The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society Part 6

"Proud Man alone in wailing weakness born, No horns protect him, and no plumes adorn; No finer powers of nostril, ear, or eye, Teach the young Reasoner to pursue or fly.-- 120 Nerved with fine touch above the b.e.s.t.i.a.l throngs, The hand, first gift of Heaven! to man belongs; Untipt with claws the circling fingers close, With rival points the bending thumbs oppose, Trace the nice lines of Form with sense refined, And clear ideas charm the thinking mind.

Whence the fine organs of the touch impart Ideal figure, source of every art; Time, motion, number, suns.h.i.+ne or the storm, But mark varieties in Nature's _form_. 130

[Footnote: _The hand, first gift of Heaven_, l. 122. The human species in some of their sensations are much inferior to animals, yet the accuracy of the sense of touch, which they possess in so eminent a degree, gives them a great superiority of understanding; as is well observed by the ingenious Mr. Buffon. The extremities of other animals terminate in horns, and hoofs, and claws, very unfit for the sensation of touch; whilst the human hand is finely adapted to encompa.s.s its object with this organ of sense. Those animals who have clavicles or collar-bones, and thence use their forefeet like hands, as cats, squirrels, monkeys, are more ingenious than other quadrupeds, except the elephant, who has a fine sense at the extremity of his proboscis; and many insects from the possessing finer organs of touch have greater ingenuity, as spiders, bees, wasps.]

[Footnote: _Trace the nice lines of form_, l. 125. When the idea of solidity is excited a part of the extensive organ of touch is compressed by some external body, and this part of the sensorium so compressed exactly resembles in figure the figure of the body that compressed it. Hence when we acquire the idea of solidity, we acquire at the same time the idea of figure; and this idea of figure, or motion of a part of the organ of touch, exactly resembles in its figure the figure of the body that occasions it; and thus exactly acquaints us with this property of the external world.

Now, as the whole universe with all its parts possesses a certain form or figure, if any part of it moves, that form or figure of the whole is varied. Hence, as motion is no other than a perpetual variation of figure, our idea of motion is also a real resemblance of the motion that produced it.

Hence arises the certainty of the mathematical sciences, as they explain these properties of bodies, which are exactly resembled by our ideas of them, whilst we are obliged to collect almost all our other knowledge from experiment; that is, by observing the effects exerted by one body upon another.]

"Slow could the tangent organ wander o'er The rock-built mountain, and the winding sh.o.r.e; No apt ideas could the pigmy mite, Or embryon emmet to the touch excite; But as each ma.s.s the solar ray reflects, The eye's clear gla.s.s the transient beams collects; Bends to their focal point the rays that swerve, And paints the living image on the nerve.

So in some village-barn, or festive hall The spheric lens illumes the whiten'd wall; 140 O'er the bright field successive figures fleet, And motley shadows dance along the sheet.-- Symbol of solid forms is colour'd light, And the mute language of the touch is sight.

[Footnote: _The mute language of the touch_, l. 144. Our eyes observe a difference of colour, or of shade, in the prominences and depressions of objects, and that those shades uniformly vary when the sense of touch observes any variation. Hence when the retina becomes stimulated by colours or shades of light in a certain form, as in a circular spot, we know by experience that this is a sign that a tangible body is before us; and that its figure is resembled by the miniature figure of the part of the organ of vision that is thus stimulated.

Here whilst the stimulated part of the retina resembles exactly the visible figure of the whole in miniature, the various kinds of stimuli from different colours mark the visible figures of the minuter parts; and by habit we instantly recall the tangible figures.

So that though our visible ideas resemble in miniature the outline of the figure of coloured bodies, in other respects they serve only as a language, which by acquired a.s.sociations introduce the tangible ideas of bodies. Hence it is, that this sense is so readily deceived by the art of the painter to our amus.e.m.e.nt and instruction. The reader will find much very curious knowledge on this subject in Bishop Berkeley's Essay on Vision, a work of great ingenuity.]

"HENCE in Life's portico starts young Surprise With step retreating, and expanded eyes; The virgin, Novelty, whose radiant train Soars o'er the clouds, or sinks beneath the main, With sweetly-mutable seductive charms Thrills the young sense, the tender heart alarms. 150 Then Curiosity with tracing hands And meeting lips the lines of form demands, Buoy'd on light step, o'er ocean, earth, and sky, Rolls the bright mirror of her restless eye.

While in wild groups tumultuous Pa.s.sions stand, And l.u.s.t and Hunger head the Motley band; Then Love and Rage succeed, and Hope and Fear; And nameless Vices close the gloomy rear; Or young Philanthropy with voice divine Convokes the adoring Youth to Virtue's shrine; 160 Who with raised eye and pointing finger leads To truths celestial, and immortal deeds.

[Footnote: _Starts young Surprise_, l. 145. Surprise is occasioned by the sudden interruption of the usual trains of our ideas by any violent stimulus from external objects, as from the unexpected discharge of a pistol, and hence does not exist in our dreams, because our external senses are closed or inirritable. The fetus in the womb must experience many sensations, as of resistance, figure, fluidity, warmth, motion, rest, exertion, taste; and must consequently possess trains both of waking and sleeping ideas. Surprise must therefore be strongly excited at its nativity, as those trains of ideas must instantly be dissevered by the sudden and violent sensations occasioned by the dry and cold atmosphere, the hardness of external bodies, light, sound, and odours; which are accompanied with pleasure or pain according to their quant.i.ty or intensity.

As some of these sensations become familiar by repet.i.tion, other objects not previously attended to present themselves, and produce the idea of novelty, which is a less degree of surprise, and like that is not perceived in our dreams, though for another reason; because in sleep we possess no voluntary power to compare our trains of ideas with our previous knowledge of nature, and do not therefore perceive their difference by intuitive a.n.a.logy from what usually occurs.

As the novelty of our ideas is generally attended with pleasurable sensation, from this arises Curiosity, or a desire of examining a variety of objects, hoping to find novelty, and the pleasure consequent to this degree of surprise; see Additional Note VII. 3.]

[Footnote: _And meeting lips_, l. 152. Young children put small bodies into their mouths, when they are satiated with food, as well as when they are hungry, not with design to taste them, but use their lips as an organ of touch to distinguish the shape of them. Puppies, whose toes are terminated with nails, and who do not much use their forefeet as hands, seem to have no other means of acquiring a knowledge of the forms of external bodies, and are therefore perpetually playing with things by taking them between their lips.]

III. "As the pure language of the Sight commands The clear ideas furnish'd by the hands; Beauty's fine forms attract our wondering eyes, And soft alarms the pausing heart surprise.

Warm from its cell the tender infant born Feels the cold chill of Life's aerial morn; Seeks with spread hands the bosoms velvet orbs, With closing lips the milky fount absorbs; 170 And, as compress'd the dulcet streams distil, Drinks warmth and fragrance from the living rill; Eyes with mute rapture every waving line, Prints with adoring kiss the Paphian shrine, And learns erelong, the perfect form confess'd, IDEAL BEAUTY from its Mother's breast.

[Footnote: _Seeks with spread hands_, l. 169. These eight beautiful lines are copied from Mr. Bilsborrow's Address prefixed to Zoonomia, and are translated from that work; Sect. XVI. 6.]

[Footnote: _Ideal Beauty_, l. 176. Sentimental Love, as distinguished from the animal pa.s.sion of that name, with which it is frequently accompanied, consists in the desire or sensation of beholding, embracing, and saluting a beautiful object.

The characteristic of beauty therefore is that it is the object of love; and though many other objects are in common language called beautiful, yet they are only called so metaphorically, and ought to be termed agreeable. A Grecian temple may give us the pleasurable idea of sublimity, a Gothic temple may give us the pleasurable idea of variety, and a modern house the pleasurable idea of utility; music and poetry may inspire our love by a.s.sociation of ideas; but none of these, except metaphorically, can be termed beautiful, as we have no wish to embrace or salute them.

Our perception of beauty consists in our recognition by the sense of vision of those objects, first, which have before inspired our love by the pleasure, which they have afforded to many of our senses; as to our sense of warmth, of touch, of smell, of taste, hunger and thirst; and, secondly, which bear any a.n.a.logy of form to such objects.]

"Now on swift wheels descending like a star Alights young EROS from his radiant car; On angel-wings attendant Graces move, And hail the G.o.d of SENTIMENTAL LOVE. 180 Earth at his feet extends her flowery bed, And bends her silver blossoms round his head; Dark clouds dissolve, the warring winds subside.

And smiling ocean calms his tossing tide, O'er the bright morn meridian l.u.s.tres play, And Heaven salutes him with a flood of day.

[Footnote: _Alights young Eros_, l. 178. There were two deities of Love belonging to the heathen mythology, the one said to be celestial, and the other terrestrial. Aristophanes says, "Sable-winged Night produced an egg, from which sprung up like a blossom Eros, the lovely, the desirable, with his glossy golden wings." See Botanic Garden, Canto I. l. 412.

Note. The other deity of Love, Cupido, seems of much later date, as he is not mentioned in the works of Homer, where there were so many apt situations to have introduced him.]

[Footnote: _Earth at his feet_, l. 181.

Te, Dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila coeli, Adventumque tuum; tibi suaves daedala tellus Submitt.i.t flores; tibi rident aequora ponti; Placatumque nitet diffuso lumine coelum.

LUCRET.]

"Warm as the sun-beam, pure as driven snows, The enamour'd G.o.d for young DIONE glows; Drops the still tear, with sweet attention sighs, And woos the G.o.ddess with adoring eyes; 190 Marks her white neck beneath the gauze's fold, Her ivory shoulders, and her locks of gold; Drinks with mute ecstacy the transient glow, Which warms and tints her bosom's rising snow.

With holy kisses wanders o'er her charms, And clasps the Beauty in Platonic arms; Or if the dewy hands of Sleep, unbid, O'er her blue eye-b.a.l.l.s close the lovely lid, Watches each nascent smile, and fleeting grace, That plays in day-dreams o'er her blus.h.i.+ng face; 200 Counts the fine mazes of the curls, that break Round her fair ear, and shade her damask cheek; Drinks the pure fragrance of her breath, and sips With tenderest touch the roses of her lips;-- O'er female hearts with chaste seduction reigns, And binds SOCIETY in silken chains.

IV. "IF the wide eye the wavy lawns explores, The bending woodlands, or the winding sh.o.r.es, Hills, whose green sides with soft protuberance rise, Or the blue concave of the vaulted skies;-- 210 Or scans with nicer gaze the pearly swell Of spiral volutes round the twisted sh.e.l.l; Or undulating sweep, whose graceful turns Bound the smooth surface of Etrurian urns, When on fine forms the waving lines impress'd Give the nice curves, which swell the female breast; The countless joys the tender Mother pours Round the soft cradle of our infant hours, In lively trains of unextinct delight Rise in our bosoms _recognized by sight_; 220 Fond Fancy's eye recalls the form divine, And TASTE sits smiling upon Beauty's shrine.

[Footnote: _The wavy lawns_, l. 207. When the babe, soon after it is born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom; its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratified by the flavour of it; afterwards the appet.i.tes of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness.

All these various kinds of pleasure at length become a.s.sociated with the form of the mother's breast; which the infant embraces with its hands, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its mother's bosom, than of the odour and flavour or warmth, which it perceives by its other senses.

And hence at our maturer years, when any object of vision is presented to us, which by its waving or spiral lines bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a landscape with soft gradations of rising and descending surface, or in the forms of some antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the chisel, we feel a general glow of delight, which seems to influence all our senses; and if the object be not too large, we experience an attraction to embrace it with our arms, and to salute it with our lips, as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our mother. And thus we find, according to the ingenious idea of Hogarth, that the waving lines of beauty were originally taken from the temple of Venus.]

"Where Egypt's pyramids gigantic stand, And stretch their shadows o'er the shuddering sand; Or where high rocks o'er ocean's das.h.i.+ng floods Wave high in air their panoply of woods; Admiring TASTE delights to stray beneath With eye uplifted, and forgets to breathe; Or, as aloft his daring footsteps climb, Crests their high summits with his arm sublime. 230

[Footnote: _With his arm sublime_, l. 230. Objects of taste have been generally divided into the beautiful, the sublime, and the new; and lately to these have been added the picturesque. The beautiful so well explained in Hogarth's a.n.a.lysis of beauty, consists of curved lines and smooth surfaces, as expressed in the preceding note; any object larger than usual, as a very large temple or a very large mountain, gives us the idea of sublimity; with which is often confounded the terrific, and the melancholic: what is now termed picturesque includes objects, which are princ.i.p.ally neither sublime nor beautiful, but which by their variety and intricacy joined with a due degree of regularity or uniformity convey to the mind an agreeable sentiment of novelty. Many other agreeable sentiments may be excited by visible objects, thus to the sublime and beautiful may be added the terrific, tragic, melancholic, artless, &c. while novelty superinduces a charm upon them all. See Additional Note XIII.]

"Where mouldering columns mark the lingering wreck Of Thebes, Palmyra, Babylon, Balbec; The prostrate obelisk, or shatter'd dome, Uprooted pedestal, and yawning tomb, On loitering steps reflective TASTE surveys With folded arms and sympathetic gaze; Charm'd with poetic Melancholy treads O'er ruin'd towns and desolated meads; Or rides sublime on Time's expanded wings, And views the fate of ever-changing things. 240

[Footnote: _Poetic melancholy treads_, l. 237. The pleasure arising from the contemplation of the ruins of ancient grandeur or of ancient happiness, and here termed poetic melancholy, arises from a combination of the painful idea of sorrow with the pleasurable idea of the grandeur or happiness of past times; and becomes very interesting to us by fixing our attention more strongly on that grandeur and happiness, as the pa.s.sion of Pity mentioned in the succeeding note is a combination of the painful idea of sorrow with the pleasurable one of beauty, or of virtue.]

"When Beauty's streaming eyes her woes express, Or Virtue braves unmerited distress; Love sighs in sympathy, with pain combined, And new-born Pity charms the kindred mind; The enamour'd Sorrow every cheek bedews, And TASTE impa.s.sion'd woos the tragic Muse.

[Footnote: _The tragic Muse_, l. 246. Why we are delighted with the scenical representations of Tragedy, which draw tears from our eyes, has been variously explained by different writers. The same distressful circ.u.mstance attending an ugly or wicked person affects us with grief or disgust; but when distress occurs to a beauteous or virtuous person, the pleasurable idea of beauty or of virtue becomes mixed with the painful one of sorrow and the pa.s.sion of Pity is produced, which is a combination of love or esteem with sorrow; and becomes highly interesting to us by fixing our attention more intensely on the beauteous or virtuous person.

Other distressful scenes have been supposed to give pleasure to the spectator from exciting a comparative idea of his own happiness, as when a s.h.i.+pwreck is viewed by a person safe on sh.o.r.e, as mentioned by Lucretius, L. 3. But these dreadful situations belong rather to the terrible, or the horrid, than to the tragic; and may be objects of curiosity from their novelty, but not of Taste, and must suggest much more pain than pleasure.]

"The rush-thatch'd cottage on the purple moor, Where ruddy children frolic round the door, The moss-grown antlers of the aged oak, The s.h.a.ggy locks that fringe the colt unbroke, 250 The bearded goat with nimble eyes, that glare Through the long tissue of his h.o.a.ry hair;-- As with quick foot he climbs some ruin'd wall, And crops the ivy, which prevents its fall;-- With rural charms the tranquil mind delight, And form a picture to the admiring sight.

While TASTE with pleasure bends his eye surprised In modern days at Nature unchastised.

[Footnote: _Nature unchastised_, l. 258. In cities or their vicinity, and even in the cultivated parts of the country we rarely see undisguised nature; the fields are ploughed, the meadows mown, the shrubs planted in rows for hedges, the trees deprived of their lower branches, and the animals, as horses, dogs, and sheep, are mutilated in respect to their tails or ears; such is the useful or ill-employed activity of mankind! all which alterations add to the formality of the soil, plants, trees, or animals; whence when natural objects are occasionally presented to us, as an uncultivated forest and its wild inhabitants, we are not only amused with greater variety of form, but are at the same time enchanted by the charm of novelty, which is a less degree of Surprise, already spoken of in note on l. 145 of this Canto.]

"The GENIUS-FORM, on silver slippers born, With fairer dew-drops gems the rising morn; 260 Sheds o'er meridian skies a softer light, And decks with brighter pearls the brow of night; With finer blush the vernal blossom glows, With sweeter breath enamour'd Zephyr blows, The limpid streams with gentler murmurs pa.s.s, And gayer colours tinge the watery gla.s.s, Charm'd round his steps along the enchanted groves Flit the fine forms of Beauties, Graces, Loves.

V. "Alive, each moment of the transient hour, When Rest acc.u.mulates sensorial power, 270 The impatient Senses, goaded to contract, Forge new ideas, changing as they act; And, in long streams dissever'd, or concrete In countless tribes, the fleeting forms repeat.

Which rise excited in Volition's trains, Or link the sparkling rings of Fancy's chains; Or, as they flow from each translucent source, Pursue a.s.sociation's endless course.

[Footnote: _When rest acc.u.mulates_, l. 270. The acc.u.mulation of the spirit of animation, when those parts of the system rest, which are usually in motion, produces a disagreeable sensation. Whence the pain of cold and of hunger, and the irksomeness of a continued att.i.tude, and of an indolent life: and hence the propensity to action in those confined animals, which have been accustomed to activity, as is seen in the motions of a squirrel in a cage; which uses perpetual exertion to exhaust a part of its acc.u.mulated sensorial power. This is one source of our general propensity to action; another perhaps arises from our curiosity or expectation of novelty mentioned in the note on l. 145. of this canto.

But the immediate cause of our propensity to imitation above that of other animals arises from the greater facility, with which by the sense of touch we acquire the ideas of the outlines of objects, and afterwards in consequence by the sense of sight; this seems to have been observed by Aristotle, who calls man, "the imitative animal;" see Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII.]

"Hence when the inquiring hands with contact fine Trace on hard forms the circ.u.mscribing line; 280 Which then the language of the rolling eyes From distant scenes of earth and heaven supplies; Those clear ideas of the touch and sight Rouse the quick sense to anguish or delight; Whence the fine power of IMITATION springs, And apes the outlines of external things; With ceaseless action to the world imparts All moral virtues, languages, and arts.

First the charm'd Mind mechanic powers collects, Means for some end, and causes of effects; 290 Then learns from other Minds their joys and fears, Contagious smiles and sympathetic tears.

[Footnote: _All moral virtues_, l. 288. See the sequel of this canto l. 453 on sympathy; and l. 331 on language; and the subsequent lines on the arts of painting and architecture.]

"What one fine stimulated Sense discerns, Another Sense by IMITATION learns.-- So in the graceful dance the step sublime Learns from the ear the concordance of Time.

So, when the pen of some young artist prints Rec.u.mbent Nymphs in t.i.tIAN'S living tints; The glowing limb, fair cheek, and flowing hair, Respiring bosom, and seductive air, 300 He justly copies with enamour'd sigh From Beauty's image pictured on his eye.

[Footnote: _Another sense_, l. 294. As the part of the organs of touch or of sight, which is stimulated into action by a tangible or visible object, must resemble in figure at least the figure of that object, as it thus const.i.tutes an idea; it may be said to imitate the figure of that object; and thus imitation may be esteemed coeval with the existence both of man and other animals: but this would confound perception with imitation; which latter is better defined from the actions of one sense copying those of another.]