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pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are difcovered in the moft finished compofitions.

Before I leave this fubject, I cannot help taking notice of an opinion which many perfons entertain, as if the tafte were a feparate faculty of the mind, and diftinct from the judgment and imagination; a fpecies of instinct, by which we are ftruck naturally, and at the first glance, without any previous reafoning, with the excellencies, or the defects of a compofition. So far as the imagination and the paffions are concerned, I believe it true, that the reafon is little confulted; but where difpofition, where decorum, where congruity are concerned, in fhort, wherever the best tafte differs from the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates and nothing elfe; and its operation is in reality far from being always fudden, or, when it is fudden, it is often far from being right. Men of the best taste by confideration come frequently to change these early and precipitate judgments, which the mind, from its aversion to neutrality and doubt loves to form on the fpot. It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercife. They who have not taken these methods, if their taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and their quickness is owing to their prefumption and rafhnefs,

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rashness, and not to any hidden irradiation that in a moment difpels all darknefs from their minds. But they who have cultivated that species of know ledge which makes the object of taste, by degrees and habitually attain not only a soundness, but a readiness of judgment, as men do by the fame methods on all other occafions. At first they are obliged to fpell, but at laft they read with ease and with celerity, but this celerity of its operation is no proof, that the taste is a distinct faculty. Nobody, I believe, has attended the course of a difcuffion, which turned upon matters within the fphere of mere naked reafon, but muft have obferved the extreme readiness with which the whole procefs of the argument is carried on, the grounds discovered, the objections raised and anfwered, and the conclufions drawn from premises, with a quicknefs altogether as great as the tafte can be fuppofed to work with; and yet where nothing but plain reafon either is or can be fufpected to operate. To multiply principles for every different appearance, is useless, and unphilosophical too in a high degree.

This matter might be purfued much farther; but it is not the extent of the subject which muft prescribe our bounds, for what fubject does not branch out to infinity? it is the nature of our par ticular scheme, and the fingle point of view in which we confider it, which ought to put a stop to our refearches.

A PHILO

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

INTO THE

ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS

OF THE

SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

THE

PART I

SECTION I.

NOVELTY.

HE firft and the fimpleft emotion which we discover in the human mind, is Curiosity. By curiofity I mean whatever defire we have for, or whatever pleasure we take in, novelty. We fee children perpetually running from place to place to hunt out something new: they catch with great eagerness, and with very little choice, at whatever comes before them; their attention is engaged by every thing, because every thing has, in that ftage of life, the charm of novelty to recommend it. But as thofe things which engage

us

us merely by their novelty, cannot attach us for any length of time, curiofity is the most fuperficial of all the affections: it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied; and it has always an appearance of giddinefs, reftleffness and anxiety. Curiofity, from its nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and foon exhaufts the variety which is commonly to be met with in nature; the fame things make frequent returns, and they return with lefs and lefs of any agreeable effect. In fhort, the occur rences of life, by the time we come to know it a little, would be incapable of affecting the mind with any other fenfations than thofe of loathing and weariness, if many things were not adapted to affect the mind by means of other powers befides novelty in them, and of other paffions befides curiofity in ourselves. These powers and paffions fhall be confidered in their place. But whatever thefe powers are, or upon what principle foever they affect the mind, it is abfolutely neceffary that they should not be exerted in those things which a daily vulgar ufe have brought into a ftale unaffecting familiarity. Some degree of novelty muft be one of the materials in every inftrument which works upon the mind; and curiofity blends itself more or lefs with all our paffions.

SECT.

SECT. II.

PAIN AND PLEASURE.

IT feems then neceffary towards moving the paffions of people advanced in life to any confiderable degree, that the objects designed for that purpose, befides their being in fome measure new, fhould be capable of exciting pain or pleasure from other caufes. Pain and pleasure are fimple ideas, incapable of definition. People are not liable to be mistaken in their feelings, but they are very frequently wrong in the names they give them, and in their reasonings about them. Many are of opinion, that pain arifes neceffarily from the removal of fome pleafure; as they think pleasure does from the ceafing or diminution of fome pain. For my part, I am rather inclined to imagine, that pain and pleasure, in their most simple and natural manner of affecting, are each of a positive nature, and by no means neceffarily dependent on each other for their exiftence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleafure, which I call a ftate of indifference. When I am carried from this state into a state of actual pleasure, it does not appear neceffary that I fhould pafs through the medium of any fort of pain. If in fuch a ftate of indifference, or eafe, or tranquillity, or call it what you please, you were to be fuddenly entertained

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