appe

fhall gratify, what paffions we shall comply with, what tites we fhall indulge. As to the reft, we truft to common fenfe, and the general maxims of the world, for our inftruction.

I am forry then, I have pretended to be a philofopher: For I find your questions very perplexing; and am in danger, if my anfwer be too rigid and fevere, of paffing for a pedant and scholastic; if it be too eafy and free, of being taken for a preacher of vice and immorality. However, to fatisfy you, I shall deliver my opinion upon the matter, and only defire to esteem it of as little confequence as I do myself. By that means you will neither think it worthy of your ridicule nor your anger.

you

If we can depend upon any principle, which we learn from philofophy, this, I think, may be confidered as certain and undoubted, That there is nothing in itself, valuable or despicable, defirable or hateful, beautiful or deformed; but that these attributes arise from the particular constitution and fabric of human fentiments and affections. What feems the most delicious food to one animal, appears loathsome to another: What affects the feeling of one with delight, produces uneafiness to another. This is confeffedly the cafe with regard to all the bodily fenfes : But if we examine the matter more accurately, we fhall find that the fame obfervation holds even where the mind concurs with the body, and mingles its fentiments with the exterior appetites.

Defire this paffionate lover to give you a character of his miftrefs: He will tell you that he is at a lofs for words to defcribe her charms, and will ask you very seriously if ever you was

I

ac

acquainted with a goddess or an angel? If you answer that you never was: He will then say, That 'tis impoffible for you to form a conception of fuch divine beauties as thofe which his charmer poffeffes; fo complete a shape; fuch proportioned features; fo engaging an air; fuch sweetness of difpofition; fuch gaiety of humour. You can infer nothing, however, from all this discourse, but that the poor man is in love; and that the general appetite between the fexes, which nature has infused into all animals, is in him determined to a particular object by fome qualities, which give him pleasure. The fame divine creature, not only to a different animal, but also to a different man, appears a mere mortal being, and is beheld with the utmoft indifference.

Nature has given all animals a like prejudice in favour of their offspring. As foon as the helpless infant fees the light, though in every other eye it appears a despicable and miserable creature, it is regarded by its fond parent with the utmost affection, and is preferred to every other object, however perfect and accomplished. The paffion alone, arifing from the original structure and formation of human nature, bestows a value on the most insignificant object.

We may push the fame obfervation further, and may conclude, that even when the mind operates alone, and feeling the fentiments of blame or approbation, pronounces one object deformed and odious, another beautiful and amiable; I fay, that even in this cafe, thofe qualities are not really in the objects, but belong entirely to the fentiments of that mind which blames or praises. I grant, that it will be more difficult to make this propofition evident, and as it were, palpable, to negligent

6

thinkers,

thinkers, because nature is more uniform in the fentiments of the mind than in moft feelings of the body, and produces a nearer resemblance in the inward than in the outward part of human kind. There is something approaching to principles in mental taste; and critics can reafon and difpute much more plausibly than cooks or perfumers. We may obferve, however, That this uniformity among human kind, hinders not, but that there is a confiderable diversity in the sentiments of beauty and worth, and that education, custom, prejudice, caprice, and humour frequently vary our taste of this kind. You will never convince a man, who is not accustomed to ITALIAN mufic, and has not an ear to follow its intricacies, that a SCOTS tune is not preferable. You have not even any fingle argument, beyond your own taste, which you can employ in your behalf: And to your antagonist, his particular taste will always appear a much more convincing argument to the contrary. If you be wife, each of you will allow, that the other may be in the right; and having many other instances of this diversity of taste, you will both confefs, that beauty and worth are merely of a relative nature, and confist in an agreeable sentiment, produced by an object on a particular mind, according to the peculiar ftructure and conftitution of that mind.

By this diverfity of fentiment, obfervable in human kind, nature has, perhaps, intended to make us fenfible of her authority, and let us see what fuprizing changes fhe could produce on the paffions and defires of mankind, merely by the change of their inward fabric, without any alteration on the objects. The vulgar may even be convinced by this argument: But men accustomed to thinking may draw a more convincing, at least a more general argument, from the very nature of the subject.

In

In the operation of reasoning, the mind does nothing but run over its objects, as they are fuppofed to ftand in reality, without adding any thing to them, or diminishing any thing from them. If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real fituation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them,

in

my mind or conception, the fame relations which they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there feems to be always a real, though often ́an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or falfehood variable by the various apprehenfions of mankind. Though all human race fhould for ever conclude, that the fun moves, and the earth remains at reft, the fun ftirs not an inch. from his place for all these reasonings; and fuch conclufions are eternally falfe and erroneous..

But the cafe is not the fame with the qualities of beautiful and deformed, defirable and odious, as with truth and falfehood. In the former cafe, the mind is not contented with merely furveying its objects, as they stand in themselves: It also feels a fentiment of delight or uneafinefs, approbation or blame, confe-. quent to that furvey; and this fentiment determines it to pronounce the object beautiful or deformed, defirable or odious.. Now, 'tis evident, that this fentiment muft depend upon the particular fabric or ftructure of the mind, which enables fuch particular objects. to operate in fuch a particular manner, and produces a fympathy or conformity between the mind and the objects.. Vary the structure of the mind or inward organs, the fentiment no longer follows, though the objects remain the fame. The fentiment being different from the object, and arifing from its operation upon the organs of the mind, an al

teration:

teration upon the latter muft vary the effect, nor can the same object, presented to a mind totally different, produce the fame fentiment.

This conclufion every one is apt to form of himself, without much philosophy, where the fentiment is evidently distinguishable from the object. Who is not fenfible, that power, and glory, and vengeance, are not defirable of themselves, but derive all their value from the structure of human paffions, which begets a defire towards fuch particular objects? But with regard to beauty, whether natural or moral, the cafe is commonly supposed to be different. The agreeable quality is thought to lie in the object, not in the fentiment; and that merely because the fentiment is not fo turbulent and violent as to distinguish itself, in an evident manner, from the perception of the object.

But a very little reflection fuffices to diftinguish them. A man may know exactly all the circles and ellipfes of the CoPERNICAN system, and all the irregular spirals of the PTOLOMAIC, without perceiving that the former is more beautiful than the latter. EUCLID has very fully explained every quality of the circle, but has not, in any propofition, faid a word of its beauty. The reason is evident. Beauty is not a quality of the circle. It lies not in any part of the line whofe parts are all equally distant from a common centre. It is only the effect, which that figure operates upon the mind, whose particular fabric or structure renders it susceptible of fuch fentiments. In vain would you look for it in the circle, or feek it, either by your fenfes, or by mathematical reasonings, in all the properties of that figure.

VOL. I.

B b

The