Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

present dwellers on the soil, will be the puzzle and despair of the future geologist to account for their presence in the midst of an evidently advanced civilization.

The family which, in modern society, is the pillar of the State, weakens, while the State, democratic, republican, or what not, goes on toward centralization of power, and tends, by becoming more and more paternally protective to the individual, to render him less independent, and consequently less free. The unthinking masses, while clamoring for all that government can give, little think that they are bartering away their birth-right. This is a recession from better principles, and looks backward toward Greece and other ancient countries, where the individual was merged in and had no other existence than for the State. It is difficult to see it as a healthy sign in the State, when gov ernment is like a gambling scheme, where in defeat or victory the chief gain is not for the people, as against the owners of the bank. The times of Louis XIII were not pleasant for the people; the king was really the State long before Louis XIV proclaimed it; but they were, at least, consistent in not pretending that government signified anything else than that the people should be despoiled. If one must be ruled by tyrants, instead of by the people for the people, better than a bloated tribune is kingly prerogative amid the pomp and elegance of a court, for nothing is more terrible than vulgar tyranny.

It is thus seen that it is absurd to say or imply, at any period of the human race, that all things are everywhere, in every respect, better than they have ever been. We must be able to recognize the fact that, in the moral world as well as in the organic and inorganic worlds, evolution is an unrelenting process, and, as represented in any individual place, may be progressive or retrogressive.

All that we can intimately know of the effects of evolution is comprehended by earth, and here we perceive general progress,

not only in the intellectual and the moral, but also in the physi cal, world; but if we are observant we ought also to see retrogression and apparent pause, according to the rhythmical law to which all things are subject. The great moral advance, regarded as a whole, that has been made on earth is to be frankly acknowledged. But do not, therefore, let us stultify ourselves through self-satisfaction, by proclaiming, in the face of facts, that we are better than we are, in all respects better than our immediate progenitors. Let us, however repugnant to our self-love, recognize that if we have got rid of some of their vices, they possessed some virtues in which we hardly equal them, while at the same time it is permissible to us to take credit to ourselves for a comprehensiveness in the lines of our advance which they never approached.

It is thus perceived that not in the physical world alone, but in the mental one also, as represented by the individual, family, social circle, and nationality, development in infinite directions, in the present era generally upward, continuously influences life. The force at work acts in obedience to an unremitting natural law, controlling all physical, mental, and moral affairs, not only on earth, but, as we have reason to believe, throughout the whole universe. The only apparently modifying influences to its action on earth are the intelligence and the will of man; but these are not antagonistic influences, for they, too, are factors in the grand total, contributing their quota to the consequences of the working of this universal law. Controlling all being, it necessarily includes health and beauty, and all else that appertains to mankind.

CHAPTER VII.

THE SENTIMENT OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

ALF the arguments in the world arise and persist, because

HAL

each side does not know exactly what the other is driving at, and very nearly the other half, because one does not itself know. With this solemn warning before us, an instant's thought will be well taken to reach an agreement as to what is to be here understood by the term beauty. In this best of all possible worlds one can never tell, unless personally acquainted with his interlocutor, at what tangent he may go off. It has even happened, when the question of beauty was on the tapis, that some one has asserted that the supremely good is the supremely beautiful. This is worse than puerile, for we know nothing of perfection of any sort except as a transcendental idea, and our notion of perfection in morality, as expressed in terms of the beautiful, is only figurative, a notion derived from our constant comparison of objects of beauty in the sensuous order of things. To do this, therefore, is to be guilty of the absurdity of attempting to define the unknown in ferms of the unknown, and not only that, but the unknown in terms of the unknown in an entirely different category, confounding the sensible with the supersensible world.

What is here intended to be understood by the term beauty is the beauty that is recognized by the senses, sensuous beauty; and although the touch has had its share in educating that perception, reference is here to be made solely to the beauty which is perceived by the eye. The limitation must be made still more strict, and therefore it becomes necessary to say that, although occasion will presently arise for using illustrations which do not apply to personal beauty, yet it is to personal beauty, as our

ultimate objective point, that the attention of the reader is directed.

Here one without experience would suppose that all possible stumbling-blocks to agreement would have been swept away; but not so, for there are persons who have contended that beauty does not exist in any object, but is in the eye of the beholder. The argument used in favor of this view is that the taste of individuals, from the savage and barbaric to the civilized, varying so enormously as to what constitutes beauty, proves, by the absence of a general criterion for excellence of the thing, that the thing itself cannot exist. But as a parallel argument in other matters would be regarded as entirely fallacious, it is strange that this should ever have been advanced as a valid one on this subject. For if there is anything which is recognized by the enlightened races of mankind it is the difference in quality of mentality in range from the civilized and enlightened to the savage and barbaric races. Would any one presume to say that there is no difference between the music of a Beethoven, a Mozart, or a Wagner and the tomtoming and banjoing of a savage composer; that the difference lies merely in the ear of the listener? Why, Helmholtz has shown not only the cause of the difference between a musical note and a note that is a mere noise, but has also shown what it is among musical notes themselves that makes difference in the quality of sounds!

All educated persons are agreed that that being which is physically most highly differentiated, that being in which there is the greater division of physiological labor, is, relatively to another being not so highly differentiated, the superior. The principle is the same, whether we consider the structure representative of a faculty, or we consider the faculty which may elude revelation in the mechanism of a structure. The principle declares broadly that that which is most highly organized has the highest perceptions. The Germans, to continue our illustra

tion, possess, as a race, the highest musical faculty among mankind, and next come the Italians. Other civilized peoples have enough to enable them to appreciate the fact, but the savage cannot rise to the perception of even the lowest civilized form of the manifestation of the faculty. Is there no sensuous beauty because a man born blind cannot see it? Is there none because the mentally purblind, through only partial recognition of it, differ in criterion from those who are mentally more advanced?

It has been truly said that no one can see Greece unless he takes Greece with him; that is, unless his mind is so imbued with the ancient literature and life of Greece that he thus has acquired an insight which no ordinary man can possess. So, too, we may say of all perception in nature and art. Race, mental ability, culture, opportunity for comparison, all that goes to make difference between man and man, goes also to make difference of taste in beauty. Beauty remains the same, while taste differs indefinitely. But taste does not differ more than does mankind. Given similar faculties, physical, mental, and moral, and the same surrounding conditions, and taste in the beautiful would be similar among mankind. It would never be exactly the same, even in any one community, for every man brings to his feelings and his judgments his own identity and life experiences, which can never be exactly like those of any one else; but the criterion would be essentially the same, which is all that is contended for in attempting to show that the absence of a world-wide criterion is no valid argument against the intrinsic existence of beauty. It is not that beauty does not exist that men differ about it, but because they themselves differ in organization and in all surrounding conditions, that there is no universal criterion for it. One of the best evidences of the correctness of this view is that the world, assimilating more and more through modern travel, is, despite its complexity, becoming more and more uniform in taste.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »