Beauty and Mystery

Outside Reading

November 30, 2016

“With regards to objects of sight, whatever gives pleasure is said to be beautiful: whatever gives pain, is said to be ugly. The terms of beauty and ugliness, in their proper signification, are confined to objects of sight…Objects considered simply as existing, without relation to any end or any designing agent, are in the lowest rank or order with respect to beauty and ugliness; a smooth globe for example, or a vivid color. But when external objects, such as works of art are considered with relation to some end, we feel a higher degree of pleasure or pain.” – Lord Kames, “Foundation and Principles of Morality”

In this essay, Kames begins his analysis of virtue with an analysis of beauty. He separates beauty into three different types, two of which are enumerated above. The first is the beauty of an object. He creates an association between what is pleasurable and what is beautiful. The second type of beauty is beauty in terms of the external, meaning art or music. The final type of beauty is beauty in terms of usefulness. As I read Kames’ separation of beauty, I wonder if oftentimes, beauty cannot be split into neat sections. A truly beautiful building can create awe and wonder, an emotional response in the same way that art can create the same feelings. I remember the feeling of walking into Westminster Abbey for the first time. The beauty of the building took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes. It was a beauty that it was incomprehensible, I could not fathom all at once.  In class, we talked about how British aestheticians also split landscapes into three categories as well – the beautiful, the picturesque and the sublime. The sublime is the part of beauty or a landscape that is mysterious and cannot always be understood. It creates awe but also fear because of the mystery. The philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment seem to create a system where man can understand through reflection all is beautiful and virtuous. If man can understand it in his faculties, where is the mystery and what is the value of a higher power? With the sublime, comes the divine, and it characterizes the mysterious, unknowable nature of the divine.