Say then, has not every
amiable Character, with which you have been enamoured, been proved by
a cool Examination to contain a _beautiful_ Proportion, in the Point
it was placed in, relative to Society? And what is it that constitutes
Moral Deformity, or what we call Vice, but the Disproportion which any
Agent occasions, in the Fabric of Civil Community, by a Non-compliance
to the general _Order_ which should prevail in it?
As the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry are imitative of these,
their Excellence, as ARISTOTLE observes, consists in Faithfulness to
their Original: nor have they any _primary_ Beauty in themselves, but
derive their shadowy Existence in a mimetic Transcript from Objects
in the Material World, or from Passions, Characters, and Manners.
Nevertheless that _internal Sense_ we call TASTE (which is a Herald
for the whole human System, in it's three different Parts, the
refined Faculties of Perception, the gross Organs of Sense, and the
intermediate Powers of Imagination) has as quick a Feeling of this
secondary Excellence of the Arts, as for the primary Graces; and
seizes the Heart with Rapture long before the Senses, and Reason in
Conjunction, can _prove_ this Beauty by collating the Imitations with
their Originals.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25