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Untitled Article
pleasingness of finding ourselves disappointed of this , and of losing confidence in our power of gratifying others—all these influences combine to indisppse us to allow the completely fortuitous origin of the values of the objects of imagination . It is thus that , whatever opinion a person might give on the subject of ^ t Standard of Taste abstractly proposed , every one may be detected assuming one in particular instances ; everybody may be found—carrying the language of precise science
into what he may have the moment before declared to be the region of ever-fluctuating uncertainty—condemning one style of acting , or one style of painting , of novels , or of dress , as inferior to others , and declaring , in all authority , that whoever disagrees with him is wrong , makes a mistake , and ought to coincide with him . Yet his opponent might answer in this
particular case what has been allowed as a general principle . He might profess that the ranting style of acting excited in him feelings of more intense sublimity than the more concentrated and calm ; and that therefore , on the critic ' s own principle , the ranting style must be the most sublime , and his taste in this particular must be quite as desirable for him as any pther , which would perhaps not be so pleasurable .
This brings us to the heart of the matter . Beauty and sublimity , like weight and distance , are relative . The same object which is beautiful to one man , is very ugliness to another , as a marble is heavy compared with , or referred to , a pea , find light when our standard is a cannon-ball ; and so with position .
" Ask where s the North—at York ' tis on the Tweed—In Scotland at the Orcades—and there—¦ < At Iceland—Greenland , and the Lord knows where . " . The question is therefore a question of the choice of a standard—every particular man ' s feelings may be taken as a standard of beauty—but if the selection be ill made , the results vyyill be as unfortunate as if , for guidance in the construction pf dpor-ways , we were to take the heights of a giant or a dwarf , for our standard of stature . The most advantageous
standard must be that which will secure us most of the advantage ® f ° which we are led to adopt any standard at all ; must be 4 that \ yhicji will afford us correct guidance in the greatest number of instances ; and this it is which must have a paramount , title , tp be palled ' The Standard . '
i : $ QSfes have pccurred of persons , from peculiarity of organs , . s #$ ttg colours different from the generality of mankind—greeu tQ others appearing blue to them , and so on . Cases have ^ gcufrefi pf persons finding their sense of the beauty of a grove ^ h ^ i ^ d by the trunks being painted , as in Holland , with
Untitled Article
36 Is there a Standard of Taste ?
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 30, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/32/
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