Poetical Works of Akenside by Mark Akenside (suggested reading TXT) π
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630
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan;
And form to his, the relish of their souls.
NOTES
* * * * *
BOOK FIRST.
ENDNOTE A.
'Say why was man' , etc.--P.8.
In apologising for the frequent negligences of the sublimest authors of Greece, 'Those godlike geniuses,' says Longinus, 'were well assured, that Nature had not intended man for a low-spirited or ignoble being: but bringing us into life and the midst of this wide universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates high in emulation for the prize of glory; she has therefore implanted in our souls an inextinguishable love of everything great and exalted, of everything which appears divine beyond our comprehension. Whence it comes to pass, that even the whole world is not an object sufficient for the depth and rapidity of human imagination, which often sallies forth beyond the limits of all that surrounds us. Let any man cast his eye through the whole circle of our existence, and consider how especially it abounds in excellent and grand objects, he will soon acknowledge for what enjoyments and pursuits we were destined. Thus by the very propensity of nature we are led to admire, not little springs or shallow rivulets, however clear and delicious, but the Nile, the Rhine, the Danube, and, much more than all, the Ocean,' etc.
-- Dionys. Longin. de Sublim . ss. xxiv.
ENDNOTE B.
'The empyreal waste' .--P. 9.
'Ne se peut-il point qu'il y a un grand espace au-dela de la region des etoiles? Que ce soit le ciel empyree, ou non, toujours cet espace immense qui environne toute cette region, pourra etre rempli de bonheur et de gloire. Il pourra etre concu comme l'ocean, ou se rendent les fleuves de toutes les creatures bienheureuses, quand elles seront venues a leur perfection dans le systeme des etoiles.'
-- Leibnitz dans la Theodicee , part i. par. 19.
ENDNOTE C.
'Whose unfading light' , etc.--P. 9.
It was a notion of the great Mr. Huygens, that there may be fixed stars at such a distance from our solar system, as that their light should not have had time to reach us, even from the creation of the world to this day.
ENDNOTE D.
'The neglect
Of all familiar prospects' , etc.--P. 10.
It is here said, that in consequence of the love of novelty, objects which at first were highly delightful to the mind, lose that effect by repeated attention to them. But the instance of habit is opposed to this observation; for there, objects at first distasteful are in time rendered entirely agreeable by repeated attention.
The difficulty in this case will be removed if we consider, that, when objects at first agreeable, lose that influence by frequently recurring, the mind is wholly passive, and the perception involuntary; but habit, on the other hand, generally supposes choice and activity accompanying it: so that the pleasure arises here not from the object, but from the mind's conscious determination of its own activity; and consequently increases in proportion to the frequency of that determination.
It will still be urged perhaps, that a familiarity with disagreeable objects renders them at length acceptable, even when there is no room for the mind to resolve or act at all. In this case, the appearance must be accounted for one of these ways.
The pleasure from habit may be merely negative. The object at first gave uneasiness: this uneasiness gradually wears off as the object grows familiar: and the mind, finding it at last entirely removed, reckons its situation really pleasurable, compared with what it had experienced before.
The dislike conceived of the object at first, might be owing to prejudice or want of attention. Consequently the mind being necessitated to review it often, may at length perceive its own mistake, and be reconciled to what it had looked on with aversion. In which case, a sort of instinctive justice naturally leads it to make amends for the injury, by running toward the other extreme of fondness and attachment.
Or lastly, though the object itself should always continue disagreeable, yet circumstances of pleasure or good fortune may occur along with it. Thus an association may arise in the mind, and the object never be remembered without those pleasing circumstances attending it; by which means the disagreeable impression which it at first occasioned will in time be quite obliterated.
ENDNOTE E.
'This desire
Of objects new and strange' .--P. 10.
These two ideas are oft confounded; though it is evident the mere novelty of an object makes it agreeable, even where the mind is not affected with the least degree of wonder: whereas wonder indeed always implies novelty, being never excited by common or well-known appearances. But the pleasure in both cases is explicable from the same final cause, the acquisition of knowledge and enlargement of our views of nature: on this account it is natural to treat of them together.
ENDNOTE F.
'Truth and Good are one,
And Beauty dwells in them' , etc.--P. 14.
'Do you imagine,' says Socrates to Aristippus, 'that what is good is not beautiful? Have you not observed that these appearances always coincide? Virtue, for instance, in the same respect as to which we call it good, is ever acknowledged to be beautiful also. In the characters of men we always [1] join the two denominations together. The beauty of human bodies corresponds, in like manner, with that economy of parts which constitutes them good; and in every circumstance of life, the same object is constantly accounted both beautiful and good, inasmuch as it answers the purposes for which it was designed.'
-- Xenophont. Memorab. Socrat . 1.iii.c.8.
This excellent observation has been illustrated and extended by the noble restorer of ancient philosophy. (See the Characteristics , vol. ii., pp. 339 and 422, and vol. iii., p. 181.) And another ingenious author has particularly shewn, that it holds in the general laws of nature, in the works of art, and the conduct of the sciences ( Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue , treat, i. Section 8). As to the connexion between beauty and truth, there are two opinions concerning it. Some philosophers assert an independent and invariable law in nature, in consequence of which all rational beings must alike perceive beauty in some certain proportions, and deformity in the contrary. And this necessity being supposed the same with that which commands the assent or dissent of the understanding, it follows, of course, that beauty is founded on the universal and unchangeable law of truth.
But others there are who believe beauty to be merely a relative and arbitrary thing; that, indeed, it was a benevolent provision in nature to annex so delightful a sensation to those objects which are best and most perfect in themselves, that so we might be engaged to the choice of them at once, and without staying to infer their usefulness from their structure and effects; but that it is not impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings, of equal capacities for truth, should perceive, one of them beauty, and the other deformity, in the same proportions. And upon this supposition, by that truth which is always connected with beauty, nothing more can be meant than the conformity of any object to those proportions upon which, after careful examination, the beauty of that species is found to depend. Polycletus, for instance, a famous ancient sculptor, from an accurate mensuration of the several parts of the most perfect human bodies, deduced a canon or system of proportions, which was the rule of all succeeding artists. Suppose a statue modelled according to this: a man of mere natural taste, upon looking at it, without entering into its proportions, confesses and admires its beauty; whereas a professor of the art applies his measures to the head, the neck, or the hand, and, without attending to its beauty, pronounces the workmanship to be just and true.
[Footnote 1: This the Athenians did in a peculiar manner, by the words [Greek: kalokagathus] and [Greek: kalokagathia].]
ENDNOTE G.
' As when Brutus rose ,' etc.--P. 18.
Cicero himself describes this fact--'Cassare interfecto--statim cruentum alte extollens M. Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nominatim exclamavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem est gratulatus.'
-- Cic. Philipp . ii. 12.
ENDNOTE H.
' Where Virtue rising from the awful depth
Of Truth's mysterious bosom ,' etc.--P. 20.
According to the opinion of those who assert moral obligation to be founded on an immutable and universal law; and that which is usually called the moral sense, to be determined by the peculiar temper of the imagination and the earliest associations of ideas.
ENDNOTE I.
' Lyceum .'--P. 21.
The school of Aristotle.
ENDNOTE J.
' Academus .'--P. 21.
The school of Plato.
ENDNOTE K.
' Ilissus .'--P. 21.
One of the rivers on which Athens was situated. Plato, in some of his finest dialogues, lays the scene of the conversation with Socrates on its banks.
* * * * *
BOOK SECOND.
ENDNOTE L
' At last the Muses rose ,' etc.--P. 22.
About the age of Hugh Capet, founder of the third race of French kings, the poets of Provence were in high reputation; a sort of strolling bards or rhapsodists, who went about the courts of princes and noblemen, entertaining them at festivals with music and poetry. They attempted both the epic, ode, and satire; and abounded in a wild and fantastic vein of fable, partly allegorical, and partly founded on traditionary legends of the Saracen wars. These were the rudiments of Italian poetry. But their taste and composition must have been extremely barbarous, as we may judge by those who followed the turn of their fable in much politer times; such as Boiardo, Bernardo, Tasso, Ariosto, etc.
ENDNOTE M.
' Valclusa .'--P. 22.
The famous retreat of Francisco Petrarcha, the father of Italian poetry, and his mistress, Laura, a lady of Avignon.
ENDNOTE N.
' Arno .'--P. 22.
The river which runs by Florence, the birth-place of Dante and Boccaccio.
ENDNOTE O.
' Parthenope .'--P. 23.
Or Naples, the birth-place of Sannazaro. The great Torquato Tasso was born at Sorrento in the kingdom of Naples.
ENDNOTE P.
' The rage
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With his conceptions, act upon his plan;
And form to his, the relish of their souls.
NOTES
* * * * *
BOOK FIRST.
ENDNOTE A.
'Say why was man' , etc.--P.8.
In apologising for the frequent negligences of the sublimest authors of Greece, 'Those godlike geniuses,' says Longinus, 'were well assured, that Nature had not intended man for a low-spirited or ignoble being: but bringing us into life and the midst of this wide universe, as before a multitude assembled at some heroic solemnity, that we might be spectators of all her magnificence, and candidates high in emulation for the prize of glory; she has therefore implanted in our souls an inextinguishable love of everything great and exalted, of everything which appears divine beyond our comprehension. Whence it comes to pass, that even the whole world is not an object sufficient for the depth and rapidity of human imagination, which often sallies forth beyond the limits of all that surrounds us. Let any man cast his eye through the whole circle of our existence, and consider how especially it abounds in excellent and grand objects, he will soon acknowledge for what enjoyments and pursuits we were destined. Thus by the very propensity of nature we are led to admire, not little springs or shallow rivulets, however clear and delicious, but the Nile, the Rhine, the Danube, and, much more than all, the Ocean,' etc.
-- Dionys. Longin. de Sublim . ss. xxiv.
ENDNOTE B.
'The empyreal waste' .--P. 9.
'Ne se peut-il point qu'il y a un grand espace au-dela de la region des etoiles? Que ce soit le ciel empyree, ou non, toujours cet espace immense qui environne toute cette region, pourra etre rempli de bonheur et de gloire. Il pourra etre concu comme l'ocean, ou se rendent les fleuves de toutes les creatures bienheureuses, quand elles seront venues a leur perfection dans le systeme des etoiles.'
-- Leibnitz dans la Theodicee , part i. par. 19.
ENDNOTE C.
'Whose unfading light' , etc.--P. 9.
It was a notion of the great Mr. Huygens, that there may be fixed stars at such a distance from our solar system, as that their light should not have had time to reach us, even from the creation of the world to this day.
ENDNOTE D.
'The neglect
Of all familiar prospects' , etc.--P. 10.
It is here said, that in consequence of the love of novelty, objects which at first were highly delightful to the mind, lose that effect by repeated attention to them. But the instance of habit is opposed to this observation; for there, objects at first distasteful are in time rendered entirely agreeable by repeated attention.
The difficulty in this case will be removed if we consider, that, when objects at first agreeable, lose that influence by frequently recurring, the mind is wholly passive, and the perception involuntary; but habit, on the other hand, generally supposes choice and activity accompanying it: so that the pleasure arises here not from the object, but from the mind's conscious determination of its own activity; and consequently increases in proportion to the frequency of that determination.
It will still be urged perhaps, that a familiarity with disagreeable objects renders them at length acceptable, even when there is no room for the mind to resolve or act at all. In this case, the appearance must be accounted for one of these ways.
The pleasure from habit may be merely negative. The object at first gave uneasiness: this uneasiness gradually wears off as the object grows familiar: and the mind, finding it at last entirely removed, reckons its situation really pleasurable, compared with what it had experienced before.
The dislike conceived of the object at first, might be owing to prejudice or want of attention. Consequently the mind being necessitated to review it often, may at length perceive its own mistake, and be reconciled to what it had looked on with aversion. In which case, a sort of instinctive justice naturally leads it to make amends for the injury, by running toward the other extreme of fondness and attachment.
Or lastly, though the object itself should always continue disagreeable, yet circumstances of pleasure or good fortune may occur along with it. Thus an association may arise in the mind, and the object never be remembered without those pleasing circumstances attending it; by which means the disagreeable impression which it at first occasioned will in time be quite obliterated.
ENDNOTE E.
'This desire
Of objects new and strange' .--P. 10.
These two ideas are oft confounded; though it is evident the mere novelty of an object makes it agreeable, even where the mind is not affected with the least degree of wonder: whereas wonder indeed always implies novelty, being never excited by common or well-known appearances. But the pleasure in both cases is explicable from the same final cause, the acquisition of knowledge and enlargement of our views of nature: on this account it is natural to treat of them together.
ENDNOTE F.
'Truth and Good are one,
And Beauty dwells in them' , etc.--P. 14.
'Do you imagine,' says Socrates to Aristippus, 'that what is good is not beautiful? Have you not observed that these appearances always coincide? Virtue, for instance, in the same respect as to which we call it good, is ever acknowledged to be beautiful also. In the characters of men we always [1] join the two denominations together. The beauty of human bodies corresponds, in like manner, with that economy of parts which constitutes them good; and in every circumstance of life, the same object is constantly accounted both beautiful and good, inasmuch as it answers the purposes for which it was designed.'
-- Xenophont. Memorab. Socrat . 1.iii.c.8.
This excellent observation has been illustrated and extended by the noble restorer of ancient philosophy. (See the Characteristics , vol. ii., pp. 339 and 422, and vol. iii., p. 181.) And another ingenious author has particularly shewn, that it holds in the general laws of nature, in the works of art, and the conduct of the sciences ( Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue , treat, i. Section 8). As to the connexion between beauty and truth, there are two opinions concerning it. Some philosophers assert an independent and invariable law in nature, in consequence of which all rational beings must alike perceive beauty in some certain proportions, and deformity in the contrary. And this necessity being supposed the same with that which commands the assent or dissent of the understanding, it follows, of course, that beauty is founded on the universal and unchangeable law of truth.
But others there are who believe beauty to be merely a relative and arbitrary thing; that, indeed, it was a benevolent provision in nature to annex so delightful a sensation to those objects which are best and most perfect in themselves, that so we might be engaged to the choice of them at once, and without staying to infer their usefulness from their structure and effects; but that it is not impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings, of equal capacities for truth, should perceive, one of them beauty, and the other deformity, in the same proportions. And upon this supposition, by that truth which is always connected with beauty, nothing more can be meant than the conformity of any object to those proportions upon which, after careful examination, the beauty of that species is found to depend. Polycletus, for instance, a famous ancient sculptor, from an accurate mensuration of the several parts of the most perfect human bodies, deduced a canon or system of proportions, which was the rule of all succeeding artists. Suppose a statue modelled according to this: a man of mere natural taste, upon looking at it, without entering into its proportions, confesses and admires its beauty; whereas a professor of the art applies his measures to the head, the neck, or the hand, and, without attending to its beauty, pronounces the workmanship to be just and true.
[Footnote 1: This the Athenians did in a peculiar manner, by the words [Greek: kalokagathus] and [Greek: kalokagathia].]
ENDNOTE G.
' As when Brutus rose ,' etc.--P. 18.
Cicero himself describes this fact--'Cassare interfecto--statim cruentum alte extollens M. Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nominatim exclamavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem est gratulatus.'
-- Cic. Philipp . ii. 12.
ENDNOTE H.
' Where Virtue rising from the awful depth
Of Truth's mysterious bosom ,' etc.--P. 20.
According to the opinion of those who assert moral obligation to be founded on an immutable and universal law; and that which is usually called the moral sense, to be determined by the peculiar temper of the imagination and the earliest associations of ideas.
ENDNOTE I.
' Lyceum .'--P. 21.
The school of Aristotle.
ENDNOTE J.
' Academus .'--P. 21.
The school of Plato.
ENDNOTE K.
' Ilissus .'--P. 21.
One of the rivers on which Athens was situated. Plato, in some of his finest dialogues, lays the scene of the conversation with Socrates on its banks.
* * * * *
BOOK SECOND.
ENDNOTE L
' At last the Muses rose ,' etc.--P. 22.
About the age of Hugh Capet, founder of the third race of French kings, the poets of Provence were in high reputation; a sort of strolling bards or rhapsodists, who went about the courts of princes and noblemen, entertaining them at festivals with music and poetry. They attempted both the epic, ode, and satire; and abounded in a wild and fantastic vein of fable, partly allegorical, and partly founded on traditionary legends of the Saracen wars. These were the rudiments of Italian poetry. But their taste and composition must have been extremely barbarous, as we may judge by those who followed the turn of their fable in much politer times; such as Boiardo, Bernardo, Tasso, Ariosto, etc.
ENDNOTE M.
' Valclusa .'--P. 22.
The famous retreat of Francisco Petrarcha, the father of Italian poetry, and his mistress, Laura, a lady of Avignon.
ENDNOTE N.
' Arno .'--P. 22.
The river which runs by Florence, the birth-place of Dante and Boccaccio.
ENDNOTE O.
' Parthenope .'--P. 23.
Or Naples, the birth-place of Sannazaro. The great Torquato Tasso was born at Sorrento in the kingdom of Naples.
ENDNOTE P.
' The rage
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