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Unit 11: Addison-Pleasures of Imagination ...

“There is something more bold and masterly in the rough careless Strokes of Nature, than in the Notes
nice Touches and Embellishments of Art.”
If the Products of Nature rise in Value, according as they more or less resemble those of Art, we
may be sure that artificial Works receive a greater Advantage from their Resemblance of such as
are natural; because here the Similitude is not only pleasant, but the Pattern more perfect.
We have before observed, that there is generally in Nature something more Grand and August, than
what we meet with in the Curiosities of Art. When therefore, we see this imitated in any measure, it
gives us a nobler and more exalted kind of Pleasure than what we receive from the nicer and more
accurate Productions of Art. On this Account our English Gardens are not so entertaining to the
Fancy as those in France and Italy, where we see a large Extent of Ground covered over with an
agreeable mixture of Garden and Forest, which represent every where an artificial Rudeness, much
more charming than that Neatness and Elegancy which we meet with in those of our own Country.
“[W]ide and undetermined Prospects are as pleasing to the Fancy, as the Speculations of Eternity
or Infinitude are to the Understanding.”
If the Writers who have given us an Account of China, tell us the Inhabitants of that Country
laugh at the Plantations of our Europeans, which are laid out by the Rule and Line; because, they
say, any one may place Trees in equal Rows and uniform Figures. They chuse rather to shew a
Genius in Works of this Nature, and therefore always conceal the Art by which they direct
themselves. They have a Word, it seems, in their Language, by which they express the particular
Beauty of a Plantation that thus strikes the Imagination at first Sight, without discovering what it
is that has so agreeable an Effect. Our British Gardeners, on the contrary, instead of humouring
Nature, love to deviate from it as much as possible. Our Trees rise in Cones, Globes, and Pyramids.
We see the Marks of the Scissars upon every Plant and Bush. I do not know whether I am singular
in my Opinion, but, for my own part, I would rather look upon a Tree in all its Luxuriancy and
Diffusion of Boughs and Branches, than when it is thus cut and trimmed into a Mathematical
Figure; and cannot but fancy that an Orchard in Flower looks infinitely more delightful, than all
the little Labyrinths of the finished Parterre.

11.5 Important Points of Addison’s Essays
1. The essays in this reading are sometimes cited as having an influence on David Hume’s of the
Standard of Taste. Specifically, which of Addison’s points do you think most influenced Hume?
2. Addison’s series of articles on the pleasures of the imagination is sometimes cited as the dawn
of modern æsthetic theory. Prior to the publication of these essays in The Spectator in 1712,
little sustained thought on æsthetics had been forthcoming in Western literature. Do you think
the rise of the middle class and the resulting increase in leisure activities can be historically and
economically associated with the development of modern æsthetics?
3. Explain what Addison means when he writes loathsome and offensive objects might still bring
a kind of delight if the qualities of greatness, novelty, and beauty are present:
whatever is new or uncommon . . . serves us for a kind of Refreshment, and . . . bestows
Charms on a Monster, and makes even the Imperfections of Nature please us.
How can this analysis of the beauty of a “Monster” be rendered consistent with Addison’s
argument for the beauty resulting from the fixity of biological species.
The Supreme Being has made every thing that is beautiful in our own Species pleasant, that all
Creatures might be tempted to multiply their Kind, and fill the World with Inhabitants; for ’tis
very remarkable that where-ever Nature is crost in the Production of a Monster (the Result of
any unnatural Mixture) the Breed is incapable of propagating its Likeness, and of founding a
new Order of Creatures .
4. Addison assumes the teleological source of the pleasures of imagination is the Supreme Creator.
Do you think it would be possible to construct a basis for final causes of these pleasures in
terms of biological or natural origin instead of basing them on God?

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