us to admit that of distance as existing between the model and the manner of imitating by which its image is produced, between the elements of the object to be imitated and those of the object imitating.

Whatever vagueness may at first sight seem to attach to this proposition, will immediately vanish when we come to consider its converse, which is rendered evident in the following examples of certain cases, wherein the imitative distance disappears, and is reduced to nothing, without however the artist having transgressed the laws of imitation.

The distance Is

Suppose then, that the sculptor, who has Scytru right to employ in the representation of bodies een: any kind of material, imitates the trunk of a tree

in wood, a rock in stone, or a metallic instrument in bronze, neither in fact, nor as regards the sight, will there be any distance between the thing to be imitated and that imitating. Again, we shall find an extreme closeness between the original and the image, in some works of painting wrought in tapestry, where this art employs the same coloured woollen, or silk material to represent the silk, or woollen clothing of the personages, leaving as it were no distance between that part of the object which it imitates and its imitation. We have already (see Chap. x.) instanced a sufficient number of cases where, on the stage, the poet and the composer of music or ballets take for the

M

subject of their imitation, that imitation itself, representing the very representation of a piece, the supposed composition of the play, and the seeming rehearsal of the symphonies, the airs of the songs, and the steps of the dance.

My only purpose in citing these instances, within reach of all and more especially appertaining to the outward senses, is that I may more easily render intelligible the idea I attach, in a higher sphere of abstract theory, to the species of imitative distance existing between every kind of model and every kind of image, and to prove that the pleasure must be different in degree, according to the distance existing between the elements of the image and those of the model, and according to the number or difference of the appositions which the mind must bring about in order to institute comparisons.

But why may not what is said and rendered clearly intelligible, when speaking of distance, comparison, and apposition between the object to be imitated and the object imitating in the positive and material province of the imitative processes of every art, be said and equally well comprehended of each of the fine arts when considered in the properties, qualities, or fictious means which establish a greater or less proximity between the model and the mode of imitation in each ?

If then, an opinion commonly received and not even requiring to be proved, has established a

certain order of precedence among all those arts, the degrees of which are found to be entirely in accordance with the scale of distances actually ! separating the imitative mode proper to each, from the reality of its model, are we not authorized in recognizing in that gradation a kind of fact, which may serve to confirm our theory concerning the nature of imitation and the degree of pleasure to be expected from it?

CHAPTER XVI,

THE COMPARATIVE RANK ASSIGNED BY COMMON OPINION TO THE DIFFERENT ARTS, SEEMS TO BE CONFIRMED BY THIS THEORY, AND, IN TURN, CONFIRMS IT.

WHEN We speak of comparative rank in the fine arts, or of the precedence of one before another, it must not, in this theory, be understood of a superiority either in power of invention, difficulty of execution, or merit on the part of the artist, nor yet as of disputing about tastes, or arguing against the inclination that may prompt a person to like one mode of imitation better than another.

In the kind of estimate here made of the pleasure attached to the effects of every art, we do not mean what the generality understand by pleasure, that is, the enjoyment belonging to the senses; we would be understood to speak of the moral action of imitation. Consequently the degree of pleasure which can alone determine the rank in question, must be the result of a standard at once moral and intellectual.

Furthermore, the subject of this chapter is limited to the recognition of a fact, which, if it

coincide with what has been advanced in the previous one, will tend still more to demonstrate what is the nature of imitation, by proving with greater clearness, that the amount of pleasure it procures is in proportion to the distance which separates the elements of an art, from those of its model.

It is generally allowed that poetry takes pre-< cedence of all the arts. A sort of universal consent assigns to it the first rank. Every one comprehends and feels that this mode of imitation is the least material of all, that it is farthest removed from sensible objects, and also that the manner of enjoying it, as well as its images, is that with which the senses have the least to do. There is nothing less material than the imitative instruments of poetry, namely, speech and the rhythmical and metrical arrangement of words. In respect of the objects of the visible world, one cannot conceive a greater distance between what it depicts, and its manner of depicting. This distance is the same with that which exists between the idea and the sight of a thing. Poetry only produces the image of objects, by abstract and indirect means, which can no otherwise render them visible to us than by compelling us to picture them to ourselves. It can only address itself to the internal sense, to that intellectual organ, on which its images have no hold but by reason of the activity they excite in it.