Why not have selected some such illustration as this, instead of the unfortunate Runnymede, from a work where so many abound as apt as they are elegantly expressed? As to Mr Ruskin's utilitarian philosopher, it is a fabulous creature--no such being exists. Nor need we detain ourselves with the quite departmental subject of Familiarity. But let us endeavour--without desiring to pledge ourselves or our readers to its final adoption--to relieve the theory of association of ideas from the obscurity our author has thrown around it. Our readers will not find that this is altogether a wasted labour.
With Mr Ruskin we are of opinion that, in a discussion of this kind, the term Beauty ought to be limited to the impression derived, mediately or immediately, from the visible object. It would be useless affectation to attempt to restrict the use of the word, in general, to this application. We can have no objection to the term Beautiful being applied to a piece of music, or to an eloquent composition, prose or verse, or even to our moral feelings and heroic actions; the word has received this general application, and there is, at basis, a great deal in common between all these and the sentiment of beauty attendant on the visible object. For music, or sweet sounds, and poetry, and our moral feelings, have much to do (through the law of association) with our sentiment of the Beautiful. It is quite enough if, speaking of the subject of our analysis, we limit it to those impressions, however originated, which attend upon the visible object.
One preliminary word on this association of ideas. It is from its very nature, and the nature of human life, of all degrees of intimacy--from the casual suggestion, or the case where the two ideas are at all times felt to be distinct, to those close combinations where the two ideas have apparently coalesced into one, or require an attentive analysis to separate them. You see a mass of iron; you may be said _to see its weight_, the impression of its weight is so intimately combined with its form. The _light_ of the sun, and the _heat_ of the sun are learnt from different senses, yet we never see the one without thinking of the other, and the reflection of the sunbeam seen upon a bank immediately suggests the idea of _warmth_. But it is not necessary that the combination should be always so perfect as in this instance, in order to produce the effect we speak of under the name of Association of Ideas. It is hardly possible for us to abstract the _glow_ of the sunbeam from its light; but the fertility which follows upon the presence of the sun, though a suggestion which habitually occurs to reflective minds, is an association of a far less intimate nature. It is sufficiently intimate, however, to blend with that feeling of admiration we have when we speak of the beauty of the sun. There is the golden harvest in its summer beams. Again, the contemplative spirit in all ages has formed an association between the sun and the Deity, whether as the fittest symbol of God, or as being His greatest gift to man. Here we have an association still more refined, and of a somewhat less frequent character, but one which will be found to enter, in a very subtle manner, into that impression we receive from the great luminary.