which the opinions of philosophers have been as diverse as their respective points of view. Among Greeks, the beautiful was subject of frequent discussion; yet they have left more proofs of skill in embodying than in analyzing it. The Romans made little advance in its elucidation, and men of the Mddle Ages left it to slumber with the arts to which it had given birth. Within the last hundred and fifty years, attention has been recalled to this pleasing branch of philosophy, and many essays have been written upon it, especially in the French, English and German languages. Though differing from each other more or less, they all necessarily belong to two classes, of which one considers Beauty as a quality of objects, and the other, belonging entirely to human emotions. Again: of the latter class, some represent it as due to a separate mental power; others resolve it into some other faculty; while a third believe that it springs from an aggregate of emotions. Hutcheson, who wrote in the earlier part of last century, held that Beauty is the result of uniformity amid variety; nor is it difficult to present plausible grounds for such a belief. Hogarth assumed it to be something external, and by a variety of examples endeavored to prove that it consists chiefly in a waving line approaching to the likeness of the letter S. An analogous line, the spiral, he designates the line of grace. The features of animal and vegetable bodies, and the varieties of the natural landscape, furnish most of his proofs and illustrations. His theory

affects to some extent his own works, and in regard to the examples employed is certainly correct, but comes far short of explaining the whole subject; or in other words, of ascertaining the immediate antecedents of Beauty. Professor Gerard perceived that the beautiful could not be confined to forms, much less to forms of any given outline, and therefore wrote of it as being of different classes, and producing pleasure by different principles of human nature. To some extent this view is also correct, but, although more comprehensive than that of either Hutcheson or Hogarth, comes equally far short of the true point of inquiry.

To the same head may also be referred the theories of Winkelman and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Burke concludes that Beauty is, for the greater part, some quality of bodies acting mechanically upon the mind by the intervention of the senses, and then specifies some of those qualities: such as smallness, smoothness, gradual variation, and delicacy. Augustine

resolved the pleasures of Taste into that which springs from the recognition of order and design; Hume, into the sense of ability; and Diderot attributed them to the perception of relation. Reid conceived that Beauty originally dwells in the moral and intellectual perfections of the mind, and that hence the notice of it in other things is derived. According to Alison, whatever excites the imagination to pursue a train of recollections of previously experienced moral pleasure is beautiful, and Beauty is nothing but that delightful

reminiscence.

This theory is more comprehensive than any of the preceding, and is advocated with eminent elegance of style and manner. He has been followed by Knight and Jeffrey: the former varying from his master by advocating the intrinsic beauty of certain colors, and the latter by rejecting the necessity of a train of suggestions, but neither contributing any improvement to the theory; and the one immediate cause which must be the antecedent of the one effect, is left undefined by all of them. Jeffrey's essay sets out with great clearness, precision, and assurance, but at the most important stage becomes an utter jumble of reiterated contradictions, confounding beauty with pleasure, and emotion with sensation, advocating that beauty is only reflected emotion, that there is no unity in it, that is, of the same kind as the original emotion, and consequently, that what we call beauty is nothing but an exercise of memory. He grants that some sensations are pleasant, and then denies that any are pleasant; says expressly that one taste is as good as another; and having failed to establish any general law, is obliged to confess that a Dutch lust haus, painted all over with every color of the rainbow, is as truly beautiful as the finest work of art. Were it not that his work has demonstrated the weakness of the theory, we could have wished that he had saved himself trouble by saying at once, there is no beauty; that the word is only another name for the recollection of anything pleasant, and that there is

nothing pleasant, except what one has found to be pleasant on a former occasion-something like telling a young lady that she has no chance of getting married until she is a widow. Dugald Stewart, in despair of ascertaining any common principle of beauty, concluded that it is only a word, a common name, whereby we designate many things totally unlike.

Brown took a most important step in the investigation, by recognizing one emotion, to which all varieties of beautiful objects are referred.

The practical objection to most of these and other theories on the subject lies in the fact, that they fail of presenting a science competent to guide and sustain the purpose of the artist through the whole field of his labor. They are all defective, exceedingly.

Of what use is it to an artist to be told, for instance, that a curve line is beautiful, if his art has nothing to do with lines; or that a combination of uniformity and variety is beauty, if left uninstructed in the proportions of that combination; or that littleness is beauty, when perhaps he is an architect, engaged to build a large and beautiful house; or to be taken out into the mid ocean of speculation, if he is left there without rudder or compass?

There is, however, one encouraging feature presented by the common language of men, and by even the advocates of conflicting theory, when their theory is not before their eyes, in the remarkable unanimity regarding a great number of objects, that, however

they come to be so, they are beautiful. The examples adduced in one essay are, in the main, the same employed in all others, however different the doctrines they advocate. Though many refuse to grant that beauty is a quality of the external world, yet none will deny that a green meadow in spring is a beautiful object, nor that its color, for some reason or other, is an ingredient going to make up its character as such. Certain outlines, as the circle, the ellipse, the waving curve, and the perfectly straight line, are also said to be beautiful; similar is the verdict upon many sounds and intervals of sound, as the first, third, and fifth of the scale, and the relations between them; upon certain shapes, a fine human figure, for example; upon such proportion of parts as appears in the structure of Grecian temples; upon certain relations of numbers; upon the perception of eminent utility; upon clear views of truth; upon noble, generous, or tender emotions. Now, why do all critics grant that these things are beautiful? although some have difficulty to reconcile the acknowledgment with their theories! Evidently because compelled by consciousness, and because they know the world in general has the same consciousness, which it would be fruitless to contradict.

It is utterly futile to attempt to resolve this great fact into a figurative usage, or, rather, objectless perversion of an English word. For the same objects are characterized by the corresponding epithet in all the languages of civilized man. The Greeks called them