ing has little lefs power; and modesty in general, which is a tacit allowance of imperfection, is itself confidered as an amiable quality, and certainly heightens every other that is fo. I know it is in every body's mouth, that we ought to love perfection. This is to me a fufficient proof, that it is not the proper object of love. Who ever faid we ought to love a fine woman, or even any of these beautiful animals which please us? Here to be affected, there is no need of the concurrence of our will.

SECT. X.

HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED

TO THE QUALITIES OF THe mind.

NOR is this remark in general lefs applicable to the qualities of the mind. Thofe virtues which cause admiration, and are of the fublimer kind, produce terrour rather than love; fuch as fortitude, justice, wisdom, and the like. Never was any man amiable by force of these qualities. Thofe which engage our hearts, which imprefs us with a fenfe of lovelinefs, are the fofter virtues; eafinefs of temper, compaffion, kindness, and liberality; though certainly those latter are of lefs immediate and momentous, concern to fociety, and of lefs dignity. But it is for that reason that they are fo amiable. The great virtues turn principally

on

on dangers, punishments, and troubles, and are exercised rather in preventing the worft mischiefs, than in difpenfing favours; and are therefore not lovely, though highly venerable. The fubordinate turn on reliefs, gratifications, and indulgences; and are therefore more lovely, though inferiour in dignity. Those perfons who creep into the hearts of moft people, who are chofen as the companions of their fofter hours, and their reliefs from care and anxiety, are never perfons of fhining qualities or ftrong virtues. It is rather the foft green of the foul on which we reft our eyes that are fatigued with beholding more glaring objects. It is worth obferving how we feel ourfelves affected in reading the characters of Cæfar and Cato, as they are fo finely drawn and contrafted in Salluft. In one the ignofcendo, largiundo; in the other, nil largiundo. In one the miferis perfugium; in the other, malis perniciem. In the latter we have much to admire, much to reverence, and perhaps fomething to fear; we refpect him, but we refpect him at a distance. The former makes us familiar with him; we love him, and he leads us whither he pleases. To draw things clofer to our first and most natural feelings, I will add a remark made upon reading this fection by an ingenious friend. The authority of a father, fo useful to our well-being, and so justly venerable upon all accounts, hinders us from having that entire love for him that we

have for our mothers, where the parental autho rity is almost melted down into the mother's fondnefs and indulgence. But we generally have a great love for our grandfathers in whom this authority is removed a degree from us, and where the weakness of age mellows it into fomething of a feminine partiality.

SECT. XI.

HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO VIRTUE.

FROM what has been faid in the foregoing fection we may easily fee, how far the application of beauty to virtue, may be made with propriety. The general application of this quality to virtue, has a strong tendency to confound our ideas of things; and it has given rife to an infinite deal of whimsical theory; as the affixing the name of beauty to proportion, congruity, and perfection, as well as to qualities of things yet more remote from our natural ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This lpofe and inaccurate manner of fpeaking, has therefore mifled us both in the theory of tafte and of morals; and induced us to remove the fcience of our duties from their

proper

proper bafis, (our reason, our relations, and our neceffities,) to reft it upon foundations altogether vifionary and unfubftantial.

SECT. XII.

THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

HAVING endeavoured to fhew what beauty is not, it remains that we should examine, at least with equal attention, in what it really confifts. Beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon fome pofitive qualities. And, fince it is no creature of our reafon, fince it ftrikes us without any reference to ufe, and even where no ufe at all can be difcerned, fince the order and method of nature is generally very different from our measures and proportions, we muft conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, fome quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the fenfes. We ought therefore to confider attentively in what manner thofe fenfible qualities are difpofed, in fuch things as by experience we find beautiful, or which excite in us the paffion of love, or fome correfpondent affection.

SECT.

SECT. XIII.

BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS SMALL.

THE moft obvious point that prefents itself to us in examining any object, is its extent or quantity. And what degree of extent prevails in bodies that are held beautiful, may be gathered from the ufual manner of expreffion concerning it. I am told that, in moft languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets. It is fo in all the languages of which I have any knowledge. In Greek the wv and other diminu tive terms are almoft always the terms of affection and tendernefs. Thefe diminutives were commonly added by the Greeks, to the names of per. fons with whom they conversed on the terms of friendship and familiarity. Though the Romans were a people of lefs quick and delicate feelings, yet they naturally flid into the leffening termination upon the fame occafions. Antiently in the English language the diminishing ling was added to the names of perfons and things that were the objects of love. Some we retain still, as darling (or little dear), and a few others. But to this day, in ordinary converfation, it is ufual to add the endearing name of little to every thing we love: the French and Italians make use of these affectionate diminutives even more than we. In the