Five: Alexander Gerard (1728–1795)
The son of an Aberdeenshire minister, Alexander Gerard gained his licence as a minister at the age of twenty and was appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College in Aberdeen at the young age of twenty four. At the age of twenty seven he had gained a reputation as an educational reformer, when his radical plan to revise the curriculum of the College was implemented. At the age of twenty eight he won the competition organised by the Edinburgh Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Sciences, Manufactures and Agriculture for the best essay on the subject of taste. Many of the Edinburgh intellectual elite were on the panel that selected Gerard’s essay as the winner, including Hume. Indeed Hume takes quite a bit of trouble a few years later to assist Gerard with the publication of the essay, which appears in 1759. This is intriguing because Hume’s far more famous essay on the standard of taste was published in 1757, the year after Gerard was awarded the prize. One can only wonder whether Hume’s encounter with Gerard’s essay provided part of the catalyst for his turning to the topic of taste. Hume’s treatment of the issue is certainly very different and less confident of finding a solution than Gerard’s alternative. When in 1780 the third edition of his Essay on Taste was published, Gerard added a substantial new section addressing the subject of the standard of taste, in which he defends an account of the standard very different from, and critical of, Hume’s treatment of the topic. Gerard’s solution to the problem presented there is implicit in the earlier essay that won the Edinburgh prize, but the section from the later edition makes the point far more explicitly. It is from this later addition to the essay that the following excerpt is taken.
Gerard distinguishes between taste in its direct exercise, or as a species of sensation, and taste as a ‘reflex act’ or species of discernment. The former is not susceptible to any standard because there are a large number of idiosyncratic reasons why people have the sentimental responses they do. As a species of discernment, however, taste is susceptible to the formulation of a standard, though not one that will reconcile divergent tastes. Rather it is a more modest standard that determines the difference between better and worse amidst competing judgments. To identify the standard, Gerard argues, we need to proceed using the method of inverse deduction—that is, inductive generalisation followed by an a priori deduction of these generalisations from fundamental principles already established—and this is just the methods that John Stuart Mill would later prescribe to situations such as aesthetics in which there is a complex of interacting causes responsible for a phenomenon.
Further Reading
George Dickie, The Century of Taste, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
W.J. Hipple, The Beautiful, The Sublime and the Picturesque in Eighteenth Century British Aesthetic Theory, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957.
Reading VIII: Of the Standard of Taste
There is doubtless considerable difficulty in determining, what are the general qualities which gratify taste, and what it is that constitutes perfection of taste: but the difficulty is wholly of that kind which attends every accurate investigation, especially on an abstruse or delicate subject; as soon as the investigation is completed, the conclusions produce a full conviction of their truth. Few will entertain a doubt, whether novelty, sublimity, beauty, skilful imitation, and the like, are the qualities on which we fix our attention, and from which we derive our pleasure, when we survey the works of nature or the productions of human art. It will likewise be acknowledged without hesitation, that the perfection of taste conflicts in delicacy and justness, or more particularly, in sensibility, refinement, correctness, and the due proportion of its several principles.
But when we come to compare the taste of one man with that of another, we meet with difficulties of a different sort, which cannot be resolved so easily, nor in a manner so convincing. Though all agree that beauty pleases, it may still remain a question, whether beauty does or does not belong to this or that object; and it is a question which it seems often almost impossible to find the means of answering. Of what importance is it for deciding in any one instance, that correctness and delicacy are universally confessed to be perfections of taste? For which is the correct taste, or which the delicate? What one approves as correct, another censures as insipid or enervated; what one admires as delicate, another pronounces viciously refined, and a third perhaps blames as not altogether free from coarseness. The tastes of different men seldom coincide perfectly: and when they disagree, by what rule can we determine, to which the preference is due? The general principles may be rendered unexceptionable; but in applying them to particular cases, there is room for an endless variety of sentiments.
That there is a very great diversity of tastes among mankind, is plain from every day’s experience; that this diversity must always continue, is no less plain from reflection on those principles of the mind, by the operation of which the several perceptions of taste are produced.
On every subject, in every point of view, the taste of one man obviously differs from that of another. In painting, some are pleased with correctness of design, some with richness of invention, and some with beauty of colouring. The excellence of music has been placed by some in simplicity, by others in a kind of rich variety; and others have put the highest value on those compositions which surprise the ear and display masterly execution. Some prefer the subtle, close, and nervous style of eloquence; others the more diffuse and copious manner of popular declamation. Every species of poetry, and every mode of poetical composition has had its patrons. Many have admired the sublimity and spirit of the ode; a great writer insinuates that he looks upon it as only harmonious extravagance. It has been made a question, whether an epic poem or a tragedy be the greatest work; each side of the question has had advocates of undoubted taste and judgment. Every age has something peculiar, which distinguishes its taste, in dress, in manners, and in arts, from that of other ages. What is highly approved in one nation, is perfectly repugnant to the taste of another the most contiguous to it. The irregularities of Ariosto cannot prevent his being the favourite poet of his countrymen; the more artificial and connected plan of Tasso has determined most foreigners to give him the preference. Those theatrical entertainments which yield high pleasure to a Frenchman, appear insipid and uninteresting to an Englishman; and what suits the taste of the latter, would often shock the refinement of the former. The oriental style in writing, is reckoned inflated and fantastical, by Europeans; and the simplicity of composition which prevails in Europe, would be no less censured by an inhabitant of Persia or India.
The constitution of human nature renders this variety of tastes inevitable. It must be produced both by an original inequality and dissimilitude in the powers whose combination of forms taste, and by the different degrees and modes of culture which have been bestowed upon these powers.
Most of those internal senses which belong to taste, are exerted by the intervention of an external organ; and all men are not precisely alike in any of their external organs. There are eyes which can scarcely distinguish one colour from another: such eyes must render a person unfit for being a judge of painting, at least so far as colouring is concerned, in whatever degree of perfection he may possess the internal principles of judging. A person whose sight is feeble or obscure, cannot discern, and therefore cannot approve that variety and multiplicity of ornaments, which gives high pleasure to a person endued with acuter or distincter sight. To a very quick sense of hearing, that degree of sound will be painful, which gives music only the strength and fullness fit to gratify a duller organ.
But the original differences lie chiefly in the internal senses, or in those mental processes by which the sentiments of taste are produced. For instance, a degree of difficulty in conceiving an object, which is only sufficient to give one person a grateful feeling of exertion, may fatigue another, and render either novelty or variety in some cases unpleasant to him. On the contrary, a degree of facility which pleases one, may sink another into languor, and make uniformity or simplicity disgusting. This very difference of constitution leads the bold and active spirit to choose and to delight in a severity of exercise, a bustle of business, or an application of thought, which would overwhelm an indolent and feeble mind: the quick change of companies and the incessant round of diversions, which is no more than enough to give play to the vivacity of the gay, would be a torment to persons of a more sedate turn; and the tranquillity in which these latter find their enjoyment, would be insupportable to the former. All the sentiments of taste have a great dependence on association; and must derive immense variety from the endless diversity which takes place, in the strength of the associating principles, in their particular modifications and combinations, in the tracks to which they have been most accustomed, in the nature and the number of accessory ideas which they connect with the objects of taste. Men differ much in sensibility of heart; and therefore must feel differently and judge differently, in all those cases in which the perceptions of taste are affected by the warmth or coldness of the heart. Men have very unequal measures of sagacity and quickness in inferring design and mental qualities from sensible appearances and effects; and consequently must differ in their tastes, in all the numberless cases, in which their pleasure has any dependence on such inferences; wherever, for example, that gratification results from a perception of the dexterity of the artist, wherever the passions are expressed by bodily features or attitudes, wherever character is indicated by delicate touches. They have very different degrees of skill in comparing, and are prone to very different sorts of comparison; and therefore must be differently affected in all those cases, in which the pleasure arises from a perception of the relation of the parts to the whole, or of the means to the end, from imitation, or from a comparative view of different objects.
The perceptions of each of the internal senses, are the result of these and the like mental energies; and they must be in every man duller or livelier, stronger or weaker, distincter or more confused, according to the perfection or the imperfection of those energies, by the combination of which they are produced. On this account it cannot be expected that any one of the internal senses should be equally good in all men. The internal senses which belong to taste are many; and each of them is distinct from the rest, in respect both of its principles and of its objects: they are generated by different mental processes; and they are adapted to the perception of different subjects or of different qualities of the same subject. A man may be well turned to those processes which generate one of the powers of taste, and consequently perfect in it, while he is defective in another, by being naturally ill-disposed to those processes which should produce it. Hence different men will excel in different sorts of taste, and be chiefly attached each to a peculiar set of subjects and qualities. This must introduce a variety and dissonance into their decisions. One man is principally struck with novelty, another with grandeur, another with beauty, another with harmony, another with the ludicrous; and each gives the preference to that which makes the strongest impression on himself. Many of the forms of judgment, likewise, enter into the operations of taste; and no two men are perfectly similar in their powers of judgment.
The original diversities of taste, in this manner great and unavoidable, cannot fail to be increased by the very unequal degrees and dissimilar modes of exercise and culture, which it receives in the several individuals: these would be sufficient to produce diversity, though the powers of taste had been naturally uniform in all. In the bulk of mankind, these powers receive no culture: engrossed by attention to the necessaries of life, attached to pursuits remote from the pleasures of the imagination, or by some other means deprived of opportunities of exerting the internal senses, there taste remains wholly unimproved; or rather the elements of taste which nature implanted in their souls, are extinguished, as seed, by being buried so deep as to prevent its vegetating, is corrupted and lost. Every difference in the degree of exercise, which taste receives, produces a difference in the degree of improvement which it reaches: every difference in the manner of conducting its exercises, occasions a correspondent peculiarity in its structure. If a person has access only to a few of those objects which draw forth the powers of taste, and give them vigour, his sentiments are formed upon these objects; they are confined to the qualities which these exhibit, they cannot coincide with the sentiments of those men who have taken a wider range, who have been conversant with a greater variety of objects, and from the contemplation of them have derived more extensive views. A man who has spent his life in an uncultivated country, may have a high relish of the rude magnificence and wild sublimity of nature, but cannot even conceive the beauties of a rich and highly improved country; and when he is first introduced to them, amidst all his admiration of regularity and fruitfulness, he feels disgust in the absence of the grand, though rough and barren, scenes which have been familiar to him. There are many instances of persons who have visited the finest countries in the world, returning to their native mountains, and, from the peculiar taste which they had early acquired, as well as on account of other attachments, giving them the preference to the most delightful regions. It is in nations where the fine arts have been pursued and carried to perfection, or where the productions of great master abound, that taste in these arts becomes elegant and just. By accustoming himself to attend only either to the noble, or to the graceful, a man may render himself almost incapable of relishing the other. By confining his application to one of the fine arts, or by having opportunities of surveying productions only in that one art, a man may become an accurate judge in it, while he has no taste in the sister arts; a nice judge of poetry, is not necessarily a judge in painting, in music, or in architecture; he may either have no relish for them, or he may have a perverted relish. Our sentiments, as well as our opinions, are liable to be warped by prejudice: the sentiments of taste have, in every man, a distinctive tinge, derived from the peculiarities of his temper, his passions, his situations, and his habits.
It is the variety of tastes obvious in mankind that renders it necessary to enquire concerning a standard of taste. But the variety is so great as to render it difficult to fix a standard; and even doubtful, in the opinion of some, whether any standard can be fixed. Either we must allow that all these different and opposite tastes are equally good, or we must acknowledge that some of them deserve the preference, and that there are means of determining, which these are. The former supposition seems to have been so generally admitted, as to have passed into a proverb, that tastes are not to be disputed: yet it is too wide to be seriously admitted by any, in its full latitude. It would imply that every man is to himself an infallible judge of beauty and deformity, of excellence and defect; it would imply that the same objects, and the fame qualities of objects, may merit at once approbation and disgust; it would imply that our natural principles of taste, unlike to all the rest both of our mental faculties, and our bodily powers, are incapable of being either improved or perverted; it would infer that it is absurd to censure any relish, however singularly gross; it would put all critical discussions precisely on a level with Don Quixote’s dissertations on giants and enchantments. The proverb, though frequently expressed, is never steadily or consistently adopted. Its authority is sometimes urged by persons whose sentiments are called in question; but it is disregarded by the same persons, whenever they are disposed to call in question the sentiments of others. If they be at a loss, by what principles to support a decision which they have given, if they be unwilling to own that they have judged wrong, or to use the means of acquiring greater justness and delicacy of sentiment, they take shelter in the received maxim; they plead that this is their taste, and they have a right to indulge it. But there is no man who does not think himself entitled to find fault with the taste of another in some particular instances; and to find fault with any taste, necessarily implies the acknowledgement of a right and a wrong, and of a standard by means of which they may be distinguished; without taking this for granted, we could never dream of finding fault; but if any taste can be wrong, none has a claim to absolute authority, merely on account of its being taste. However frequently the indisputable equality of tastes may be retailed without examination or attention to its meaning, however frequently it may be applied to conceal want of taste, to disguise the perversion of it, or to excuse negligence in improving it; yet every man makes it evident at times, that he gives no credit to the maxim, that he knows some of the sentiments of taste to be right, others to be wrong; and that he admits some criterion by which, in some cases at least, they may be discriminated.
There is one situation in which we are peculiarly prone to admit the maxim which has been mentioned: when sentiments are very different, we readily acknowledge that a preference is due to one of them; but when the difference between them is inconsiderable, we are disposed to allow the same authority to both. It is not difficult to discover the cause of this inconsistency. There is scarcely any state of mind more uneasy than that in which it is solicitous to determine a point, and yet finds it impossible to determine to its own satisfaction: it hangs in painful suspense between opposite judgments. It is in this state, when it attempts to decide between turns of taste which differ but a little; it is involved in perplexity it is distracted by contrary principles of nearly equal force; it can find nothing in which it may rest with prefect acquiescence: It is eager to fly from this uneasiness; but finds no other means of flying from it, but to persuade itself, that there is no preference due to either turn, that each has an equal and an indisputable authority, and that consequently there is no room for a decision. When a taste differs widely from our own, we do not hesitate to pronounce it barbarous and unnatural; it is when the difference is more minute, that we recur to the infallibility of sentiment. In this case we allow ourselves to admit sophistry, that we may banish suspense. It will by no means follow that the taste of one man is not juster than that of another, because we cannot easily decide, to which the preference is due, or because, when we give a preference, we cannot produce incontestable proofs of the rectitude of our judgment. In matters of science, opposite opinions may be supported by arguments of such equal plausibility, that a man who is not perfectly acquainted with the subject, cannot satisfy himself, to which of them he ought to yield assent; yet one of these opinions may be notwithstanding true, and the other false. In like manner, there may be a good and a bad in taste, though you be at a loss to pronounce, in a particular case, where it precisely lies; and you may be convinced that there is, though your propensity to dispel disagreeable suspense inclines you to stifle your conviction, and to suppose for a moment, that there is no certain criterion in the case.
It has been common to consider the pleasures of taste as belonging to the imagination. Perhaps this has contributed to introduce the opinion that taste cannot be reduced to any fixed standard. We are disposed to regard the imagination as an irregular and lawless power, the parent of whatever is fantastical and capricious. We acknowledge the pleasures and the pains of the external senses to be something real and substantial, for the perception of which there is an unalterable foundation in the constitution of our nature. But the pleasures of taste are thought to have no such permanent foundation: they are derived only from fancy; they depend on a particular turn of imagination, which cannot be expected to be the same in all men, which springs up without a sanction from reason, and again changes without its allowance, a new whimsy driving out the old. But this reasoning can have weight only with superficial thinkers. It is true that mere fancies, and these too absurd and preposterous, have been sometimes undeservedly honoured with the name of taste, as in the ever varying modes of dress, equipage, and furniture: yet even in these trivial subjects, everything is not wholly arbitrary; there are fixed principles of propriety, on which one mode may be approved and another condemned: and in the genuine province of taste, in the sublimer field of nature and the fine arts, though it be certain, and though it has been a great part of our business to prove, that almost all the sentiments of taste are derived from certain exertions of the imagination, it is equally certain, and has been proved with the clearest evidence, that these exertions are as little capricious, as regular, as universal, and subject to as fixed laws, as the exertions of any other principle in the human constitution.
An argument against the possibility of fixing a standard of taste has been drawn from the very nature of sentiment. Sentiment, it is said, has not, like judgment, a reference to anything beyond itself, nor represents any quality inherent in the external object: it implies only a certain congruity between that object and the faculty by which it is perceived; this congruity does certainly take place whenever the sentiment which indicates it is felt; and consequently the sentiment cannot be false or wrong. This argument, however plausible, has no solidity. For, first, suppose it true that our sentiments mark some congruity between certain objects and our faculties, and nothing more; it will not follow that every sentiment is necessarily right, or that one taste may not be preferable to another. If this account of sentiment be just, it must be applicable to all our sensations, as well as to those of taste; but it is readily acknowledged concerning every one of the external senses, that in one man it is more acute than in another; and, therefore, it ought to be acknowledged, that one man may possess taste in greater perfection than another. One eye is more piercing, one ear more quick, one palate, one smell, or one touch, more delicate than another; and there are, in most cases, infallible means of determining to which the superiority belongs: and why should we hesitate to own, that one taste is superior to another? Or why despair of discovering some means of ascertaining which of them is the superior? There may be a congruity between an object and our organs, which undeniably implies a defect or imperfection in the latter: darkness agrees best with weak eyes; but this very conformity is a proof of their weakness. In like manner, the conformity of some objects to a man’s taste may be such as shows it to be weak and imperfect. But, secondly, the supposition on which the argument proceeds, is not strictly true. Sentiment implies something more than a congruity between objects and our organs. It is not a copy of anything exterior; but it is the result of it: it is not an image of a quality inherent in the object; but it is the natural effect of it: and when a quality acknowledged to belong to an object, fails of producing its natural and usual effect upon a particular person, the failure indicates a deficiency or perversion in that person’s organs. Thirdly, taste implies judgment, as well as sentiment: and therefore, it must, in some respects at least, refer to something beyond ourselves, and be either right or wrong, according as it is conformable or not conformable to that external standard.
Taste may be considered in two different lights, the not distinguishing between which, has embarrassed the question concerning a fixed criterion of its sentiments, and bestowed some degree of plausibility on the assertion of the indisputable authority of every taste. It may be considered either as a species of sensation, or as a species of discernment. In the former light, it is mere feeling and perception; it is touched and affected by certain objects, and attaches us to them immediately and without reflection; it is simply the faculty by which we receive pleasure from the beauties, and pain from the faults and imperfections of those things about which we are conversant. In the other light, it is a faculty by which we distinguish the true causes of our pleasure or of our dislike; by a reflex act, it discerns the several qualities which are fit to excite pleasure or disgust; it estimates the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction which every object ought to produce. Taste considered in the former of these lights, in respect of what we may call its direct exercise, cannot properly admit any standard. The feelings of every man depend, in a great measure, on the original structure of his mind, which is unalterable: they depend on the precise degree and mode of improvement which his natural powers have received; while this remains the same, his feelings must also continue what they are; they can be changed only by a variation in the state of his improvement; but it is not possible that all men should either have the same opportunities of improving taste, or make the same use of the opportunities which they have. It is not, therefore, possible, that all men should be equally pleased, or that they should be pleased with precisely the same things. But notwithstanding this, there may be a standard of taste in respect of its reflex act: and it is only in respect of these, that a standard should be sought for. A standard of taste is not something by which all tastes may be reconciled and brought to coincide: it is only something by which it may be determined, which is the best among tastes various, contending, and incapable of coinciding perfectly. It is so far from being impossible to discover a standard which may answer this purpose to the impartial, that a standard may be found, to which even they whose relish it condemns, may find themselves obliged to submit. The person who feels in a certain manner, and who cannot, by any means, bring himself, at present, to feel in a different manner, may yet be convinced that he feels amiss, and yield readily to a judgment in opposition to his feeling. This happens even with regard to the external senses. A person may perceive in himself an unconquerable antipathy to a particular species of food; and yet, if he can trace its origin to an accidental disgust, he will not, on account of his antipathy, pronounce that food either unwholesome or unpalatable, he will not be surprised that other men are fond of it, but on the contrary believe, that himself also should have been fond of it, if he had not happened to contract an unreasonable prejudice against it. There are persons who dislike particular colours: but they may sometimes be sensible that their dislike proceeds from a groundless association; and though it has taken so fast hold of their imagination, that they cannot get the better of it, yet they may be far from pretending that that colour ought to be generally disliked, may be disposed to give credit to those who say that they perceive it beautiful, and even able to discover a strong foundation for their judgment. In like manner, a man may be sensible, that his not receiving pleasure or disgust in the fine arts, does proceed, in particular instances, from an imperfection in his organs, from want of opportunity of improving his taste, or from a prejudice which he has contracted; and, from consciousness of this, may be ready to acknowledge that, in these instances, his own taste is false and of no authority, and that the very different taste of another deserves the preference. One who has a bad musical ear, is not surprised that he perceives not either the excellencies or the defects of a tune, or that he blunders in endeavouring to trace them out; but, disregarding his own feelings, appeals to, and acquiesces in, the decision of those whom he confesses to be better judges. One who has never had access to study the works of the great masters in painting or sculpture, will naturally be diffident of his own taste in these arts, disposed to pay a deference to that of others, who have had superior opportunities, and cautious of forming a decision concerning the merit of performances, upon his own feelings, however lively they may be. We often find persons candid enough to decline passing judgment, and to own that they cannot pronounce with impartiality, not only concerning the conduct, but also concerning the works of a particular person, on account of their friendship for the author, or their enmity against him.
Nor needs it to appear absurd to assert, however oddly it may sound, that in some instances, “a man ought not to be pleased when he is, or ought to be pleased when he is not” that this may be evinced on solid principles, and that he himself may be convinced of it. This is precisely similar to every case in which reason and reflection are said to correct the reports of the senses. It is well known to philosophers, that many perceptions are ascribed to sight which really belong to touch, that all men think they see certain qualities of bodies, ideas of which only, are, in consequence of habit, suggested by visible appearances. Reason can demonstrate this; but the demonstration can have no influence even on the philosopher in the moment of sensation; he perceives just like other men; and, till he happens to reflect, thinks that he sees the tangible qualities of bodies. Just so, a man may have feelings in the fine arts, which he knows to be wrong, and which his knowing them to be wrong, cannot hinder his continuing to have. This is a remarkable difference between sentiment and opinion: no man can hold an opinion for a moment after he has discovered it to be false; but a man may clearly perceive a sentiment to be wrong, and yet find it for a long time impossible to abandon it. The firmest conviction of reason cannot prevent a perverted sensation; it must, in spite of that conviction, continue to be received, till the natural peculiarity or the habit which occasions it, be corrected by proper exercise and culture. Men, therefore, who are affected differently, may notwithstanding judge alike: and men who judge differently, may admit some common principles which serve as a test of both their judgments. Actually to reconcile the feelings, or even the discernment of all men, in matters of taste, is impossible: but it is not therefore impossible to find the means of determining which is sound, which not, and of estimating the degree of excellence or imperfection which belongs to each; or, in other words, to investigate the true standard of taste.
1 From Essay on Taste, 3rd Edition (London, 1780).