it. We are fo wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently defirous of novelty, we are as ftrongly attached to habit and cuftom. But it is the nature of things which hold us by cuftom, to affect us very little whilft we are in poffeffion of them, but strongly when they are abfent. I remember to have frequented a certain place, every day for a long time together; and I may truly fay, that fo far from finding pleasure in it, I was affected with a fort of weariness and difguft; I came, I went, I returned, without pleasure; yet if by any means I paffed by the ufual time of going thither, I was remarkably uneafy, and was not quiet till I had got into my old track. They who use fnuff, take it almost without being fenfible that they take it, and the acute fense of smell is deadened, so as to feel hardly any thing from fo fharp a ftimulus; yet deprive the fnuff-taker of his box, and he is the most uneafy mortal in the world. Indeed fo far are use and habit from being caufes of pleasure, merely as fuch, that the effect of conftant ufe is to make all things of whatever kind entirely unaffecting. For as ufe at laft takes off the painful effect of many things, it reduces the pleasurable effect of others in the fame manner, and brings both to a fort of mediocrity and indifference. Very justly is ufe called a fecond nature; and our natural and common state is one of abfolute indifference, equally prepared for pain or pleasure. But when we are thrown out of this state, or deprived of any thing requifite to maintain us in it when this chance does not happen by pleasure from fome mechanical caufe, we are always hurt. It is fo with the fecond nature, cuftom, in all things which Р which relate to it. Thus the want of the ufual proportions in men and other animals is fure to difguft, though their prefence is by no means any cause of real pleasure. It is true, that the proportions laid down as causes of beauty in the human body, are frequently found in beautiful ones, because they are generally found in all mankind; but if it can be fhewn too, that they are found without beauty, and that beauty frequently exifts without them, and that this beauty, where it exifts, always can be affigned to other lefs equivocal caufes, it will naturally lead us to conclude, that proportion and beauty are not ideas of the fame nature. The true oppofite to beauty is not difproportion or deformity, but ugliness; and as it proceeds from caufes oppofite to thofe of pofitive beauty, we cannot confider it until we come to treat of that. Between beauty and uglinefs there is a fort of mediocrity, in which the affigned proportions are most commonly found; but this has no effect upon the paffions. I SECT. VI. FITNESS not the caufe of BEAUTY. Tis faid that the idea of utility, or of a part's being well adapted to answer its end, is the caufe of beauty, or indeed beauty itself. If it were not for this opinion, it had been impoffible for the doctrine of proportion to have held its ground very long; the world would be foon weary of hearing of measures which related to nothing, either of a natural princi ple, ple, or of a fitnefs to answer fome end; the idea. which mankind most commonly conceive of proportion, is the fuitableness of means to certain ends, and, where this is not the queftion, very feldom trouble themselves about the effect of different measures of things. Therefore it was neceffary for this theory to infift, that not only artificial, but natural objects took their beauty from the fitnefs of the parts for their feveral purposes. But in framing this theory, I am apprehenfive that experience was not fufficiently confulted. For, on that principle, the wedge-like fnout of a fwine, with its tough cartilage at the end, the little funk eyes, and the whole make of the head, fo well adapted to its offices of digging and rooting, would be extremely beautiful. The great bag hanging to the bill of a pelican, a thing highly useful to this animal, would be likewife as beautiful in our eyes. The hedgehog, fo well fecured against all affaults by his prickly hide, and the porcupine with his miffile quills, would be then confidered as creatures of no fmall elegance. There are few animals whofe parts are better contrived than those of a monkey; he has the hands of a man, joined to the fpringy limbs of a beaft; he is admirably calculated for running, leaping, grappling, and climbing; and yet there are few animals which feem to have less beauty in the eyes of all mankind. I need fay little on the trunk of the elephant, of such various usefulness, and which is fo far from contributing to his beauty. How well fitted is the wolf for running and leaping! how admirably is the lion armed for battle! but will any one therefore call the elephant, the wolf, and the lion, beautiful animals? I believe nobody will think the form of a man's legs fo well adapted to running, as those of an horfe, a dog, a deer, and feveral other creatures; at least they have not that appearance: yet, I believe, a well-fashioned human leg will be allowed far to exceed all these in beauty. If the fitnefs of parts was what conftituted the lovelinefs of their form, the actual employment of them would undoubtedly much augment it; but this, though it is fometimes fo upon another principle, is far from being always the cafe. A bird on the wing is not fo beautiful as when it is perched; nay, there are feveral of the domeftic fowls which are feldom feen to fly, and which are nothing the lefs beautiful on that account; yet birds are fo extremely different in their form from the beaft and human kinds, that you cannot, on the principle of fitness, allow them any thing agreeable, but in confideration of their parts being defigned for quite other purposes. I never in my life chanced to fee a peacock fly; and yet before, very long before I confidered any aptitude in his form for the aerial life, I was ftruck with the extreme beauty which raises that bird above many of the best flying fowls in the world; though, for any thing I faw, his way of living was much like that of the fwine, which fed in the farm-yard along with him. The fame may be faid of cocks, hens, and the like; they are of the flying kind in figure; in their manner of moving not very different from men and beafts. To leave these foreign examples; if beauty in our own fpecies was annexed to ufe, men would be much more love ly ly than women; and ftrength and agility would be confidered as the only beauties. But to call ftrength by the name of beauty, to have but one denomination for the qualities of a Venus and Hercules, fo totally different in almost all refpects, is furely a strange confufion of ideas, or abufe of words. The caufe of this confufion, I imagine, proceeds from our frequently perceiving the parts of the human and other animal bodies to be at once very beautiful, and very well adapted to their purposes; and we are deceived by a fophifm, which makes us take that for a caufe which is only a concomitant: this is the fophifm of the fly; who imagined he raised a great dust, because he ftood upon the chariot that really raised it. The ftomach, the lungs, the liver, as well as other parts, are incomparably well adapted to their purpofes; yet they are far from having any beauty. Again, many things are very beautiful, in which it is impoffible to discern any idea of ufe. And I appeal to the first and moft natural feelings of mankind, whether, on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fashioned mouth, or a well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for feeing, eating, or running, ever prefent themselves. What idea of ufe is it that flowers excite, the most beautiful part of the vegetable world? It is true, that the infinitely wife and good Creator has, of his bounty, frequently joined beauty to those things which he has made ufeful to us; but this does not prove that an idea of use and beauty are the fame thing, or that they are any way dependent on each other. SECT. : |