Page 96 - DENG502_PROSE

Prose

Notes considered as one entire Piece.. . . Our Imagination loves to be filled with an Object, or to grasp at
any thing that is too big for its Capacity. We are flung into a pleasing Astonishment at such
unbounded Views, and feel a delightful Stillness and Amazement in the Soul at the Apprehension
of them. The Mind of Man naturally hates everything that looks like a Restraint upon it, and is apt
to fancy it self under a sort of Confinement, when the Sight is pent up in a narrow Compass, and
shortned on every side by the Neighbourhood of Walls or Mountains.. . . [W]ide and undetermined
Prospects are as pleasing to the Fancy, as the Speculations of Eternity or Infinitude are to the
Understanding. But if there be a Beauty or Uncommonness joined with this Grandeur, as in a
troubled Ocean, a Heaven adorned with Stars and Meteors, or a spacious Landskip cut out into
Rivers, Woods, Rocks, and Meadows, the Pleasure still grows upon us, as it rises from more than
a single Principle.
[Novelty] bestows Charms on a Monster, and makes even the Imperfections of Nature please us.”
Every thing that is new or uncommon raises a Pleasure in the Imagination, because it fills the Soul
with an agreeable Surprize, gratifies its Curiosity, and gives it an Idea of which it was not before
possest. We are indeed so often conversant with one Set of Objects, and tired out with so many
repeated Shows of the same Things, that whatever is new or uncommon contributes a little to vary
human Life, and to divert our Minds, for a while, with the Strangeness of its Appearance: It serves
us for a kind of Refreshment, and takes off from that Satiety we are apt to complain of in our usual
and ordinary Entertainments. It is this that bestows Charms on a Monster, and makes even the
Imperfections of Nature please us. It is this that recommends Variety, where the Mind is every
Instant called off to something new, and the Attention not suffered to dwell too long, and waste
it self on any particular Object. It is this, likewise, that improves what is great or beautiful, and
make it afford the Mind a double Entertainment.

One of the dominant practices in contemporary eighteenth-century literary studies
is reading art and aesthetics as ideology.

But there is nothing that makes its Way more directly to the Soul than Beauty, which immediately
diffuses a secret Satisfaction and Complacency through the Imagination, and gives a Finishing to
any thing that is Great or Uncommon. The very first Discovery of it strikes the Mind with an
inward Joy, and spreads a Chearfulness and Delight through all its Faculties. There is not perhaps
any real Beauty or Deformity more in one Piece of Matter than another, because we might have
been so made, that whatsoever now appears loathsome to us, might have shewn it self agreeable;
but we find by Experience, that there are several Modifications of Matter which the Mind, without
any previous Consideration, pronounces at first sight Beautiful or Deformed. Thus we see that
every different Species of sensible Creatures has its different Notions of Beauty, and that each of
them is most affected with the Beauties of its own Kind. This is no where more remarkable than
in Birds of the same Shape and Proportion, where we often see the Male determined in his
Courtship by the single Grain or Tincture of a Feather, and never discovering any Charms but in
the Colour of its Species.
“Every different Species of sensible Creatures has its different Notions of Beauty, and that each of
them is most affected with the Beauties of its own Kind.” There is a second Kind of Beauty that we
find in the several Products of Art and Nature, which does not work in the Imagination with that
Warmth and Violence as the Beauty that appears in our proper Species, but is apt however to raise
in us a secret Delight, and a kind of Fondness for the Places or Objects in which we discover it.
This consists either in the Gaiety or Variety of Colours, in the Symmetry and Proportion of Parts,
in the Arrangement and Disposition of Bodies, or in a just Mixture and Concurrence of all together.

90 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY