HOW EMOTIONS AFFECT THE MIND
ALISON, Archibald Essays on the nature and principles of taste. Edinburgh, London: Bell and Bradfute, J.J.G. and G. Robinson, 1790
FIRST EDITION., 4to., xiii, [iii], 415 pp.
An exceptionally large copy with wide margins, complete with the half-title (often lacking). Contemporary calf, neatly rebacked. From the library of J[ohn] B[ird] Sumner (1780-1862), Bishop of Chester and later Archbishop of Canterbury, with a presentation bookplate to Thomas Williams, and Williams' armorial bookplate., First edition of one of the earliest psychological discussions on aesthetics and the nature of beauty. Alison's theory illustrates that beauty is not a separate quality that an external object possesses, but is a product of trains of agreeable ideas set up in the imagination by objects associated with emotions. Here he examines the effects produced on the mind when a variety of emotions are experienced. He describes sights, sounds, colours, forms, design and fitness. Pain, terror and distress are treated, as well as natural beauty such as landscape, music, art and poetry.Alison (1757-1839) studied natural history as a disciple of Gilbert White of Selborne. His investigation into the qualities that produce emotion had a profound influence in England; this, his main work on the subject, reached a sixth edition. In fact, the article on beauty in the Encyclopaedia Britannica was mainly taken from this book.
$US2000
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