love, or fome paffion fimilar to it. I confine this definition to the merely fenfible qualities of things, for the fake of preferving the utmoft fimplicity in a fubject which must always diftract us, whenever we take in those various caufes of fympathy which attach us to any perfons or things from fecondary confiderations, and not from the direct force which they have merely on being viewed. I likewise distinguish love, by which I mean that fatisfaction which arifes to the mind upon contemplating any thing beautiful, of whatsoever nature it may be, from defire or luft; which is an energy of the mind, that hurries us on to the poffeffion of certain objects, that do not affect us as they are beautiful, but by means altogether different. We shall have a ftrong defire for a woman of no remarkable beauty; whilst the greatest beauty in men, or in other animals, though it caufes love, yet excites nothing at all of defire. Which fhews that beauty, and the paffion caufed by beauty, which I call love, is different from defire, though defire may fometimes operate along with it; but it is to this latter that we must attribute thofe violent and tempeftuous paffions, and the confequerit emotions of the body which attend what is called love in fome of its ordinary acceptations, and not to the effects of beauty merely as it is fuch.

SECT.

SECT. II.

PROPORTION NOT THE "CAUSE OF BEAUTY IN VEGETABLES.

BEAUTY hath ufually been faid to confift in certain proportions of parts. On confidering the matter, I have great reafon to doubt, whether beauty be at all an idea belonging to proportion. Proportion relates almoft wholly to convenience, as every idea of order feems to do; and it must therefore be confidered as a creature of the understanding, rather than a primary cause acting on the senses and imagination. It is not by the force of long attention and inquiry that we find any object to be beautiful; beauty demands no affiftance from our reasoning; even the will is unconcerned; the appearance of beauty as effectually causes fome degree of love in us, as the application of ice or fire produces the ideas of heat or cold. To gain fomething like a fatisfactory conclufion in this point, it were well to examine, what proportion is; fince feveral who make use of that word, do not always feem to understand very clearly the force of the term, nor to have very dif tinct ideas concerning the thing itself. tion is the measure of relative quantity. quantity is divifible, it is evident that tinct part into which any quantity is divided, must

Propor

Since all

every dif

bear

bear fome relation to the other parts, or to the whole. These relations give an origin to the idea of proportion. They are discovered by menfuration, and they are the objects of mathematical inquiry. But whether any part of any determinate quantity be a fourth, or a fifth, or a fixth, or a moiety of the whole; or whether it be of equal length with any other part, or double its length, or but one half, is a matter merely indifferent to the mind; it ftands neuter in the queftion: and it is from this abfolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive fome of their moft confiderable advantages; because there is nothing to intereft the imagination; because the judgment fits free and unbiassed to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity is alike to the understanding, because the fame truths refult to it from all; from greater, from leffer, from equality and inequality. But furely beauty is no idea belonging to menfuration; nor has it any thing to do with calculation and geometry. If it had, we might then point out fome certain measures which we could demonftrate to be beautiful, either as fimply confidered, or as related to others; and we could call in those natural objects, for whose beauty we have no voucher but the fenfe, to this happy standard, and confirm the voice of our paffions by the determination of our reason. But fince we have

not

not this help, let us fee whether proportion can in any fenfe be confidered as the cause of beauty, as hath been fo generally, and by fome fo confidently affirmed. If proportion be one of the conflituents of beauty, it must derive that power either from fome natural properties inherent in certain meafures, which operate mechanically; from the operation of custom; or from the fitness which fome measures have to anfwer fome particular ends of conveniency. Our bufinefs therefore is to inquire, whether the parts of thofe objects, which are found beautiful in the vegetable or animal kingdoms, are conftantly fo formed according to fuch certain meafures, as may ferve to fatisfy us that their beauty refults from those measures on the principle of a natural mechanical caufe; or from cuftom; or, in fine, from their fitnefs for any determinate purposes. I intend to examine this point under each of thefe heads in their order. But before I proceed further, I hope it will not be thought amifs, if I lay down the rules which governed me in this inquiry, and which have mifled me in it, if I have gone aftray. 1. If two bodies produce the fame or a fimilar effect on the mind, and on examination they are found to agree in fome of their properties, and to differ in others; the common effect is to be attributed to the properties in which they agree, and not to those in which they differ. 2. Not to account for the ef fect

fect of a natural object from the effect of an artificial object. 3. Not to account for the effect of any natural object from a conclufion of our reafon concerning its uses, if a natural cause may be affigned. 4. Not to admit any determinate quantity, or any relation of quantity, as the cause of a certain effect, if the effect is produced by different or oppofite meafures and relations; or if these measures and relations may exift, and yet the effect may not be produced. These are the rules which I have chiefly followed, whilft I examined into the power of proportion confidered as a natural caufe; and thefe, if he thinks them juft, I requeft the reader to carry with him throughout the following difcuffion; whilft we inquire in the firft place, in what things we find this quality of beauty; next, to see whether in these we can find any aflignable proportions, in such a manner as ought to convince us that our idea of beauty refults from them. We fhall confider this pleafing power, as it appears in vegetables, in the inferiour animals, and in man. Turning our eyes to the vegetable creation, we find nothing there fo beautiful as flowers; but flowers are almoft of every fort of fhape, and of every fort of difpofition; they are turned and fashioned into an infinite variety of forms; and from thefe forms botanifts have given them their names, which are almost as various. What proportion do we discover between the stalks and the