The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
To avoid a sameness which may arise from the too frequent repetition of
the same reasonings, and of illustrations of the same nature, I will not
enter very minutely into every particular that regards beauty, as it is
founded on the disposition of its quantity, or its quantity itself. In
speaking of the magnitude of bodies there is great uncertainty, because
the ideas of great and small are terms almost entirely relative to the
species of the objects, which are infinite. It is true, that having once
fixed the species of any object, and the dimensions common in the
individuals of that species, we may observe some that exceed, and some
that fall short of, the ordinary standard: those which greatly exceed
are, by that excess, provided the species itself be not very small,
rather great and terrible than beautiful; but as in the animal world,
and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, the qualities
that constitute beauty may possibly be united to things of greater
dimensions; when they are so united, they constitute a species something
different both from the sublime and beautiful, which I have before
called _fine_; but this kind, I imagine, has not such a power on the
passions, either as vast bodies have which are endued with the
correspondent qualities of the sublime; or as the qualities of beauty
have when united in a small object. The affection produced by large
bodies adorned with the spoils of beauty, is a tension continually
relieved; which approaches to the nature of mediocrity. But if I were to
say how I find myself affected upon such occasions, I should say that
the sublime suffers less by being united to some of the qualities of
beauty, than beauty does by being joined to greatness of quantity, or
any other properties of the sublime. There is something so overruling in
whatever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong ever so
remotely to terror, that nothing else can stand in their presence. There
lie the qualities of beauty either dead or unoperative; or at most
exerted to mollify the rigor and sternness of the terror, which is the
natural concomitant of greatness. Besides the extraordinary great in
every species, the opposite to this, the dwarfish and diminutive, ought
to be considered. Littleness, merely as such, has nothing contrary to
the idea of beauty. The humming-bird, both in shape and coloring, yields
to none of the winged species, of which it is the least; and perhaps his
beauty is enhanced by his smallness. But there are animals, which, when
they are extremely small, are rarely (if ever) beautiful. There is a
dwarfish size of men and women, which is almost constantly so gross and
massive in comparison of their height, that they present us with a very
disagreeable image. But should a man be found not above two or three
feet high, supposing such a person to have all the parts of his body of
a delicacy suitable to such a size, and otherwise endued with the common
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