pproximated the teachings of Reid and Stewart to those of Hume. The
philosophy of the Scottish School was long in favor both in England and in
France, where it was employed as a weapon against materialism.

By way of appendix we may mention the beginnings of a psychological
aesthetics in Henry Home (Lord Kames, 1696-1782), and Edmund Burke
(1728-97).[1] Home, in ethics a follower of Hutcheson, is fond of
supporting his aesthetic views by examples from Shakespeare. Beauty (chap.
iii.) appears to belong to the object itself, but in reality it is only an
effect, a "secondary quality," of the object; like color, it is nothing but
an idea in the mind, "for an object is said to be beautiful for no other
reason but that it appears so to the spectator." It arises from regularity,
proportion, order, simplicity--properties which belong to sublimity as well
(chap, iv.), but to which they are by no means so essential, since it is
satisfied with a less degree of them. While the beautiful excites emotions
of sweetness and gayety, the sublime rouses feelings which are agreeable,
it is true, but which are not sweet and gay, but strong and more serious.
Burke's explanation goes deeper. He derives the antithesis of the sublime
and the beautiful from the two fundamental impulses of human nature, the
instinct of self-preservation and the social impulse. Whatever is contrary
to the former makes a strong and terrible impression on the soul; whatever
favors the latter makes a weak but agreeable one. The terrible delights us
(first depressing and then exalting us), when we merely contemplate it,
without being ourselves affected by the danger or the pain--this is the
sublime. On the other hand, that is beautiful which inspires us with
tenderness and affection without our desiring to possess it. Sublimity
implies a certain greatness, beauty, a certain smallness. Delight in both
is based on bodily phenomena. Terror moderated exercises a beneficent
influence on the nerves by stimulating them and giving them tension;
the gentle impression of beauty exerts a quieting effect upon them. The
disturbances caused by the former, and the recovery induced by the latter,
are both conducive to health, and hence, experienced as pleasures.

[Footnote 1: Home, _Elements of Criticism_, 1762. Burke, _A Philosophical
Inquiry info the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful_,
1756.]

CHAPTER VI.

THE FRENCH ILLUMINATION.

In the last decade