age thus fabricated cannot be called a fecondary perception, not being derived from an original per ception: the poverty of language, however, as in the cafe immediately above mentioned, has occafioned the fame term idea to be applied to all. This fingular power of fabricating images without any foundation in reality, is diftinguished by the name imagination. 20. As ideas are the chief materials employed in reafoning and reflecting, it is of confequence that their nature and differences be understood. It appears now, that ideas may be diftinguished into three kinds: firft, Ideas derived from original perceptions properly termed ideas of memory; fecond, Ideas communicated by language or other figns; and, third, Ideas of imagination. Thefe ideas differ from each other in many respects; but chiefly in respect of their proceeding from different caufes: The first kind is derived from real existences that have been objects of our fenfes language is the caufe of the fecond, or any other fign that has the fame power with language and a man's imagination is to himfelf the caufe of the third. It is fcarce neceffary to add, that an idea, originally of imagination being conveyed to others by language or any other vehicle, becomes in their mind an idea of the fecond kind; and again, that an idea of this kind, being afterward recalled to the mind, becomes in that circumstance an idea of memory. 21. We are not fo conftituted as to perceive objects with indifference; thefe, with very few exceptions, appear agreeable or difagreeable; and at the fame time raise in us pleafant or painful emotions. With refpect to external objects in particular, we diftinguish thofe which produce organic impreffions, from those which affect us from a diftance. When we touch a foft and smooth body, we have a pleasant feeling as at the place of contact; which feeling we diftinguish not, at least not accurately, from the agree ableness ableness of the body itself; and the fame holds in general with regard to all organic impreffions. It is otherwise in hearing and feeing: a found is perceived as in itself agreeable, and raises in the hearer a pleasant emotion: an object of fight appears in itself agreeable, and raises in the fpectator a pleafant emotion. These are accurately diftinguifhed: the pleafant emotion is felt as within the mind; the agreeableness 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 fuch an object is termed ugliness. 22. 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 applied to objects of the other fenfes they are fometimes applied even to abstract terms: for it is not unusual to fay, a beautiful Theorem, a beautiful conftitution of government. 23. A line compofed by a fingle 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 fingle rule, is perceived, and faid to be regular: a circle, a fquare, a hexagon, an equilateral triangle, are regular figures, being compofed by a fingle rule, that determines the form of each. When the form of a line or of a figure is ascertained by a fingle rule that leaves nothing arbitrary, the line and the figure are faid to be perfectly regular; which is the cafe of the figures now mentioned, and the cafe of a straight line and of the circumference of a circle. A figure and a line that require more than one rule for their conftruction, or that have any of their parts left arbitrary, are not perfectly regular; a parallelogram and a rhomb are lefs Bb3 regular regular than a fquare; the parallelogram being fuba jected to no rule as to the length of fides, other than that the oppofite fides be equal; the rhomb being fubjected to no rule as to its angles, other than that the oppofite angles be equal: for the fame reafon, the circumference of an ellipfe, the form of which is fufceptible of much variety, is lefs regular than that of a circle. 24. Regularity properly fpeaking, belongs, like beauty, to objects of fight; and, like beauty, it is al fo applied figuratively to other objects: thus we fay, a regular government, a regular compofition of mufic, and, regular difcipline. 25. When two figures are composed of fimilar parts, they are faid to be uniform. Perfect uniformity is where the conftituent parts of two figures are equal thus two cubes of the fame dimenfions are perfectly uniform in all their parts. Uniformity lefs perfect is, where the parts mutually correfpond, but without being equal: the uniformity is imperfect between two fquares or cubes of unequal dimenfions; and still more fo between a fquare and a parallelogram. 26. 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 reg ularity from uniformity? for a figure compofed of uniform parts must undoubtedly be regular. Regularity is predicated of a figure confidered as a whole compofed of uniform parts: uniformity 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 conftituent parts of a fquare, we fy not, that they are regular, but that they are uniform. 27. In things deftined, for the fame ufe, as legs, arms, eyes, windows, spoons, we expect uniformity. Proportion ought to govern parts intended for dif ferent ferent ufes: we require a certain proportion between 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: fome proportion is alfo required in different things intimately connected, as between a dwelling-house, the garden, and the ftables; but we require no proportion among things flightly connected, as between the table a man writes on and the dog that follows him. Proportion and uniformity never coincide: things equal 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 molt agreeable proportion resembles a maximum in mathematics; a greater or less inequality or difference is lefs agreeable. 28. Order regards various particulars. Firft, in tracing or furveying objects, we are directed by a fenfe of order: we perceive it to be more orderly, that we fhould pafs from a principal 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 conne&tion, that order appears the most perfect, where the particulars are made to bear the strongest relation to each other that pofition can give them. Thus parallelifm is the trongest relation that pofition can beftow upon straight lines if they be fo placed as by production to interfect, the relation is lefs perfect. A large body in the middle, and two equal bodies of less fize, one on each fide, is an order that produces the trongest relation the bodies are fufceptible of by pofition the relation between the two equal bodies would be ftronger by juxtapofition; but they would not both have the fame relation to the third. Bb4 29, The 29. The beauty or agreeableness of a visible ob. ject, is perceived as one of its qualities; which holds not only in the primary perception, but also in the fecondary perception or idea: and hence the pleasure. that arifes from the idea of a beautiful object. An idea of imagination is also pleasant, though in a lower degree than an idea of memory, where the objects' are of the fame kind; for an evident reason, that the former is more diftinct and lively than the latter. But this inferiority in ideas of imagination, is more than compenfated by their greatnefs and variety, which are boundless; for by the imagination, exerted without control, we can fabricate ideas of finer vifible objects, of more noble and heroic actions, of greater wickednefs, of more furprising events, than ever in fact exifted: and in communicating fuch ideas by words, painting, fculpture, &c. the influence of the imagination is no lefs extenfive than great. 30. In the nature of every man, there is fomewhat original, which diftinguishes him from others, which tends to form his character, and to make him meek or fiery, candid or deceitful, refolute or timorous, cheerful or morofe. This original bent, termed difpofition, must be diftinguished from a principle: the latter, fignifying a law of human nature, makes part of the common nature of man; the former makes part of the nature of this or that man. Propenfity is a name common to both; for it fignifies a principle as well as a difpofition. 31. Affection, fignifying a fettled bent of mind toward a particular being or thing, occupies a middle place between difpofition on the one hand, and paffion on the other. It is clearly diftinguishable from difpofition, which, being a branch of one's nature originally, muft exift before there can be an opportunity to exert it upon any particular object; whereas affection can never be original, becaufe, having a fpecial relation to a particular object, it cannot exist |