amelioration of morals.

The last means which States are wont to employ, in order to reform the moral condition of the nation correspondently with their design of maintaining security, is the influence of special laws and enactments. But as these cannot be made to induce any direct disposition towards virtue and morality, it manifestly follows that special provisions of this nature can do nothing more than prohibit particular actions of the citizens, or mark out those which, without directly infringing on the rights of others, are either positively immoral or are likely to lead to immorality.

To this class of institutions all sumptuary laws especially belong. For, it is evident, there is no such common and fruitful source of immoral, and even lawless actions, as an excessive propensity of the soul towards the sensual, or the disproportion subsisting between desires and impulses in general, and the powers of satisfaction which the external position affords. When there exists a general spirit of continence and moderation, which serves to reconcile men to their allotted sphere, they are not so strongly impelled to transgress its limits to the infraction of another’s rights, or, at least, to do anything likely to disturb their own happiness and contentment.

Hence it would seem to be strictly consistent with the true end of the State, to confine sensualism within due bounds, since it is the essential source from which all collisions between man and man proceed (for that in which the spiritual prevails can always, and in all cases, subsist in harmony); and further, because it would appear the simplest and easiest method of effecting that object, it might be argued that the State should endeavour, as far as possible, to suppress sensualism altogether.

Still, to adhere faithfully to the principle which has hitherto guided us in this investigation—viz. first of all to regard any proposed means of State agency in the light of man’s true and unmistakable interests,—it becomes us to inquire into the influence of sensualism on human life, development, activity, and happiness, so far as concerns our present purpose; and while such an investigation will naturally lead us to portray the innermost nature of the acting and enjoying man, it will serve at the same time to illustrate more graphically the hurtful or beneficial consequences which flow in general from restrictions imposed on freedom. It is only after such a radical inquiry that we can be in a position to decide as to the State’s competence to act positively on morals, and so arrive at the solution of this part of the general question we have proposed.

The impressions, inclinations, and passions which have their immediate source in the senses, are those which first and most violently manifest themselves in human nature. Wherever, before the refining influences of culture have imparted a new direction to the soul’s energies, these impressions, etc., do not show themselves, all seeds of power have perished, and nothing either good or great can take root and flourish. They constitute the great original source of all spontaneous activity, and first inspire a glowing, genial warmth in human nature. They infuse life and elastic vigour into the soul: when unsatisfied, they render it active, buoyant, ingenious in the invention of schemes, and courageous in their execution; when satisfied, they promote an easy and unhindered play of ideas. In general, they animate and quicken all conceptions with a greater and more varied activity, suggest new views, point out hitherto unnoticed aspects, and, according to the manner in which they are satisfied, intimately react on the physical organization, which in its turn acts upon the soul, although we only notice how from the results.

The influence, however, of these impressions and inclinations differs, not only in its intensity, but in the manner of its operation. This is, to a certain extent, owing to their strength or weakness; but it is also partly to be attributed to their degree of affinity with the spiritual element in human nature, or from the difficulty or facility of raising them from mere animal gratifications to human pleasures. Thus, for instance, the eye imparts to the substance of its impressions that outline of form which is so full of enjoyment and fertile in ideas; while the ear lends to sound the proportionate succession of tones in the order of time. The nature of these impressions readily suggests many interesting reflections, if this were the proper place for such a topic, but I will only pause to notice their different importance as regards the culture of the soul.

The eye supplies the reason, so to speak, with a more prepared substance; and the inner part of our nature, with its own form and that of other things which stand in a relation to it, is thus presented to us in a single and distinct situation. If we conceive of the ear merely as an organ of sense, and in so far as it does not receive and communicate words, it conveys far less distinctness of impression. And it is for this reason that Kant assigns the preference to the plastic arts when compared with music. But he observes that the culture secured to the soul by the several arts, (and I would add, directly secured,) is presupposed as a scale for determining this preference.

The question, however, presents itself whether this scale of previous culture is the just standard of appreciation. Energy appears to me to be the first and chiefest of human virtues. Whatever exalts our energy is of greater worth than aught that merely puts materials into our hands for its exercise. Now, as it is characteristic of man’s nature to perceive only one thing at once, that will most affect it which represents only one object at one time; and as, in a series of successive sensations, each possesses a certain degree which is produced by all the preceding sensations, and acts upon all those which follow it, that series will have the greatest effect in which the single parts consist together in a perfectly similar relation. Now all this is true of music. The exact sequence of time, moreover, is its peculiar and essential property; this is all that is decided in it. The series which it presents but feebly impels us to any definite sensation. It gives us a theme, to which we can supply infinite texts; and that which the hearer really interweaves with this basis, in so far as he is, in general, congenially disposed, springs up freely and naturally from the very fulness of his soul; and the latter more readily and eagerly embraces it than anything else that is actually supplied or intruded on our sensations, which often engrosses us more from its being perceived rather than felt. As it does not belong to me to examine the nature and properties of music, I will not stay to observe its other striking characteristics, such as that it evokes tones from natural objects, and therein keeps closer to nature than painting, sculpture, or poetry. I only wished, in introducing it, to illustrate more clearly the different character of sensuous impressions.

But the manner of influence just described, is not peculiar to music alone. Kant1 observes it to be possible with a union of shifting colours, and it characterizes still more remarkably the impressions we receive from the sense of touch. Even in taste it is unmistakable. In taste, also, there are different gradations of satisfaction, which, as it were, long to be resolved, and disappear, after the solution, in a series of diminishing vibrations. This influence may be least noticeable, perhaps, in the sense of smell. Now, as in the sensitive man it is the progress of sensation, its degree, its ranging increase and decrease, its pure and perfect harmony, which chiefly engage us, and indeed are more really attractive than the substance itself (forgetting, as we do, that the nature of the substance mainly determines the degree, and still more, the harmony of the progression); and further, as the sensitive man, like the image of spring teeming with blossoms, is the spectacle which is above all others the most fascinating; so also, in the fine arts, it is this image of his sensations which man especially strives to discover. And thus it is that painting and sculpture appropriate it to themselves. The eye of Guido Reni’s Madonna is not confined in its expression to the limits of a single, fleeting glance. The tense and straining muscles of the Borghisian Gladiator foretell the blow he is about to deal. In a still higher degree does poetry employ this image. And, to make my idea clearer, without wishing to direct especial attention to the comparative excellence of the fine arts, I would observe that they exercise their influence in two ways, and while these are shared by each, we find them combined in very different manner. They immediately convey ideas, or they excite sensations, thus attuning the soul to an internal harmony, and enriching and exalting its powers. Now, in proportion as one of these sources of influence borrows aid from the other, it weakens the force of its own peculiar impression. Poetry unites both in the highest degree, and it is therefore, in this respect, the most perfect of all the fine arts; but when we regard it in another light, it is also the most weak and imperfect. While it represents its objects less vividly than painting and sculpture, it does not address itself so impressively to sensation as song and music. But, not to speak of that many-sidedness which so especially characterizes poetry, we are ready to overlook this imperfection when we perceive that it is nearest to the true internal nature of man, since it clothes not only thought, but sensation, with the most delicate veil.

But to continue, the energizing sensuous impressions (for I only refer to the arts by way of illustrating these) act in different ways; this is partly owing to the fact that their progression is more rhythmically proportional, and partly that the elements of the impressions themselves, or their substance, as it were, more violently affects the soul. Thus it is that the human voice, of equal melodiousness and quality, affects us more powerfully than a lifeless instrument. For nothing is ever so near to us as the personal, physical feeling; and where this feeling is itself called into play, the effect produced is the greatest. But here, as always, the disproportionate power of the substance suppresses, as it were, the delicacy of the form; and there must always exist a just relation between these. Wherever there is such a misproportion, the proper equilibrium can be restored by increasing the power of the weaker, or diminishing that of the stronger element. But it is always wrong to effect anything by weakening or diminution, unless the power reduced be not natural, but artificial; only when this is the case should any limitation be imposed. It is better that it should destroy itself than slowly die away. But I may not dwell longer on this subject. I hope to have sufficiently elucidated my idea, although I would fain avow the embarrassment under which I necessarily labour in this inquiry; for, as the interesting nature of the subject, and the impossibility of borrowing from other writers just those results which were necessary (as I know of none who proceed exactly from the same point of view), invited me, on the one hand, to expatiate at somewhat greater length; on the other, the reflection that these considerations do not strictly belong to this subject, but are only subordinate lemmas, served to recall me within my appropriate limits. I have only to request that such a difficulty be not forgotten, in regard to my subsequent observations.

Although it is impossible to abstract the subject completely, I have endeavoured hitherto to confine my remarks to sensuous impressions only as such. But the sensual and spiritual are linked together by a mysterious bond, of which our hearts are distinctly conscious, though it remains hidden from our eyes. To this double nature of the visible and invisible world—to the deep-implanted longing for the latter, coupled with the feeling of the sweet necessity of the former, we owe all sound and logical systems of philosophy, truly based on the immutable principles of our nature, just as to the same source we are able to trace the most visionary and incoherent reveries. A constant endeavour to unite these two elements, so that each may rob as little as possible from the other, has always seemed to me the true end of wisdom. This ?sthetic feeling, in virtue of which the sensuous is to us a veil of the spiritual, and the spiritual the living principle of the world of sense, is everywhere unmistakable. The continual contemplation of this “physiognomy” of nature forms the true man. For nothing exercises such a vast influence on the whole character, as the expression of the spiritual in the sensuous,—of the sublime, the simple, the beautiful in all the works of nature and products of art which surround us. Here, too, we find the difference manifested between the energizing and other sensuous impressions. If the ultimate object of all our mortal striving is solely to discover, nourish, and re-create what truly exists in ourselves and others, although in its original for ever invisible,—if it is the intuitive anticipation of this which so endears and consecrates each of its symbols in our eyes, then the nearer do we approach to this original essence in contemplating the image of its restlessly-impellent energy. We commune with it in a language which is indeed difficult, and often misinterpreted, but which often startles us with the surest gleams and premonitions of truth, whilst the form and image of that energy are still more remote from that truth which we thus guess at.

This is the peculiar soil, moreover, on which the beautiful springs up and flourishes, and still more especially the sublime, which brings us yet nearer to Deity. The necessity for some purer satisfaction, far removed in its objects from all preconceived design and without conception, points out to man his descent from the invisible; and the feeling of his utter inadequateness to the surpassing fulness of the object, blends together, in a union at once the most human and divine, infinite greatness with the most devoted humility. Were it not for his feeling for the beautiful, man would cease to love things for their own sake; were it not for the sublime, he would lose that sense of dutiful submission which disdains every recompense, and ignores unworthy fear. The study of the beautiful bestows taste; that of the sublime (if it also may be studied, and the feeling and representation of it is not the fruit of genius) brings justly-balanced greatness. But taste alone, which must always repose on greatness as its basis (since it is only the great which requires measure, and only the powerful, composure), blends all the tones of a perfectly-adjusted being into exquisite harmony. It induces in all our impressions, even those which are purely spiritual, something so concordant, so composed, so concentrated into one focal point. Where taste is wanting, sensual desire is rude and unrestrained; and although without it, scientific inquiries may be both acute and profound, there is no refinement, no polish, nothing fruitful in their application. In general, where there is no taste, the greatest depth of thought and the noblest treasures of wisdom are barren and lifeless, and even............