It is only the effect which that figure produces
upon the mind, whose peculiar fabric of structure renders it
susceptible of such sentiments. In vain would you look for it in
the circle, or seek it, either by your senses or by mathematical
reasoning, in all the properties of that figure.
Attend to Palladio and Perrault, while they explain all the parts
and proportions of a pillar. They talk of the cornice, and
frieze, and base, and entablature, and shaft, and architrave; and
give the description and position of each of these members. But
should you ask the description and position of its beauty, they
would readily reply, that the beauty is not in any of the parts
or members of a pillar, but results from the whole, when that
complicated figure is presented to an intelligent mind,
susceptible to those finer sensations. Till such a spectator
appear, there is nothing but a figure of such particular
dimensions and proportions: from his sentiments alone arise its
elegance and beauty.
Again; attend to Cicero, while he paints the crimes of a Verres
or a Catiline. You must acknowledge that the moral turpitude
results, in the same manner, from the contemplation of the whole,
when presented to a being whose organs have such a particular
structure and formation. The orator may paint rage, insolence,
barbarity on the one side; meekness, suffering, sorrow, innocence
on the other.
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