Now it is a delicate task, when a man errs by the exaggeration of a great truth or a noble sentiment, to combat his error; and yet as much mischief may ultimately arise from an error of this description as from any other. The thoughts and feelings which Mr Ruskin has described, form the noblest part of our sentiment of the beautiful, as they form the noblest phase of the human reason. But they are not the whole of it. The visible object, to adopt his phraseology, does become a type to the contemplative and pious mind of the attribute of God, and is thus exalted to our apprehension. But it is not beautiful solely or originally on this account. To assert this, is simply to falsify our human nature.

Before, however, we enter into these types, or this typical beauty, it will be well to notice how Mr Ruskin deals with previous and opposing theories. It will be well also to remind our readers of the outline of that theory of association of ideas which is here presented to us in so very confused a manner. We shall then be better able to understand the very curious position our author has taken up in this domain of speculative philosophy.

Mr Ruskin gives us the following summary of the "errors" which he thinks it necessary in the first place to clear from his path:—

"Those erring or inconsistent positions which I would at once dismiss are, the first, that the beautiful is the true; the second, that the beautiful is the useful; the third, that it is dependent on custom; and the fourth, that it is dependent on the association of ideas."

The first of these theories, that the beautiful is the true, we leave entirely to the tender mercies of Mr Ruskin; we cannot gather from his refutation to what class of theorists he is alluding. The remaining three are, as we understand the matter, substantially one and the same theory. We believe that no one, in these days, would define beauty as solely resulting either from the apprehension of Utility, (that is, the adjustment of parts to a whole, or the application of the object to an ulterior purpose,) or to Familiarity and the affection which custom engenders; but they would regard both Utility and Familiarity as amongst the sources of those agreeable ideas or impressions, which, by the great law of association, became intimately connected with the visible object. We must listen, however, to Mr Ruskin's refutation of them:—

"That the beautiful is the useful is an assertion evidently based on that limited and false sense of the latter term which I have already deprecated. As it is the most degrading and dangerous supposition which can be advanced on the subject, so, fortunately, it is the most palpably absurd. It is to confound admiration with hunger, love with lust, and life with sensation; it is to assert that the human creature has no ideas and no feelings, except those ultimately referable to its brutal appetites. It has not a single fact, nor appearance of fact, to support it, and needs no combating—at least until its advocates have obtained the consent of the majority of mankind that the most beautiful productions of nature are seeds and roots; and of art, spades and millstones.

"Somewhat more rational grounds appear for the assertion that the sense of the beautiful arises from familiarity with the object, though even this could not long be maintained by a thinking person. For all that can be alleged in defence of such a supposition is, that familiarity deprives some objects which at first appeared ugly of much of their repulsiveness; whence it is as rational to conclude that familiarity is the cause of beauty, as it would be to argue that, because it is possible to acquire a taste for olives, therefore custom is the cause of lusciousness in grapes....

"I pass to the last and most weighty theory, that the agreeableness in objects which we call beauty is the result of the association with them of agreeable or interesting ideas.

"Frequent has been the support and wide the acceptance of this supposition, and yet I suppose that no two consecutive sentences were ever written in defence of it, without involving either a contradiction or a confusion of terms. Thus Alison, 'There are scenes undoubtedly more beautiful than Runnymede, yet, to those who recollect the great event that passed there, there is no scene perhaps which so strongly seizes on the imagination,'—where we are wonder-struck at the bold obtuseness which would prove the power of imagination by its overcoming that very other power (of inherent beauty) whose existence the arguer desires; for the only logical conclusion which can possibly be drawn from the above sentence is, that imagination is not the source of beauty—for, although no scene seizes so strongly on the imagination, yet there are scenes 'more beautiful than Runnymede.' And though instances of self-contradiction as laconic and complete as this are rare, yet, if the arguments on the subject be fairly sifted from the mass of confused language with which they are always encumbered, they will be found invariably to fall into one of these two forms: either association gives pleasure, and beauty gives pleasure, therefore association is beauty; or the power of association is stronger than the power of beauty, therefore the power of association is the power of beauty."

Now this last sentence is sheer nonsense, and only proves that the author had never given himself the trouble to understand the theory he so flippantly discards. No one ever said that "association gives pleasure;" but very many, and Mr Ruskin amongst the rest, have said that associated thought adds its pleasure to an object pleasing in itself, and thus increases the complex sentiment of beauty. That it is a complex sentiment in all its higher forms, Mr Ruskin himself will tell us. As to the manner in which he deals with Alison, it is in the worst possible spirit of controversy. Alison was an elegant, but not a very precise writer; it was the easiest thing in the world to select an unfortunate illustration, and to convict that of absurdity. Yet he might with equal ease have selected many other illustrations from Alison, which would have done justice to the theory he expounds. A hundred such will immediately occur to the reader. If, instead of a historical recollection of this kind, which could hardly make the stream itself of Runnymede look more beautiful, Alison had confined himself to those impressions which the generality of mankind receive from river scenery, he would have had no difficulty in showing (as we believe he has elsewhere done) how, in this case, ideas gathered from different sources flow into one harmonious and apparently simple feeling. That sentiment of beauty which arises as we look upon a river will be acknowledged by most persons to be composed of many associated thoughts, combining with the object before them. Its form and colour, its bright surface and its green banks, are all that the eye immediately gives us; but with these are combined the remembered coolness of the fluent stream, and of the breeze above it, and of the pleasant shade of its banks; and beside all this—as there are few persons who have not escaped with delight from town or village, to wander by the quiet banks of some neighbouring stream, so there are few persons who do not associate with river scenery ideas of peace and serenity. Now many of these thoughts or facts are such as the eye does not take cognisance of, yet they present themselves as instantaneously as the visible form, and so blended as to seem, for the moment, to belong to it.

Why not have selected some such illustration as this, instead of the unfortunate Runnymede, from a work where so many abound as apt as they are elegantly expressed? As to Mr Ruskin's utilitarian philosopher, it is a fabulous creature—no such being exists. Nor need we detain ourselves with the quite departmental subject of Familiarity. But let us endeavour—without desiring to pledge ourselves or our readers to its final adoption—to relieve the theory of association of ideas from the obscurity our author has thrown around it. Our readers will not find that this is altogether a wasted labour.