have for our mothers, where the parental authority is almoft 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 whimfical 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 ftandard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies. This loofe and inaccurate manner of fpeaking, has therefore mifled us both in the theory of taîte 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 unsubstantial.

SECT. XII.

THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

HAVING endeavoured to fhew what beauty is not, it remains that we should examine, at leaft 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 use, 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 must 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.

BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS SMALL.

THE most 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 and other diminutive terms are almost always the terms of affection and tendernefs. Thefe diminutives were commonly added by the Greeks, to the names of perfons with whom they converfed 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 ftill, ́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

animal creation, out of our own fpecies, it is the finall we are inclined to be fond of; little birds, and fome of the finaller kinds of beafts. A great beautiful thing is a manner of expreffion scarcely ever ufed; but that of a great ugly thing, is very common. There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The fublime, which is the caufe of the former, always dwells on great objects, and terrible; the latter on fmall ones, and pleafing; we fubmit to what we admire, but we love what fubmits to us; in one cafe we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance. In fhort, the ideas of the fublime and the beautiful stand on foundations fo different, that it is hard, I had almoft faid impoffible, to think of reconciling them in the fame fubject, without confiderably leffening the effect of the one or the other upon the paffions. So that, attending to their quantity, beautiful objects are comparatively small.

SECT. XIV.

SMOOTHNESS.

THE next property conftantly obfervable in fuch objects is Smoothness: A quality fo effential to beauty, that I do not now recollect any thing beautiful that is not fmooth. In trees and flowers, fmooth leaves are beautiful; fmooth flopes of earth

*Part IV. fect. 21.

in

in gardens; fmooth ftreams in the landscape; fmooth coats of birds and beasts in animal beauties; in fine women, smooth skins; and in feveral forts of ornamental furniture, fmooth and polished furfaces. A very confiderable part of the effect of beauty is owing to this quality; indeed the moft confiderable. For take any beautiful object, and give it a broken and rugged furface; and however well formed it may be in other refpects, it pleases no longer. Whereas, let it want ever fo many of the other conftituents, if it wants not this, it becomes more pleafing than almoft all the others without it. This feems to me fo evident, that I am a good deal furprifed, that none who have handled the fubject have made any mention of the quality of fmoothnefs, in the enumeration of those that go to the forming of beauty. For indeed any ruggedness, any ruggedness, any fudden projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to that idea.

SECT. XV.

GRADUAL VARIATION.

BUT as perfectly beautiful bodies are not composed of angular parts, fo their parts never continue long in the fame right line. *They vary their direction every moment, and they change

* Part V. fe&t. 23.

under