An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of our Ideas of Beauty, etc. | Page 6

good, yet, being in its progress perpetually impeded
by adventitious causes, casual occurrences, &c. &c. which induce false
opinions of good and evil, its progressive powers generally stop at a
middle point between mere uncultivated nature and perfection, a
medium which constitutes what we call common sense, and which, in
degree, seems as distant from the perfection of the mental faculties as
common form is from the perfection of form, beauty.
[Illustration: SUBLIMITY. | GRACE | BEAUTY | TRUTH |
COMMON SENSE | COMMON FORM | NATURE]
On meditating on this subject, and marking the progressive stages or
degrees of human excellence, the great leading general truths, or mental
rests, as I may call them, _the common, the beautiful, the graceful, and
the sublime_, I have been naturally led to form a kind of diagrammatic
representation of their respective distances, &c. &c. which I present to
my reader on the opposite page, requesting him to refer to it now and
then as he goes on, in order to facilitate his comprehension of my
meaning.

And here it may be necessary to premise, that, however whimsical and
absurd this delineation may appear to my reader, something analogous
to the thought may be found in the works of many eminent
philosophers, particularly in those of Bacon[A] and of Locke:[B] the
latter suggesting that the whole system of morality might be reduced to
mathematical demonstration; and the former, in his treatise on the
Advancement of Learning, gives a description of the stages of science
very much resembling my delineation of the stages of intellectual
perfection, or taste.
[Footnote A: Advancement of Learning, Book 2d.]
[Footnote B: Essay on human Understanding, Chap. 3d, Book the 4th,
and Chap. 12th, same Book, Sect. 8th.]
It could have been no dishonour to me to have been led by such
conductors! Yet, as the truth cannot dishonour me neither, I must aver,
that my little system was projected, and brought to the exact state it
now is in, without my having the least apprehension that any thing
similar had been suggested before by any person whatever; nor have I,
in consequence of the discovery I have lately made of the opinions of
these respectable authors, added or omitted a single thought in my
treatise. But to return from my digression.
In the exact center of my circle of humanity, I have placed nature, or
the springs of the intellectual powers, which tend, in a straight line, to
its boundary; and, on its boundary, I have placed demonstrable beauty
and truth, and the utmost power of rules; and, midway; I have placed
common sense and common form, half deriving their existence from
pure nature, and half from its highest cultivation, as far as art or rules
can teach. A conjunction which would itself be the perfection of
humanity, but that it is mixed with all that is not nature, and all that is
not art, and thereby made mediocrity, i.e. common sense.
The intellectual powers, arriving at the limit of my common circle, i.e.
at the limit of the basis of my pyramidical system, where I have placed
the fixed proportions of beauty and of truth, (if they progress,) mount
up as a flame, with undulating[A] motion, refining as they advance, and

terminate in the pinnacle, or ultimate point, _sublimity_; forming in the
imagination the figure of a pyramid, or cone, from the limit of whose
base, (on which, as I have before observed, I have placed demonstrable
truth and beauty, the utmost power of rules, &c.) from that limit up to
the ultimate point of sublimity, I call the region of intellectual pleasure,
genius, or taste; and in its center I place grace, whose influence
pervades, cheers, and nourishes, every part of it, an object which, in
this ideal region, is similar in its situation and degree to that of common
sense in the common or fundamental region. Grace seems to partake of
the perception both of beauty and of sublimity, as common sense
partakes of nature and of art. Grace is the characteristic object or
general form of the ideal region, and its perception is the general limit
of the powers of imagination or taste. Few, very few, attain to the point
of sublimity; the ne plus ultra of human conception! the alpha and
omega. The sentiment of sublimity sinks into the source of nature, and
that of the source of nature mounts to the sentiment of sublimity, each
point seeming to each the cause and the effect; the origin and the end!
[Footnote A: I use that expression, because it is the peculiar motion of
grace as well as of a flame.]
Having thus drawn the outline of my pyramidical mental system, I
propose to expatiate a little on each point or stage throughout the great
characteristic