BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. § 18. Emotions the form. personal accomplishments, titles, honour, and reputation. The passion for these and other reflective objects is the reflective mode of the passion of fondness. Aversions may be treated in the same way. § 18. 1. The four emotions and corresponding arising from passions just described relate to or contain only pleasures and pains of enjoyment, not of admiration. Objects of all the senses are their objects. But only objects of hearing and sight, or of sight and touch combined, since all remote objects of the one are remote objects of the other, though touch contributes no portion of their specific pleasure, form the representational framework of the next class of direct emotions, the pleasures and pains of which are pleasures and pains of admiration. These are the æsthetic emotions, properly so called. Reference should be made here to §§ 11. 12. in which the pleasure and pain of admiration in sights and sounds was described in its earliest or sensational stage. The æsthetic emotions take up those sensations repeated in representation. When I hear a piece of music of a length greater than can be perceived by the ear at once, I represent the beginning of it when it reaches its close, and compare the two; the pleasure or pain which results from or arises in this comparison is a pleasure or pain of admiration, only different from that in sensation by the greater amount of representation or memory involved. Similarly in a picture, the harmony of form, the correspondence of an object here to an object there, all that is called technically "composition," differs only in quantity, subtilty, and complexity, from the arrangement of shapes in a kaleidoscope which I can take in at a glance. The subtilties of composition which Mr. BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. $18. Emotions the form. Ruskin points out in Turner's pictures, Mod. Painters, Part viii. Chap. ii., and the harmony of parts in a Greek statue, or in one by Michael Angelo, in a Greek Temple or Gothic Cathedral, all repeat the arising from same pleasure on a larger scale, a scale which requires representation as well as presentation. Add now to this source of pleasure that which gives pleasures of enjoyment in sound or sight alone, as the harmony of different kinds of musical instruments and that of different colours, and suppose both kinds of pleasure combined, either in the piece of music or in the picture, statue, or temple, and there will arise from the combination a new pleasure which is at once a pleasure of admiration and of enjoyment, but in which the former element largely preponderates; since even the pleasure of enjoyment is given only by a comparison of two kinds or qualities of sensation, each pleasing in itself. This whole pleasureable emotion, in which the pleasure is chiefly one of admiration, is æsthetic emotion. The general name for the object of the æsthetic emotions, of that quality in the representational framework which is æsthetic emotion on its emotional side, is Beauty if pleasureable, Deformity or ugliness if painful. In this way, in representation, the object of hearing and the object of sight develop, or become distinguished into, a double character, an emotion and its framework; or in other words, the sounds and sights in which representation is involved, when they are of a regular, harmonious, or musical kind, become the frameworks of emotions which, from their similar character, are called by one general name, æsthetic emotion, or the sense of beauty. The beauty is the characteristic of the framework, the sense of beauty VOL. I. L Book I. PART III. the form. is the æsthetic emotion with which we contemplate the framework, its pervading emotional aspect. 2. Let us now examine farther this pleasureable arising from æsthetic emotion, the object of which is beauty. Since it consists in representation, and representation requires a certain considerable length of time both in objects of hearing and in objects of sight, two things must be distinguished in it; first, the whole object may be treated as a whole, or statically; secondly, it may be treated as a movement, or dynamically. Take first a piece of music. Statically considered it is harmony; dynamically it is melody. The movement from note to note, different yet agreable in their relations of pitch and quality, is melody. The quick succession of many notes, each of which is not far removed in pitch from that before it and after it, is a pleasure of enjoyment from its ease or facility; it is the emotion of cheerfulness, gaiety, or joy. The interruption of this succession by several long intervals of pitch between the notes, when equally rapid, gives a sense of difficulty or pain. A slow succession gives the sense of gravity or dulness; if interrupted by long intervals of pitch it adds difficulty or pain. Again, when the succession of sounds is emphasised by loudness or intensity in some of the notes as contrasted with others, or by longer intervals of time interposed between some than between others, the succession is broken up into feet or measures, and a character is impressed upon the succession, which character is also one of enjoyment not of admiration. But when these feet are perceived to have a relation to one another, when they form a system, then we pass over into harmony as well as melody. 3. When we dwell upon the melody or succession of sounds, we usually represent it to ourselves as a movement of some visual object along a line in space; as indeed with all objects occupying time,-space -space serving as the logic of time and objects in it, as already remarked in "Time and Space" § 58. The breadth of this imaginary line in space is given by the number of different but simultaneous sounds in which the harmony of the music resides. But not only the number of different simultaneous sounds will give the representation of breadth, but also lowness of pitch; a single bass note repeated will give the impression of a broad line; a high note of a narrow line; and the music then dwindles as it were to a thread. According then to the number of the simultaneous sounds, and according to their pitch, the melody broadens or narrows in its line of progression. Sometimes, when in any portion of the line a deep bass is heard with a succession of high notes, the breadth of the line given by the bass is represented as a dark background upon which plays, like summer lightning upon clouds, or a chain of fireflies upon a dark pool, the succession of high notes to which is committed the carrying on of the melody. 4. To turn now to the case of speech. The analysis of spoken words must include the formal and material elements of sound, and be based upon that distinction, time, together with the three material qualities of colour, pitch, and intensity. In spoken words accordingly there can be distinguished, first, the length or quantity of syllables; this is necessarily great if the syllable contains much or complicated consonantal sound or noise together with BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. § 18. Emotions arising from the form. BOOK I. CH. II. PART III. § 18. Emotions the form. its vowel sound; consider for instance the quantity of the German word Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit; and the vowel sound may be lengthened without arising from such consonantal sound. Secondly, there is the emphasis, or weight as it may conveniently be called, which consists either in lengthening a syllable, or in making it louder than the rest, or in making a pause before or after it. To give emphasis or weight we must have recourse either to loudness or to time; an emphatic whisper gives weight only by length or by pausing. Thirdly, there is accent, which consists in a high or low pitch. These three modes of spoken sound, length, weight, and pitch, are the circumstances upon which turn the different modes of pronunciation and different characters of speech among different nations and in different individuals. The English and Germans, for instance, speak by weight; there is always one syllable at least in their words which is marked in their speaking as of greater weight than the rest; in German this syllable is always that which contains the ground meaning of the word, as distinguished from its suffix or affix; for instance, the word before adduced is pronounced Fortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeit. In English it is this same syllable in words of Saxon origin; but in words of Latin origin the tendency is to give weight to the first syllable in the word, or to move the emphasis towards it, as for instance in the words miracle, illustrated, admirable. This circumstance gives to English great variety of emphasis; and both English and German possess a spring and vigour from the circumstance of their moving by emphasis. French on the contrary disregards emphasis and moves by accent; every syllable has equal weight, but some have |