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regard to all the organic impreflions. It is otherwife in hearing and feeing. A found is perceived as in itself agreeable; and, at the fame time, raises in the hearer a pleafant emotion: an object of fight appears in itself agreeable; and, at the fame time, raises in the feer a pleasant emotion. These are accurately diftinguifhed. The pleasant emotion is felt as within the mind: the agreeablenefs of the object is placed upon the object, and is perceived as one of its qualities or properties. The agreeable appearance of an object of fight, is termed beauty; and the difagreeable appearance of such an object is termed ugliness.

21. But though beauty and uglinefs, in their proper and genuine fignification, are confined to objects of fight; yet in a more lax and figurative fignification, they are apply'd to objects of the other fenfes. They are fometimes apply'd even to abstract terms; for it is not unufual to fay, a beautiful theorem, a beautiful conftitution of government. But I am inclined to think, that we are led to use fuch expreffion by conceiving the thing as delineated upon paper, and as in fome fort an object of fight.

22. A line compofed by a precife rule, is perceived and faid to be regular. A ftraight line, a parabola, a hyperbola, the circumference of a circle, and of an ellipfe, are all of them regular lines.

A figure compofed by a precise rule, is perceived and faid to be regular. Thus a circle, a square, a hexagon, an equilateral triangle, are regular figures, being compofed by a rule that determines the form of each. When the form of a line or of a figure is ascertained by a rule that leaves nothing arbitrary, the line and the figure are faid to be perfectly regular: this is the case of the figures now mentioned and it is the cafe of a straight line and of the circumference of a circle. A figure and a line are

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not perfectly regular where any part or circumftance is left arbitrary. A parallelogram and a rhomb are lefs regular than a fquare: the parallelogram is subjected to no rule as to the length of fides, other than that the opposite fides be equal: the rhomb is fubjected to no rule as to its angles, other than that the oppofite angles be equal. For the fame reason, the circumference of an ellipfe, the form of which is fufceptible of much variety, is lefs regular than that of a circle.

23. Regularity, properly speaking, belongs, like beauty, to objects of fight: like beauty, it is alfo · apply'd figuratively to other objects. Thus we fay, a regular government, a regular compofition of mufic, and, regular difcipline.

24. When two figures are compofed of fimilar parts, they are faid to be uniform. Perfect uniformity is where the constituent parts of two figures are precifely fimilar to each other. Thus two cubes of the fame dimenfions are perfectly uniform in all their parts. An imperfect uniformity is, where the parts mutually correfpond, but without being precisely fimilar. The uniformity is imperfect betwixt two fquares or cubes of unequal dimenfions; and still more fo betwixt a square and a parallelogram.

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25. Uniformity is alfo applicable to the conftituent parts of the fame figure. The conftituent parts of a fquare are perfectly uniform its fides are equal and its angles are equal. Wherein then differs regularity from uniformity? for a figure compofed of fimilar or uniform parts muft undoubtedly be regular. Regularity is predicated of a figure confidered as a whole composed of refembling or uniform parts: uniformity again is predicated of these parts as related to each other by refemblance. We fay, a fquare is a regular, not an uniform figure but with refpect to the constituent parts of a

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fquare,

fquare, we fay not that they are regular, but that they are uniform.

26. In things destined for the fame ufe, as legs, arms, eyes, windows, fpoons, we expect uniformity. Proportion ought to govern parts intended for different ufes. We require a certain proportion betwixt a leg and an arm; in the bafe, the fhaft, the capital, of a pillar; and in the length, the breadth, the height, of a room. Some proportion is alfo required in different things intimately connected, as betwixt a dwelling-houfe, the garden, and the ftables. But we require no proportion among things flightly connected, as betwixt the table a man writes on and the dog that follows him. Proportion and uniformity never coincide: things perfectly fimilar are uniform; but proportion is never applied to them: the four fides and angles of a fquare are equal and perfectly uniform; but we fay not that they are proportional. Thus, proportion always implies inequality or difference; but then it implies it to a certain degree only the moft agreeable proportion refembles a maximum in mathematics; a greater or lefs inequality or difference is lefs agreeable.

27. Order regards various particulars. First, in tracing or furveying objects, we are directed by a fenfe of order; we conceive it to be more orderly, that we should pafs from a principle to its acceffories and from a whole to its parts, than in the contrary direction. Next, with refpect to the pofition of things, a fenfe of order directs us to place together things intimately connected. Thirdly, in placing things that have no natural connection, that order appears the most perfect, where the particulars are made to bear the ftrongest relation to each other that pofition can give them. Thus parallelifm is the strongest relation that position can bestow upon straight lines. If they be fo placed as

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by production to interfect each other, the relation is lefs perfect. A large body in the middle and two equal bodies of lefs fize, one on each side, is an order that produces the strongest relation the bodies are fufceptible of by pofition. The relation betwixt the two equal bodies would be ftronger by juxtapofition; but they would not both have the fame relation to the third.

28. The beauty or agreeablenefs of an object, as it enters into the original perception, enters alfo into the fecondary perception cr idea. An idea of imagination is alfo agreeable; though in a lower degree than an idea of memory, where the objects are of the fame kind. But this defect in the ideas of imagination is abundantly fupply'd by their greatnefs and variety. For the imagination acting without control, can fabricate ideas of finer visible objects, of more noble and heroic actions, of greater wickedness, of more surprising events, than ever in fact exifted. And by communicating these ideas in words, painting, fculpture, &c. the influence of the imagination is not lefs extenfive than great.

29. In the nature of every man, there is somewhat original, that ferves to distinguish him from others, that tends to form a character, and, with the concurrence of external accidents, to make him meek or fiery, candid or deceitful, refolute or timorous, chearful or morofe. This original bent is termed difpofition. Which must be diftinguished from a principle: no original bent obtains the latter appellation, but what belongs to the whole fpecies. A principle makes part of the common nature of man: a difpofition makes part of the nature of this or that man. A propenfity comprehends both; for it fignifies indifferently either a principle or a difpofition.

30. Affec

30. Affection, fignifying a fettled bent of mind toward a particular being or thing, occupies a middle place betwixt propensity on the one hand, and paffion on the other. A propenfity being original, muft exist before any opportunity be offered to exert it affection can never be original; becaufe, having a special relation to a particular object, it cannot exist till the object be prefented. Again, paffion depends on the prefence of the object, in idea at least, if not in reality: when the idea vanifhes, the paffion vanishes with it. Affection, on the contrary, once fettled on a perfon, is a lafting connection; and like other connections, fubfifts even when we do not think of it. A familiar example will clear the whole. There may be in the mind a propenfity to gratitude, which, through want of an object, happens never to be exerted, and which therefore is never difcovered even by the perfon who has it. Another

who has the fame propenfity, meets with a kindly office that makes him grateful to his benefactor : an intimate connection is formed betwixt them, termed affection; which like other connections, has a permanent existence, though not always in view. The affection, for the most part, lies dormant, till an opportunity offer of exerting it in this circumstance, it is converted into the paffion of gratitude; and the opportunity is greedily seized for testifying gratitude in the most complete

manner.

31. Averfion, I think, must be oppofed to affection, and not to defire, as it commonly is. We have an affection for one perfon; we have an aversion to another: the former difposes us to do good to its object, the latter to do ill.

32. What is a fentiment? It is not a perception; for a perception fignifies our conicioufnefs of external objects. It is not confcioufnets of an in

ternal

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