and, in pronouncing it to be good or bad, can fix, at once, on the specific qualities which please or offend. It is not on the sensibility of his organ that this power depends. Some degree of sensibility is undoubtedly necessary to enable him to receive any sensation at all; but the degree of his distinguishing power is by no means proportioned to the degree of his sensibility. At the same time, it is manifestly this distinguishing power alone which renders his judgments in wine of any use to himself in his purchases, or of any value to those whose gratification is the object of his art.' pp. 442, 443. Mr. Stewart is by no means the first philosopher who has combated the doctrine which classes taste among our simple and original faculties; but he seems to be the first who has given a philosophical view of the processes by which it is formed. The physical causes of natural phenomena, he observes, are often presented to our observation in combination with other unessential circumstances; and it is only by repeated experiment and observation that we can discover whether any effect is produced by the whole or part only, of the combined circumstances. In like manner, we often find the objects or qualities which occasion our emotions of beauty and sublimity involved among extraneous or noxious circumstances; and it is only by the repeated exercise of observation and analysis that we come to be able to discriminate and separate them from the rest, and thus to ascertain the particular qualities with which the pleasing effect is connected. It is in this discriminating or distinguishing perception that the power, denoted by the word taste, chiefly consists; and the analytical processes to which we have alluded, habitually, though often unconsciously repeated, are the means, according to Mr. Stewart, by which it is gradually and insensibly formed. It is by the frequent repetition of these processes that taste acquires that promptitude which so remarkably characterizes its decisions, and which seems to have been the cause that many writers, not duly attending to what takes place in some other acquired powers, have concluded it to be a gift of nature. As the experiments subservient to its formation are carried on entirely in the mind itself, they present, every moment,' says Mr. Stewart, a ready field for the gratification of curiosity; and, in those individuals whose thoughts are strongly turned to the pursuit, they furnish matter of habitual employment to the intellectual faculties. These experiments are, at the same time, executed with an ease and celerity unknown in our operations on matter; insomuch, that the experiment and its result seem both to be comprehended in the same instant of time. The process, accordingly, vanishes completely from our recol lection; nor do we attempt to retrace it to ourselves in thought, far less to express it to others in words, any more than we are disposed, in our estimates of distance, to anal the acquired perceptions of vision.— p. 455. When, When, then, it is recollected that taste is only to be acquired by habits of observation, and that it is essentially a discriminating faculty, there can be no difficulty in understanding, not only that sensibility to beauty may exist in a mind destitute of taste, but that great sensibility is even adverse to its culture. Those analytical processes, by the repetition of which it has been shewn to be formed, are not at all likely to be resorted to by a mind agitated with powerful emotions. When kindled to rapture by the beauties which we behold, we are not by any means in a mood or capacity for analytical observation. Indeed, it seems to be a general rule, with regard to all our perceptions, that when the sensation is pungent or lively the attention is wholly engrossed by the effect, to the exclusion of all curiosity about the cause. Thus when the pleasures of taste rise to extasy, they produce nothing but enthusiasm and rapture; and it is only where the mind enjoys these pleasures, without being intoxicated by them, that it is either disposed, or capable to exercise that discriminating curiosity which is the foundation of this faculty. Mr. Stewart also remarks, with his usual felicity of illustration, that In proportion as the temper of the mind inclines to extreme sensi bility, the casual associations of the individual may be expected to be numerous and lasting; for nothing tends so powerfully to bind the associating tie as the circumstance of its being originally formed when the mind was strongly agitated by pleasure or by pain. In recollecting any particular occurrence, whether prosperous or adverse, of our past lives, by which we were deeply affected at the moment, how indelible do we find the impression left on the memory, by the most trifling and accidental details which distinguished the never-to-be-forgotten day on which it happened; and how apt are similar details, if at any time they should present themselves in somewhat of the same combination, to inspire us with gaiety or with sadness, according to the complexion of the event with which they are associated! It is in the same way that, to a mind tremblingly alive to impressions of beauty, a charm is communicated to whatever accessaries or appendages happen to invest any object of its admiration; accessaries which are likely to leave a far less permanent trace in the memory of a more indifferent spectator. The consequence will be, that in a person of the former temper, the cultivation of a correct taste will be a much more difficult task than in one of the latter, and a proportionably greater attention will be requi site, on the part of his instructors, to confine his habitual studies to the most faultless models.'---pp. 473, 474. The happiest texture of mind for the cultivation of taste would, therefore, appear to be that where there is a sufficient measure of sensibility to excite a philosophical curiosity about the objects with which this faculty is conversant; but where that measure does not rise so high as to divert the attention from analytical observation, and expose our judgments to be warped by casual associations. There is no part of this essay more profoundly interesting than that in which Mr. Stewart points out the different appearances which taste assumes in different minds. In some it is characterized by the knowledge of those beauties which result from natural and universal associations; in others, it is conversant only with those which derive their whole effect from custom, fashion, and other accidental circumstances. ، The first kind of taste enables a writer or an artist to rise superior to the times in which he lives, and emboldens him to trust his reputation to the suffrages of the human race, and of the ages which are yet to come. The other is the foundation of that humbler, though more profitable sagacity, which teaches the professor how to suit his manufactures to the market; to judge before-hand of the reception which any new productions is to meet with, and to regulate his exertions accordingly.' It is the first kind alone which deserves the name of philosophical taste, and when possessed in a high degree, it is one of the rarest acquisitions of the human mind. The taste of most professed critics is of a very different and far inferior stamp. In the greater number, it consists merely in a familiar acquaintance with, and ready application of, certain technical rules which have received a currency in the circles of literature and fashion. It is generally to be distinguished, says Mr. Stewart, by a fluent command of that convenient and imposing phraseology which is called by Sterne “the cant of criticism." What is commonly called fastidiousness of taste, is, he adds, an affectation chiefly observable among critics of this class, being the natural effect of habits of common-place criticism on an eye blind to the perception of the beautiful.' In that very small number in whose minds taste is the growth of sensibility, combined with native habits of observation and discrimination, it is particularly to be observed, says Mr. Stewart, that it is always more strongly disposed to the enjoyment of beauties than to the detection of blemishes. It seizes eagerly,' to use his own beautiful expressions, ' on every touch of genius with the sympathy of kindred affection; and, in the secret consciousness of a congenial inspiration, shares, in some measure, the triumph of the artist. The faults which have escaped him, it views with the partiality of friendship; and willingly abandons the censorial office to those who exult in the errors of superior minds as their appropriate and easy prey.' From these pleasing exhibitions of genuine taste, Mr. Stewart passes to the notice of the perversities and errors to which its decisions are liable from the sinister influences of jealousy, rivalship, C 2 and and party or personal dislike. It must be owing to some of these moral causes, he observes, that many who have evinced the undoubted possession of genuine taste in their own productions, have yet appeared to be entirely forsaken by it in the judgments which they have pronounced upon the similar productions of other men. We wish we could convey to our readers an adequate idea of the elevated sentiments and glowing eloquence which mark this part of the essay; but as we will not impair by abridgment what we have not room to extract, we must content ourselves with referring them to the book itself; only observing, that Mr. Stewart's general conclusion is, that the decisions of this most sensitive of all our faculties, must, in order to have any title to respect, be pronounced when the mind is serene, and free from all influences which discompose the feelings, or mislead the understanding. The volume concludes with a short essay on the culture of certain intellectual habits connected with the first elements of taste.' This essay is rather desultory, and does not give precisely the information which its title promises; but it contains many exquisite observations on the pleasures of imagination, and an animated exhortation to mix their cultivation with the graver pursuits of science and of public life. It was said, with truth,' he tells us, by Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, that he who was ignorant of the arithmetical art was but half a man. With how much greater force may a similar expression be applied to him, who carries to his grave the neglected and unprofitable seeds of faculties, which it depended on himself to have reared to maturity, and of which the fruits bring accessions to human happiness, more precious than all the gratifications which power or wealth can command! I speak not of the laborious orders of society, to whom the pleasures of imagination must, from their condition, be in a great measure, necessarily denied; but of men destined for the higher and more independent walks of life, who are too often led, by an ignorance of their own possible attainments, to exhaust all their toil on one little field of study, while they leave, in a state of nature, a most valuable portion of the intellectual inheritance to which they were born.'— pp. 510-11. He combats, with spirit, the opinion that the pleasures of imagination can only be enjoyed in full perfection in youth; and encourages those who may have hitherto neglected them, and whose minds are thereby in a state of intellectual mutilation, by showing that this faculty easily yields itself to culture, even at an advanced period of life. Nothing can be more captivating than his description of the new and charming scenes which it opens to the view, and the new embellishments which it adds to all our other intellectual acquisitions. 'Instances Instances have frequently occurred of individuals, in whom the power of imagination has, at a more advanced period of life, been found susceptible of culture to a wonderful degree. In such men, what an accession is gained to their most refined pleasures! What enchantments are added to their most ordinary perceptions! The mind awakening, as if from a trance, to a new existence, becomes habituated to the most interesting aspects of life and of nature; the intellectual eye is purged of its film;' and things the most familiar and unnoticed, disclose charms invisible before. The same objects and events which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul; the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude, conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man who, after having lost in vulgar occupation and vulgar amusements, his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth: 'The meanest floweret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, We now take leave of this valuable work, which has renewed and extended all our previous impressions of the powerful talents of its distinguished author. There is enough, we venture to think, even in our slight sketch of its contents, to satisfy our readers that it is the production of a man who merits the highest praise, as well for his abilities as for the noble, and virtuous sentiments by which he is animated. We have but little to add to the observations which have incidentally fallen from us, in our progress through the work, as to its general merits. Willing as we are, in works of great excellence, to leave censure to those who exult in the errors of superior minds as their appropriate and easy prey;'-we still feel ourselves bound in duty to state, that Mr. Stewart is often faulty in not sufficiently developing and connecting his ideas; that he often contents himself with hints and loose general remarks, when the subject required full and continuous elucidation; and that he rarely condescends to assist his reader by concisely stating the sum of what he proposes to prove, and the grounds and limits of his argument. His style is remarkable for its purity and elegance; for its harmonious flow and uniform majesty; but it is somewhat too diffuse and oratorical for pure metaphysical discussion; though it must at the same time he admitted, that it has lent graces and attractions to metaphysical inquiry which few writers have ever been able to communicate. |