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WHAT SHOULD BE IS.

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apparent disorder in creation, to rest of spirit in the faith that God's will, which is good, is still fulfilled, and in it our own highest wish and prayer. We begin to see that somehow all things after all are as they should be, and as we would wish them to be, in the being of an endless change and progression till God be all in all.

CHAPTER VII.

CAN THERE BE A STANDARD OF TASTE?

WE E have spoken at length of the development of taste, but we have not asked the question, Is there such a thing as a standard of taste by which we can judge of anything? And the question is an important one and a difficult one to answer. It is important, because, if there is a standard of taste, we should like to know what it is that we may know how to regulate our judgments by it, whether we are right or wrong in any particular case of reference or dispute, and how near we approach it, or how far we come short of it, in our actions and choice in everyday life; and, if there is none, no principle whatever before which art and actions can be brought in judgment, why then it would seem that there is in reality no ground of decision for what is in good or bad taste, that, in fact, there is no good or bad about it, that every taste is as good as every other, that preferences are mere matters of moonshine, and that, as there is neither truth nor falsity involved in their work, nothing either good or bad, but only less or more, artists-say sculptors or paintersmight represent anything as anything else, or take the caricatures of Punch as their models for ideal human beauty without any possibility of being

DIFFICULTIES OF QUESTION.

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reasonably found fault with for doing so. Whims, crotchets, idiocy, chaos-no matter what, in art on such a theory: the scrawl of a weakling pupil would show as much taste as the production of a master, and the braying of an ass might be preferred as music to Handel's Messiah without any, chance of failure in judgment. There might be change on such a theory, but no improvement; and there could be no education, for there would be nothing to learn. That is what "De gustibus non disputandum," when rigorously applied in aesthetics, would lead us to-to idiocy and nothingness in art in all its departments, and to unreason everywhere.

But if we assume, to start with, that there must be a standard somewhere, some principle of judgment by which we are guided in all our decisions, then there is the difficulty of knowing where to find it, or who is to decide what it is. For there is, at first sight at least, an apparently endless diversity in tastes; and the trouble is to reconcile those tastes, so diverse and fluctuating, with the idea of any standard by which they can be tested. It may be, of course, that the diversity is largely apparent only, and by no means such as to be irreconcilable in general with a standard of judgment; and as we shall find ample reason, I think, in the next chapter for believing that such is the case, we need not dwell upon it in the meantime further than to say that, let the diversity be what it may, it evidently does not interfere with the free application of the judgments of society on any object in nature, art, or ornamentation. People will judge and decide, without any doubt of their competency, on the comparative merits of plants and

We speak of the could be, or as a standard for every

animals and dresses, of paintings and poets and furniture; and the awards of qualified critics and of judges at exhibitions are usually held to be rationally given, and to have truth at the root of them. But still that leaves the question to be settled as to what their standard of judgment is, and whether it is the true one. And the difficulty has not been lessened, but very much increased, by the vague and indefinite language which has been used about a standard. standard of taste as if there matter of fact were, only one thing in general, instead of a different standard, it may be, for every class or species of object on which we have to pass judgment. And perhaps it would help to put us on the path for a settlement of our question if, after asking, Is there a standard of taste? or What is the standard of taste? would ask, A standard of taste for what? would put us on our guard at least against attempting an answer to possibly an absurd or unreasonable question. A standard for objects in general must exclude, by the very conception of it, what is true in only particular cases; and, if so, it manifestly cannot be of much service to anyone in actual life where we have to deal, not with what is general, but with particular and individual objects. The standard for a good portrait may be one thing, and, if such a thing exist, that for a beautiful sunset another. So at least it might seem to a novice.

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Before, however, trying to give an answer of our own to the question raised, let us look at some of the answers that might be given, or which have been advanced, or practically adopted, by others.

JEFFREY'S OPINION.

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In consideration of the tastes and habits of different societies and nations, and the tyranny of fashion in every society, it might be thought that custom, or the generally prevailing opinion, was the only available standard of judgment. And that is practically the answer of Jeffrey. "As all men," he says, have some peculiar associations, all men must have some peculiar notions of beauty, and, of course, to a certain extent, a taste that the public would be entitled to consider as false or vitiated." And so, if one ceive the ambition of creating beauties for the admiration of others, he must be cautious to employ only such objects as are the natural signs, or the inseparable concomitants of emotions, of which the greater part of mankind are susceptible; and his taste will then deserve to be called bad and false, if he obtrude upon the public, as beautiful, objects that are not likely to be associated in common minds with any interesting impressions." And so, it would seem, in that way of looking at it, that the standard of taste, so far as there may be allowed to be a good or bad taste at all, is to be the likings of the general public, or the sentiment of the crowd; and the man who can suit himself most exactly to the wants of the people is the man who shows the greatest taste in things aesthetic, and he who is least in harmony with the people shows the worst. And the theory has the merit of showing us the legitimate outcome of any pure association theory; and it contains, it may be, in faint foreshadowing and by implication, the truth that an artist, to succeed, must have regard to the wants of human nature, and that no mere whim, or arbitrary judgment, or freak of an individual or of a clique is ever in the least likely to be finally accepted as true, or as a genuine product

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