The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)

PART I

I. Novelty 101

II. Pain and Pleasure 102

III. The Difference between the Removal of Pain and Positive Pleasure 104

IV. Of Delight and Pleasure, as opposed to each other 106

V. Joy and Grief 108

VI. Of the Passions which belong to Self-Preservation 110

VII. Of the Sublime 110

VIII. Of the Passions which belong to Society 111

IX. The Final Cause of the Difference between the Passions belonging to Self-Preservation, and those which regard the Society of the Sexes 113

X. Of Beauty 114

XI. Society and Solitude 115

XII. Sympathy, Imitation, and Ambition 116

XIII. Sympathy 117

XIV. The Effects of Sympathy in the Distresses of Others 119

XV. Of the Effects of Tragedy 120

XVI. Imitation 122

XVII. Ambition 123

XVIII. The Recapitulation 125

XIX. The Conclusion 126

PART II.

I. Of the Passion caused by the Sublime 130

II. Terror 130

III. Obscurity 132

IV. Of the Difference between Clearness and Obscurity with regard to the Passions 133

V. Power 138

VI. Privation 146

VII. Vastness 147

VIII. Infinity 148

IX. Succession and Uniformity 149

X. Magnitude in Building 152

XI. Infinity in Pleasing Objects 153

XII. Difficulty 153

XIII. Magnificence 154

XIV. Light 156

XV. Light in Building 157

XVI. Color considered as productive of the Sublime 158

XVII. Sound and Loudness 159

XVIII. Suddenness 160

XIX. Intermitting 160

XX. The Cries of Animals 161

XXI. Smell and Taste--Bitters and Stenches 162

XXII. Feeling.--Pain 164

PART III.

I. Of Beauty 165

II. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Vegetables 166

III. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in Animals 170

IV. Proportion not the Cause of Beauty in the Human Species 172

V. Proportion further considered 178

VI. Fitness not the Cause of Beauty 181

VII. The Real Effects of Fitness 184

VIII. The Recapitulation 187

IX. Perfection not the Cause of Beauty 187

X. How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to the Qualities of the Mind 188

XI. How far the Idea of Beauty may be applied to Virtue 190

XII. The Real Cause of Beauty 191

XIII. Beautiful Objects Small 191

XIV. Smoothness 193

XV. Gradual Variation 194

XVI. Delicacy 195

XVII. Beauty in Color 196

XVIII. Recapitulation 197

XIX. The Physiognomy 198

XX. The Eye 198

XXI. Ugliness 199

XXII. Grace 200

XXIII. Elegance and Speciousness 200

XXIV. The Beautiful in Feeling 201

XXV. The Beautiful in Sounds 203

XXVI. Taste and Smell 205

XXVII. The Sublime and Beautiful compared 205

PART IV.

I. Of the Efficient Cause of the Sublime and Beautiful 208

II. Association 209

III. Cause of Pain and Fear 210

IV. Continued 212

V. How the Sublime is produced 215

VI. How Pain can be a Cause of Delight 215

VII. Exercise necessary for the Finer Organs 216

VIII. Why Things not Dangerous sometimes produce a Passion like Terror 217

IX. Why Visual Objects of Great Dimensions are Sublime 217

X. Unity, why requisite to Vastness 219

XI. The Artificial Infinite 220

XII. The Vibrations must be Similar 222

XIII. The Effects of Succession in Visual Objects explained 222

XIV. Locke's Opinion concerning Darkness considered 225

XV. Darkness Terrible in its own Nature 226

XVI. Why Darkness is Terrible 227

XVII. The Effects of Blackness 229

XVIII. The Effects of Blackness moderated 231

XIX. The Physical Cause of Love 232

XX. Why Smoothness is Beautiful 234

XXI. Sweetness, its Nature 235

XXII. Sweetness relaxing 237

XXIII. Variation, why Beautiful 239

XXIV. Concerning Smallness 240

XXV. Of Color 244

PART V.

I. Of Words 246

II. The Common Effect of Poetry, not by raising Ideas of Things 246

III. General Words before Ideas 249

IV. The Effect of Words 250

V. Examples that Words may affect without raising Images 252

VI. Poetry not strictly an Imitative Art 257

VII. How Words influence the Passions 258

INTRODUCTION.

ON TASTE.

On a superficial view we may seem to differ very widely from each other in our reasonings, and no less in our pleasures: but, notwithstanding this difference, which I think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that the standard both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures. For if there were not some principles of judgment as well as of sentiment common to all mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or their passions, sufficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life. It appears, indeed, to be generally acknowledged, that with regard to truth and falsehood there is something fixed. We find people in their disputes continually appealing to certain tests and standards, which are allowed on all sides, and are supposed to be established in our common nature. But there is not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled principles which relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and aerial faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of a definition, cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is so continual a call for the exercise of the reasoning facility; and it is so much strengthened by perpetual contention, that certain maxims of right reason seem to be tacitly settled amongst the most ignorant. The learned have improved on this rude science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If taste has not been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject was barren, but that the laborers were few or negligent; for, to say the truth, there are not the same interesting motives to impel us to fix the one, which urge us to ascertain the other. And, after all, if men differ in their opinion concerning such matters, their difference is not attended with the same important consequences; else I make no doubt but that the logic of taste, if I may be allowed the expression, might very possibly be as well digested, and we might come to discuss matters of this nature with as much certainty, as those which seem more immediately within the province of mere reason. And, indeed, it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as our present, to make this point as clear as possible; for if taste has no fixed principles, if the imagination is not affected according to some invariable and certain laws, our labor is likely to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be judged an useless, if not an absurd undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a legislator of whims and fancies.

The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely accurate; the thing which we understand by it is far from a simple and determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For, when we define, we seem in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the object before us; instead of extending our ideas to take in all that nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining. We are limited in our inquiry by the strict laws to which we have submitted at our setting out.

Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem, Unde pudor proferre pedem vetat aut operis lex.

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the virtue of a definition be what it will, in the order of things, it seems rather to follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result. It must be acknowledged that the methods of disquisition and teaching may be sometimes different, and on very good reason undoubtedly; but, for my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.

But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word taste, no more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and the elegant arts. This is, I think, the most general idea of that word, and what is the least connected with any particular theory. And my point in this inquiry is, to find whether there are any principles, on which the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such principles of taste I fancy there are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial view imagine that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind and degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate.

Continue reading The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) free in the Wunder reader →