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THE
CONNEXION
BETWEEN
TASTE AND MORALS:
TWO LECTURES
BY
MARK HOPKINS, D. D.
PRESIDENT OF WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
Boston:
PUBLISHED BY DUTTON AND WENTWORTH.
1841.
LECTURE I.
Is the prevalence of a cultivated taste, favorable to morals? Is there aconnexion, either in individuals, or in communities, between good tasteand good morals?
When I began to reflect upon this point with reference to a publicdiscussion of it, I put the above questions to three educated men, as Ihappened to meet them. The first said, he had not thought of it, butthat, at the first view, he did not believe there was any suchconnexion; the second said he should wish to see it proved before hewould believe it; and the third said, he thought there was such aconnexion. This difference of opinion among educated men, led me tothink that an investigation of the subject might be a matter ofinterest, and perhaps of profit. As every thing, in this country,depends upon a sound state of morals in the community, whatever bearsupon that, deserves our most careful scrutiny.
[Pg 6]To discuss this subject understandingly, we must know precisely what weare talking about. What then is taste? This term is sometimes used toexpress mere desire, as a taste for dress, or for low pleasures. It canhardly be necessary to say that that is not the meaning now attached toit. Taste is defined by Alison, to be, "That faculty of the human mindby which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in theworks of nature or of art." According to this definition, which issufficiently correct for our present purpose, it will be perceived thatthere is, first, a perception of certain qualities in external objects,and then, according to the nature of the object, an emotion of beauty,or of sublimity in the mind. These emotions are, of course, incapable ofdefinition except by stating the occasions on which they arise, and canbe known only by being felt. To talk of an emotion to those who have notfelt it, is like talking of colors to the blind. And here I may remark,that these terms, beauty and sublimity, have, in common with thosedenoting sensations, an ambiguity which has often produced confusion. Asthe term heat is used to denote both the sensation we feel onapproaching the fire, and that quality in the fire which produces thesensation, so beauty and sublimity are sometimes used to express theemotions in the mind, and sometimes those qualities in external objectswhich are fitted to produce them, though there is, of course, in theexternal object, no emotion, nor any thing resembling one.
[Pg 7]If this account of taste be correct, it will be perceived that itcannot, with any propriety, be compared, as it often has been, to abodily sense. The impression upon a bodily sense, necessarily followsthe presence of the object, and is uniform in all mankind. A treeclothed in fresh foliage is necessarily seen, and seen to be green bya