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Untitled Article
is made up of a series of surveys of his position in relation to pleasure or pain-inducing circumstances ; of observations of the quarter and degree in which he is exposed to the operation of those , which the knowledge he has acquired suggest to him as injurious , and of the degree in which he is within reach of the
desirable . Such surveys , the passions of hope or fear which they excite , the courses of action suggested by these , and the actions in which the motives thus generated result and determine , are the staple of existence . By these urgent influences , which cannot long be avoided , man is kept in his place in society ; is forced into co-operation , and is moved forwards in a direction something approaching to decidedness and constancy .
To these master-influences those of imagination are supplementary . They are the reflected lights which glance over the landscape , the colours of the prospect which give an additional charm , but without which we should still have been able to trace outlines and distinguish distances by the variations of light and shade . *
From our previous view of the origin and peculiarities of the emotions of imagination , we may easily account for the diversities of taste which arise . In the case of the passions , there is a constant reference to the order of causes and effects ; our feelings are here regulated according to the extent of our knowledge , or the firmness of our conviction of the tendencies for good or evil , as passion prompts , of the objects of our
desires and fears . From the restlessness of this activity , there is a constant correction of our anticipations with the progress of our discovery of positive utility , which tends to a uniformity ; for the prevalence of which in matters of imagination there is by no means the same cause . Here pleasures and pains may be and are associated by different persons , with all sorts of things , in all sorts of ways . The most intense emotions will be excited in one person ' s mind by an object which to another
will convey but trivial associations , accordingly as the current of personal experience has brought each into contact with it at a different angle ; with different combinations of circumstances . The village which to one recals all the enjoyments of his childhood , appears to another but a congregation of sordid hovels . But through disag reements still more glaring , the p rinci p le of the Stability of Taste will ride triumphant . There is sufficient evidence of particular example , as well as of abstract theory , to rove a limit to these cases of divergence . L . D .
• No doubt its influences are supplementary , according to the ordinary definition of " Imagination . " Our author seems to use it with that limitation . But , metaphysically speaking , how do wo hope or fear , or live in the future , —whither all action tends , —except by the faculty called imagination ? Without if , where would be the distances , outlines , lights and shades , except beneath our feet ( the mere objects of sense ) or else in retrospect ?—Ei > .
Untitled Article
Is there a Standard of Taste ? & 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1837, page 37, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1827/page/39/
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