Page images
PDF
EPUB

suspected that such an argument would appear to him exceedingly difficult to comprehend. But let him be told that to kill without authority is murder; and the observation will at least appear to him intelligible.

But, to put that case more boldly suppose that we knew no reason against taking away life but the amount of an injury; suppose that all instinctive horror and natural condemnation on the subject were removed, and we were left to gather our own impressions on that point from our own observation and deduction, what confidence have we that it could ever be made matter of evident demonstration to us, that it was better to permit the utmost degree of private injustice and injury, than that the judgment of life and death should, even in the extremest case, be trusted to private hands? No doubt we, ourselves, have that conviction most powerfully impressed on our minds. But whence have we it? How much of it is derived from our acquiescence in that great Law of Nature which makes life sacred? How much from our mere habitual love of civil tranquillity, making us averse to ferocious justice? But take away these feelings which persuade our judgment, and what assurance have we that demonstration could be made to our understanding that society would be injured and not benefited, if there were sheathed swords within it ready to leap forth against the bosom of the profligate oppressor? What assurance have we that such demonstration could be made conclusive to every mind throughout the nation; being accompanied at the same time by the admission of the principle, that every man was for himself the judge of expediency, and that the question of the propriety of assassination rested solely on the determination of the expediency? For that the point for decision was not whether a law of crime should, in some cases be suspended; but that it was, ab origine, a question whether such an act was, in such a case, a crime or a duty, there being nothing in the act itself decisive of the question, and the whole lying entirely open to be ascertained by the probable expediency. It surely would be much to assert that with all their natural belief on the subject completely shaken, and coming to the investigation as to a matter of mere speculative debate, the result would be

that all men would reason themselves, without any division of opinion, into that unanimous view of the subject in which we now acquiesce.

He

Now this question, which we have put, by extreme supposition, as possible to be proposed, is one which, according to these theorists, is at all times actually before us for deliberation, in the very terms in which we have suggested it; for, according to them, all passionate natural repugnance and abhorrence on this and every other subject are delusive weaknesses, and our own unconsidered submission hitherto to the common persuasion is either mere inertness or ignorance; for the decision of the expediency alone decides the act to be a duty or a crime, and every man for himself, and no other for him, is the judge of this expediency. is bound, then, to investigate and to judge, since, otherwise, he knows not but that he is leaving duties unperformed. What we have alleged of the supporters of this theory, that they wipe out from such deliberation the authority of all natural sentiment, and leave the mind solely to the speculative consideration of expediency, may seem to demand some sanction. Hear, then, Paley. "Must we admit," he says, after proposing some difficult cases-" must we admit these actions to be right, which would be to justify assassination, plunder, and perjury?" "No," he answers, "these actions, after all, are not useful, and for that reason, and that alone, are not right." It follows then, clearly, that in judging of assassination, plunder, and perjury, the only ground of judgment is their utility or inutility; but our feelings of aversion to them can be no means of assisting us to compare, in any supposed case, their utility and inutility. These feelings tend very strongly to bias our minds one way; and on that account are an impediment to the impartial judgment of the consequences of the action.

If the Rule, therefore, of Expediency is our only rule, we must suppose ourselves free from all natural and instinctive abhorrence of crimes, and that in such a state of mind they come before us to be judged by Reason alone on the ground of their pro bable advantageous or injurious consequences. If we can satisfy ourselves that in all the most perplexing cases

in which crimes might be suggested, the understandings of men, unaided by their feelings, would discern the necessary injury resulting, by general consequences, from their adoption, and condemn them accordingly, then we must believe that the System of Expediency is not attended with the danger which we have represented. But if, on the other hand, it should appear probable that when individual cases arose in which the be

nefit from the Act, singly considered, would be great, and the injury consisted merely in the violation of the general Rule, the understandings of mankind in general could not be relied on for preferring the sanctity of the general Rule to the apparent advantage of the particular Act, then must we admit that to suffer the condemnation of crime to rest solely on the estimate of Expediency, would shake the foundations of society.

DEPENDENCE OF MORALITY ON THE DIVINE will.

The doctrine of the dependence of morality on the Divine Will does involve obscure considerations. In one way, all these questions may become clear; namely, if they are considered not analytically and each by itself, but as the subject is given us in the world. If we view the world as the work of God, our own souls as such, the Divine Will as the actual law of all things, and as that law which does in fact diffuse their moral being through all things (so that even the physical world appears to be conformed to morality), there is no difficulty to the religious and pious mind in conceiving every thing that is good in itself as effluent from and inseparably united with God. What should I be without God? All existing morality, the moral will of intelligent natures, the moral manifestations, appearances, semblances, in nature sentient but not rational, (as the love of animals for their your) the subordination to morality in the constitution of the insensible inorganic world, are all the birth of a Will, eternally, infinitely, invariably, wholly good. This is simple and not easily denied. Again, the soul that renders unto God the good that is in it, sees this relation of its good to its author. Not only he gave me breath and a spirit having light within itself, all good that I have, am, think, or do, even if I had not known him-all capacities of, and determinations to, good, which I know in myself but in discovering to me, in the mode in which he has discovered himself, he has given me a motive and a rule the impulse and knowledge--of good, which else I could not have had.

If he has given me his Word, he has laid down, in the most explicit and not to be mistaken terms, the law of good;

that is, in the first place, not has commanded, but has expounded, good; so that if I desire to know what is good here it is shown me; here is unfolded its absolute essential reality without error. If he has not given me his Word (which for the present it may not be necessary for me to determine, inasmuch as Theism brings morality to him who has not yet made up his mind whether the history contained in the Christian gospel, and the Jewish scriptures, is, or is not, as Christians and Jews understand it, and as it offers itself, truth; and this argument is one which must comprehend all Theists)-if he has not given me his Word, yet he has given me faculties to learn something of his Being, and of his contemplation, and, if it may be so said, judgment of moral good; he has given such faculties to my species, and has enabled them by reflection, age after age, upon the highest subjects of speculation to which the aspiration of their spirits carries them, to amass a great body, of what I cannot but receive as religious knowledgepurifying gradually their reasonings, advancing deeper into principles, so that I cannot doubt, even if I doubt what these writings deliver as historical realities, that I live in the midst of, and have received, and see by, much religious light. By this light I am morally instructed. By believing him to be a Being all truth, all holiness, all wisdom, all love, even though my conception of these attributes should have been the work of mere unaided human faculties, I am able to judge of human right and wrong, otherwise and better than I could have done without believing. The accumulated moral speculation of those who have gone before me, en

lightens me, helps my moral judgment, even though I should admit that the principle of moral judgment is in meessentially the same as in them-that they have judged and produced this truth by exerting faculties which I, equally with them, possess. In a yet greater degree am I enlightened, beyond the knowledge which I should without this belief educe from my own soul, by this belief. I see, if I may so speak, with the eyes of the Deity whom I have found. My mind receives the direction of its own judgment from the mind I have ascribed to him; for I have ascribed to him that mind in the utmost sanctity of my own thoughts; hallowing my spirit as much as possible by offices of religion such as I know them by virtuous exercises if I know any, by bodily temperances which naturally exalt and guard the powers of the spirit, by justice and truth, by acts of love towards human beings-lifting up as much as possible to attain divine heights, dilating as much as possible to comprehend divine greatnesses, my human powers, I have in that best and most capable state of my soul formed the idea of Deity. In that idea are united at their height all the notions of moral good which those who have preceded me and which I, instructed by them, have been able to collect,— in it are embodied, as in a living presence, consecrated as an object of adoration. Thus, therefore, if it can be supposed that we know nothing of God but our own self-educed conception of him, so that when we refer, in judging morally, from ourselves to God we do in fact refer only from ourselves to ourselves, still it appears that, even under this supposition, we gain moral

judgment by this belief; because in every particular case, we refer from ourselves under all the perplexities to judgment, the temptations to false opinion, the moral illusions of our nature, to a law or measure of judgment formed and established in the utmost removal of all causes adverse to, and in the utmost presence of all causes favouring, right judgment. This is an evident advantage to morality of the religious belief even of natural Theism; even considered, as much as possible intellectually merely; making the idea of Deity as much as possible an intellectual abstraction divided from reality. But add the effects that take place in our mind the moment we pass out of this thought, and believe that this conception of ours is merely an infinitely imperfect apprehension of a Being infinitely transcending all finite apprehension; add the effects upon our will of the vital, undoubting, warm, devout belief of Him who is that which we have thought, exalted, enlarged, purified without end, above our thoughts, and then know what our moral judgment will be in the case in which we are called upon to give it, principally in the case of our own actions, when we are called upon to judge our act in the moment before we are to do, or to forbear it— or when we have done or forbornewhat difference there will be in it, under the control and in the elevation of that belief pervading our heart and all its affections, predominating in our volition, or without it, left to ourselves, knowing no higher judge, knowing nothing above or out of our own mind; and then we most feel that there is profoundest wisdom in the words "Imprimis venerare Deos."

ORIGIN OF THE FINE ARTS.

It may be observed generally of all these Arts that their scope is, either by added embellishment, or by casting it altogether in another form, to give beauty to something which has a natural place and use in human life. Thus the dwellings of men and temples for their worship must have had a place among their works, although Architecture had never learnt any thing from imagination. The purposes of natural life were to be served, but the structures which these purposes re

quired, admitted proportions of greatness and beauty, and were susceptible of other embellishments. The mind, which cannot rest in utility, but seeks in all its works to gratify its inherent desires and aspirations, availed itself of the capacities it found in structures of mere natural service, and gave a dominion to imagination in the works of use. Only it is a just restraint that the work of imagination shall not in any wise unfit the structure for its natural service. If it can in any way

heighten its fitness there is gain on both sides. So Sculpture, as distinct from its subservience to Architecture, has a natural use in human life, as it serves to perpetuate to a people the likeness of those men to whom, from any motives of national homage, they desire to yield this testimony of perpetual remembrance. It has served, moreover, the purposes of their erring worship, by shaping for them the objects of their idolatry. These two purposes gave to primitive Sculpture its place of ordinary service to human life, without any intermixture of those higher principles which have since found their way into the art. But imagination saw how in the rude forms of primitive art she could invest her own conceptions of august and beautiful form, and taking the chissel from the hand of mechanic labour, she began, for the world's delight, the work of her beautiful creation. Painting seems to have had a similar origin with Sculpture. It was at first an art of memory, not of imagination. It was used to preserve the likenesses of men, and from its ready variety the records of events. In the hands of imagination it became a beautiful art for delight; sometimes still serving its original use, and sometimes seeking no other end than pure delight. This art, too, was applied in a natural use, as it may be called, to the service of erring religion. There is a farther use which may be mentioned as found in these three arts in their early practice, that is, as preparing the mansions of the dead. All these works, whether of utility or homage, are works of natural service, independent altogether of that imagination which is proper to the Fine Arts, though they may all be said alike to invite that imagination. In like manner, Poetry had its primitive natural service; metrical language being found a fit vehicle for the memory of nations; and being used, therefore, for the oral record of laws, moral doctrines, mythology, and national events -at first independently of imagination. It is said that the science of the Druids was taught in many thousand

[blocks in formation]

with metrical language and with dance. The constant use that is found among early and rude nations in every part of the world, of some species of melody framed with words into song, or accompanying their rude dances-in services of their worshipin their festivities in other stated and regular occasions of life-as we find, for example_among the early Greeks, among the Highlanders of Scotland, among the Arabs-customary songs accompanying particular avocations of labour-this various uniform use of melody for service without imagination, justifies our considering it, like the other arts, as having a foundation in natural life, on which the work of imagination is afterwards raised. And if Music might seem to imply an artificial melody, as if it must have had from the beginning gratuitous invention, the singular fact may be recol. lected that the primary notes of the music of all nations is the same-a sufficient proof that the ground of melody is laid in our organic constitution, and a reason the more to support the view which has been taken of this art, as having a natural origin in the natural occasions of life, independently of imagination—since even melodies of joy and sorrow may thus be allowed as the natural utterance of a being, whose ear and voice are framed with the instinct of melody.

Without pursuing similar illustration through less important branches of art, and without pretending to have given more than a very slight statement with respect to those that have been enumerated, the argument which these observations were intended to support, will, perhaps, be admitted, namely, that those Arts, which we term the Fine Arts, have all their proper origin in the uses of human life, independently of that infused spirit of imagination which constitutes their interest to us, and which, in our estimation, is indispensable to their character.

Nor is this consideration of so little importance, as we might be apt to imagine, in determining the ultimate character of these arts. For although many of the uses which have been indicated have no longer much weight for our minds, yet among those early nations to whom they served these purposes, they were felt as of great moment. It is difficult for us to quit

[ocr errors]

in imagination our own condition of society, and to enter into the conceptions of those whose state of life and feelings is very different. If we could justly estimate the place which these arts have in the manners of nations in the primitive conditions of life, we should understand that they have a great, even a national importance.

For these arts which afterwards adorn life are at that time inwoven with its serious necessities, and are intermingled, too, in concerns, which, if not of necessity, are held by them of most solemn importance. They make part of what may be called the structure of their life.

FORM.

Sir Joshua lays down that Sculpture aims at two things-Form and Character and that to accomplish either of these, is to achieve a mighty work. But how there should be intellectual delight or sublimity in Form he does not unfold; yet he who knows not this, is imperfectly skilled in the Grecian soul. Let us, therefore, discover why Intellect enjoys a statue which has no expression as far as the subject is concerned, but animal action and animal perfection. Some elements of pleasure are obvious, but go only a small way. First, there is the original pleasure of looking at animal beauty, which is not inconsiderable to those who have been bred up in that perpetual flow of animal enjoyment with which Grecians were blest; for the beauty of an animal is its adaptation to animal enjoyment. Then, we suppose, where this beauty is carried through every part, so that nothing of the defects appear, which, in the infinite chances of matter, settle upon all things of mortal birth, it is impossible to resist a feeling as if there were an exemption for that creature from the ordinary laws to which all others are enthralled-as if it were a favoured being, a darling of heaven that no power of annoyance can come near, and which the fighting elements of nature have united to spare. A Flower of faultless and glorious beauty, just unfolded, seems as if it could not live on this earth and under these skies, if there were not some feeling above for its loveliness to save it from harm. And this Ariosto must have known, when, in describing the rose which the virgin resembles, he says that sun, and air, and the dewy morning, and sky, and earth, incline towards it in favour. This is a feeling of protection. The feeling of the care in Nature for her production, goes much further-besides applying to forms of faultless

strength, where the idea of especial protection cannot apply though, indeed, a superior idea takes its place-that of a creature above protection-born to triumph over the ills under which ordinary mortality dies. It must be these feelings that make faultless forms of beauty or strength, independently of all expression, poetical, and worthy of imagination's love. Of course it is not necessary that at every good statue the mind should run out into these speculations; but if it has ever been in the habit of indulging and believing in them, the least, almost unperceived, inclination to them, will be sufficient to exalt Form; indeed that must be true throughout all poetry and feeling. What is superstition with regard to flowers, is literal matter of fact for gods and god-begotten heroes.

In a

Among the obvious causes of pleasure in mere Form of a perfect statue, are the knowledge and skill of the sculptor; but we know not how far this may go for nobler pleasure. The mere mechanical skill of doing a difficult thing by long practice does not appear very exalted; and how much share it may be allowed in the pleasure of a cultivated mind we cannot tell. rude mind it seems often to make up the whole-and that very strong--as in the admiration of rope-dancingbut even here we can hardly believe that the naked perception of a diffi. culty overcome by long practice, is the sole source of delight. We believe that in the pleasure of the "men of the multitude" there is something more poetical; a confusion of astonishment at the exertion of powers of which they had no conception; and a feeling as if those powers came from a higher quarter, and the rope-dancer were a gifted being :-a portion of the reverence which the most enlightened minds feel for a juggler. Skill in the

« PreviousContinue »