The Scottish Philosophy [204]
faculty to discern truth or moral good. He also opposes the idea of beauty being a real property of objects. He then expounds his own theory. " In our opinion, then, our sense of beauty depends entirely on our previous experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and consists in the of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we had formerly been made familiar by the direct and intelligible agency of our common sensibilities; and that vast variety of objects to which we give the name of beautiful become entitled to that appellation, merely because they all possess the power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they have been the accompaniments, or with which they have been associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of connection." This theory differs slightly from that of Alison; but is not an improvement of it, and is liable to the same objections. In one point, he seems to have the advantage of the author he reviews. Jeffrey holds the perception of beauty " to be, in most cases, quite instantaneous, and altogether as immediate as the perception of the external qualities of the object to which it is ascribed." I believe that Alison is right when he says that there is a flow of imagination; but then there must be something to start it, and this something -- be it a color, a form, a sound, a harmony -- raises a feeling at once, and is entitled to be called beautiful. He maintains that objects are sublime or beautiful when, along with other qualities, {344} they act as " natural signs and perpetual concomitants of pleasurable sensations, or, at any rate, of some lively feeling or emotion in ourselves, or in some other sentient beings." I am inclined to think that beautiful objects act as signs, but they do so by suggesting ideas of the true and the good.
He has a review of Priestley, and in it examines materialism. He shows that " the qualities of matter are perceived, but perception cannot be perceived." " If the eye and the ear, with their delicate structures and fine sensibility, are but vehicles and apparatus, why should the attenuated and unknown tissues of the cerebral nerves be supposed to be any thing else?" "Their proposition is, not that motion produces sensation, which might be as well in the mind as in the body, -- but that sensation is motion, and that all the phenomena of thought and perception are intelligently accounted for by saying that they are certain little shakings in the pulpy part of the brain." There may be little shakings in the brain for any thing we know, and there may even be shakings of a different kind accompanying every act of thought or perception; but that the shakings themselves the thought or perception we are so far from admitting that we find it absolutely impossible to comprehend what is meant by the assertion."
He has a review of Stewart's " Life of Reid " and of Stewart's Philosophical Essays." He writes in the most laudatory terms of both, and of the Scotch philosophy generally. But he ventures to criticise them, and blames Reid for multiplying without necessity the number of original principles and affections: he sees no reason for admitting a principle of credulity or a principle of veracity in human nature, or for interpreting natural signs. He commends his exemplary diligence and success in subverting the ideal system, but adds: " We must confess that we have not been able to perceive how the destruction of the ideal can be held as a demonstration of the real existence of matter," -- as if Reid had ever claimed that it did so, or as if he had not expressly rested our belief on body on the principle of common sense. He labors to show that mental science cannot bring with it any solid issues, and represents " the lofty estimate which Mr. Stewart has made of the of his favorite study as one of those splendid visions by which men of genius have been so often misled in the enthusiastic pursuit of {345} science and virtue." No doubt psychology cannot directly add to our animal comforts, as chemistry
He has a review of Priestley, and in it examines materialism. He shows that " the qualities of matter are perceived, but perception cannot be perceived." " If the eye and the ear, with their delicate structures and fine sensibility, are but vehicles and apparatus, why should the attenuated and unknown tissues of the cerebral nerves be supposed to be any thing else?" "Their proposition is, not that motion produces sensation, which might be as well in the mind as in the body, -- but that sensation is motion, and that all the phenomena of thought and perception are intelligently accounted for by saying that they are certain little shakings in the pulpy part of the brain." There may be little shakings in the brain for any thing we know, and there may even be shakings of a different kind accompanying every act of thought or perception; but that the shakings themselves
He has a review of Stewart's " Life of Reid " and of Stewart's Philosophical Essays." He writes in the most laudatory terms of both, and of the Scotch philosophy generally. But he ventures to criticise them, and blames Reid for multiplying without necessity the number of original principles and affections: he sees no reason for admitting a principle of credulity or a principle of veracity in human nature, or for interpreting natural signs. He commends his exemplary diligence and success in subverting the ideal system, but adds: " We must confess that we have not been able to perceive how the destruction of the ideal can be held as a demonstration of the real existence of matter," -- as if Reid had ever claimed that it did so, or as if he had not expressly rested our belief on body on the principle of common sense. He labors to show that mental science cannot bring with it any solid issues, and represents " the lofty estimate which Mr. Stewart has made of the