The
Images or Shadows of Divine Things (1758)
The
beauty of the world
The beauty of the world
consists wholly of sweet mutual consents, either within itself
or with the supreme being. As to the corporeal world, though there are many other
sorts of consents, yet the sweetest and most charming beauty of it is its
resemblance of spiritual beauties. The reason is that spiritual beauties are infinitely
the greatest, and bodies being but the shadows of being, they must be so much the
more charming as they shadow forth spiritual beauties. This beauty is peculiar to
natural things, it surpassing the art of man.
Thus there is the resemblance
of a decent trust, dependence and acknowledgment
in the planets continually moving around the sun, receiving his influences by which
they are made happy, bright and beautiful: a decent attendance in the secondary
planets, an image of majesty, power, and glory, and beneficence in the sun in the
midst of all, and so in terrestrial things, as I have shown in another place.
It is very probable
that the wonderful suitableness of green for the grass and plants,
the blue of the sky, the white of the clouds, the colours of flowers, consists in a
complicated proportion that these colours make one with another, either in their
magnitude of the rays, the number of vibrations that are caused in the atmosphere,
or some other way. So there is a great suitableness between the objects of different
senses, as between sounds, colours, and smells; as between colours of the woods
and flowers and the smells and the singing of birds, which it is probable consist in a
certain proportion of the vibrations that are made in the different organs. So there are
innumerable other agreeablenesses of motions, figures, etc. The gentle motions of
waves, of the lily, etc., as it is agreeable to other things that represent calmness,
gentleness and benevolence, etc., the fields and woods seem to rejoice, and how
joyfull do the birds seem to be in it. How much a resemblance is there of every grace
in the field covered with plants and flowers when the sun shines serenely and
undisturbedly upon them, how a resemblance, I say, of every grace and beautiful
disposition of mind, of an infenour towards a supenour cause, preserver, benevolent
benefactor, and a fountain of happiness.
How great a resemblance
of a holy and virtuous soul is a calm, serene day. What an
infinite number of such like beauties is there in that one thing, the light, and how
complicated an harmony and proportion it is probable belongs to it.
There are beauties
that are more palpable and explicable, and there are hidden and
secret beauties. The former pleases, and we can tell why; we can explain the
particular point for the agreement that renders the thing pleasing. Such are all
artificial regularities; we can tell wherein the regularity lies that affects us. [The] latter
sort are those beauties that delight us and we cannot tell why. Thus, we find
ourselves pleased in beholding the colour of the violets, but we know not what secret
regularity or harmony it is that creates that pleasure in our minds. These hidden
beauties are commonly by far the greatest, because the more complex a beauty is,
the more hidden is it. In this latter fact consists principally the beauty of the world,
and very much in light and colours. Thus mere light is pleasing to the mind. If it be to
the degree of effulgence, it is very sensible, and mankind have agreed in it: they all
represent glory and extraordinary beauty by brightness. The reason of it is either that
light or our organ of seeing is so contrived that an harmonious motion is excited in
the animal spirits and propagated to the brain. That mixture we call white is a
proportionate mixture that is harmonious, as Sir Isaac Newton has shown, to each
particular simple colour, and contains in some harmony or other that is delightful.
And each sort of rays play a distinct tune to the soul, besides those ; lovely mixtures
that are found in nature. Those beauties, how lovely is the green of the face of the
earth in all manner of colours, in flowers, the colour of the skies, and lovely tinctures
of the morning and evening.
Corollary: Hence the
reason why almost all men, and those that seem to be very
miserable, love life, because they cannot bear to lose sight of such a beautiful and
lovely world. The ideas, that every moment whilst we live have a beauty that we take
no distinct notice of, brings a pleasure that, when we come to the trial, we had rather
live in such pain and misery than lose.
