chief sources of all that interests us in nature and in art. We cannot enter into the discussion on this ground; but we shall endeavour to show, in few words, the peculiar manner in which association is considered as a productive cause of our sentiments and feelings of the beautiful. A single quotation from the pages of a theoretical writer, who is unquestionably the most able and eloquent supporter of this hypothesis, will as amply and fully answer the purpose, as a thousand illustrations could possibly do.

Mr. Alison observes, "There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connections. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man. They recal so many images of past happiness and past affections-they are connected with so many strong or valued emotions, and lead altogether to so long a train of feelings and recollections, that there is hardly any scene which one ever beholds with so much rapture. There are songs, also, that we have heard in infancy, which, when brought to our remembrance in after years, raise emotions for which we cannot well account; and which, though perhaps very indifferent in themselves, still continue, from their association, and from the variety of conceptions which they kindle in our minds, to be our favourites through life. The scenes which have been

distinguished by the residence of any person whose memory we admire, produce a similar effect. Movemur enim, nescio quo pacto, locis ipsis, in quibus eorum, quos diligimus aut admiramur, adsunt vestigia. The scenes themselves may be little beautiful; but the delight with which we recollect the traces of their lives blends itself insensibly with the emotions which the scenery excites; and the admiration which these recollections afford seems to give a kind of sanctity to the place where they dwelt, and converts everything into beauty which appears to have been connected with them."

Now we think the doctrine of association does not meet the question fairly. It is not equal to the philosophical exigencies of the case. Association is a condition of thought, and nothing more. The mind rests upon the ideas themselves which are bound together, but not upon the principle which binds them. We look beyond this. When the mind dwells upon the recollection of past events, it is because the events themselves were interesting to us; but the mere tie that connects them together, or which may suggest them to our remembrance, is not the cause why they are interesting to us. It tends, therefore, to perplex and bewilder, instead of to enlighten and explain-to consider the mere fact of remembrance as an efficient cause, instead of phenomena themselves.

From the quotation we have just inserted from Mr. Alison's valuable work, we may clearly see that he is only describing the offices of simple instead of the modern mental faculty of as

memory,

sociation. When we state that we were deeply moved on witnessing, after a lapse of time, the localities of our younger years, we only give utterance to a fact which has been noticed by all mankind since the creation, and which is as fully expressed by the terms memory, remembrance, recollection, and the like, as by the phrase, association of ideas. It is, therefore, contrary to the principles of all sound philosophy, to invent new faculties or powers, to account for phenomena, which are as completely understood by previously recognised modes of discussion and reasoning, as they can possibly be.

We shall, before concluding this chapter, make an observation or two on what has been denominated the absolute of beauty, in the works of several distinguished German and French writers. This word absolute is not a happy one; it is apt to lead an English reader astray. It conveys to his mind a strong tinge of necessity or fatality; and, when it is viewed in conjunction with some continental speculations, it has scarcely any other meaning. Now, necessity, in every shape and form, is inimical to the ideas of the sublime and beautiful, both in nature and art. These ideas rest on mind; but that mind must be free to act. The slightest fragment of constraint or necessity is hostile to our praise or admiration. There must be the most perfect spontaneity, or there is nothing. A middle course is impossible. And this applies both to the Divine, as well as the human mind. The universe, as we behold it, must be considered

as the offspring of a Divine mind free to act. If we make that mind a fixed or necessary existence in its mode of action, and the world a mere result of this irrevocable and absolute condition, we destroy at one blow every thing on which the naturally grand and interesting can rest. Let us consider every thing we see as being the result of a fixed and eternal determination, (if such a thing is not a contradiction in terms) and if we think or reason at all on the matter, a single idea or notion of the grand or beautiful could never enter the human mind. We admire external nature, because it was made. By whom? By a MIND of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; and above all, possessing the most perfect spontaneity of action. We must consider the universe as an act of the Divine will; and that it might have been quite differently constructed, had that Divine will thought proper. The same observations apply to the mind of man in works of art. We admire the paintings of Hogarth and M. Angelo, because these were the fruits of their individual minds. Impair or destroy this spontaneous mental power in their respective natures, and what would there remain to be considered beautiful or sublime in the productions of their pencils? Nothing. Mind is every thing; we dwell upon its movements, as exemplified in nature's works; and in works of art we invariably look at them through the medium of the mental agents who made them. The divine mind must be free to act; and the human mind must be also unfettered; these are the two indispersable condi

tions on which all beauty, grandeur, and sublimity rest. The two minds are connected by a similarity of nature; the human is the true type of the Divine mind.*

Before closing this volume, it will prove of advantage to the student and general reader, to cast a momentary glance over its contents, from the time of Locke to the close of the eighteenth century. This period constitutes an important era in the history of mental science.

Every attentive reader must have observed the great influence of the writings of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Locke, in all speculative opinions of this period. The views of these distinguished men were in some measure entirely original, and yet they all made a close approximation to each other. They all viewed man pyschologically; they analysed his powers and faculties, and upon the facts which personal consciousness elicited they reared certain speculations and theories of an ontological com

* Sir Harry Beaumont, Crito, a Dialogue on Beauty, London, 1752; A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, London, 1759; William Thompson, An Inquiry into the Elementary Principles of Beauty in the works of Nature and Art, London, 1800; Schimmelpennick, Theory of the Classification of Beauty and Deformity, London, 1815; Mendelsohn, Letters on the Sensation of the Beautiful; S. J. Pratt, The Sublime and Beautiful of Scripture, 1777; Rev. George Miller, An Essay on the Origin and Nature of Our Ideas of the Sublime, Trans. Irish Academ., 1793; Lambert Hermanson, Ten-Kate, The Beau-Ideal, translated from the French, by J. C. Le Blon, London, 1732.