Every careful reader of Locke's "Essay" must have observed two elements running through all his philosophy, --the one, a sensational, or rather to do justice to Locke, who ever refers to reflection as a separate source of ideas, an experiential element, and the other a rational.In the opening of the " Essay" he denies innate ideas apparently in every sense, and affirms that the materials of all our ideas are derived from sensation and reflection; but, as he advances, his language is, that by these sources ideas are "suggested and furnished to the mind" (the language adopted by Reid and Stewart); he calls in faculties with high functions to work on the materials; speaks of ideas which are "creatures and inventions of the understanding;" appeals to "natural law" and the "principles of common reason; "and in the Fourth Book gives a very high, or rather deep, place to intuition; says we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence; speaks of the " mind perceiving truth as the eye doth light, only by being directed toward it;" declares that, in the "discovery of and assent to these truths, there is no use of the discursive faculty, no need of reasoning, but they are known by a superior and higher degree of evidence," and talks even of a " necessary connection of ideas." It unfortunately happened that in France, to which Locke was introduced by Voltaire and the encyclopedists, they took the sensational element alone, and the effect on thought and on morality was most disastrous.Unfortunately, too, Locke has become known in Germany, chiefly through France, and hence we find him, all over the Continent, described both by friends and foes as a sensational 1st; and the charge has been re-echoed in Great Britain by Sir William Hamilton and Dr.Morell.Yet it is quite certain that Locke has an intellectual as well as a sensational side. I have, {296} in a careful perusal of the "Essay,"mainly for this very end, discovered in every book, and in the majority even of the chapters, both sides of the shield;but I confess that I have not been able to discover the line that joins them.I do not think that Stewart's remarks on this subject are exhaustive or decisive: he is evidently wrong in supposing that Locke identified reflection with the reason which discovers truth, but his strictures are always candid and sometimes just.
In the "Philosophical Essays," Stewart has many fine observations on taste and beauty.On this subject he was favorably disposed towards the theory of his friend Mr.
Alison, and he ascribes more than he should have done to the association of ideas.But he never gave his adhesion to this hypothesis as a full explanation of the phenomena." If there was nothing," he says, " originally and intrinsically pleasing or beautiful, the associating principle would have no materials on which it could operate." The theory of association was never favorably received by artists, and has been abandoned by all metaphysicians.The tendency now is to return to the deeper views which had been expounded long ago by Plato, and, I may add, by Augustine.I find that Stewart refers to the doctrine of Augustine, who " represents beauty as consisting in that relation of the parts of a whole to each other which constitutes its unity;" and all that he has to say of it is: "The theory certainly is not of great value, but the attempt is curious." The aesthetical writers of our age would be inclined to say of it that there is more truth in it than in all the speculations of Alison, Stewart, Jeffrey, and Brown.It may be safely said that, while earnest inquirers have had pleasant glimpses of beauty, to no one has she revealed her full charms.When such writers as Cousin, Ruskin, and Macvicar dwell so much on unity, harmony, proportion, I am tempted to ask them: Does then the feeling of beauty not arise till we have discovered such qualities as proportion, unity, and harmony? And if they answer in the affirmative, then I venture to show them that they are themselves holding a sort of association theory;for they affirm that the beautiful object does not excite emotion till, as a sign, it calls forth certain ideas, -- Isuspect of truth and goodness.I am not quite sure that we can go the length of this school, when they speak of beauty as a quality necessary, immutable, eternal, like {297} truth and moral good, and connect it so essentially with the very nature of God.There are sounds and colors and proportions felt to be beautiful by us, but which may not be appreciated by other intelligences, and which are so relished by us, simply because of the peculiarities of our human organization and constitution.I acknowledge that, when we follow these colors and sounds and proportions sufficiently far, we come in variably to mathematical ratios and relations; but we are now, be it observed, in the region of immutable truth.Other kinds of beauty, arising from the contemplation of happiness and feeling, land us in the moral good, which is also necessary and eternal.I have sometimes thought that beauty is a gorgeous robe spread over certain portions of the true and the good, to recommend them to our regards and cluster our affections round them.Our aesthetic emotions being thus roused, the association of ideas comes in merely as a secondary agent to prolong and intensify the feeling.
