pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted by the faults which are discovered in the most finished compositions. : Before I leave this fubject, I cannot help taking notice of an opinion which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate faculty of the mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination; a species of instinct, by which we are struck naturally, and at the first glance, without any previous reasoning, 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 reason is little confulted; but where difpofition, where decorum, where congruity are concerned, in short, 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 sudden, 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 spot. 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 exercise. 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 rasiness, 14 1 1 rasiness, and not to any hidden irradiation that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds. But they who have cultivated that species of knowledge 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 spell, but at last 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 sphere of mere naked reason, but must have obferved the extreme readiness with which the whole process of the argument is carried on, the grounds difcovered, the objections raised and anfwered, and the conclufions drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether as great as the taste can be supposed to work with; and yet where nothing but plain reason either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply principles for every different appearance, is ufeless, and unphilosophical too in a high degree. This matter might be pursued much farther; but it is not the extent of the subject which must prescribe our bounds, for what subject does not branch out to infinity? it is the nature of our par. ticular scheme, and the single point of view in which we confider it, which ought to put a stop to our researches. A PHILO A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. : T PART I. SECTION I. NOVELTY. HE first and the simplest emotion which we difcover in the human mind, is Curiosity. By curiofity I mean whatever desire 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 stage of life, the charm of novelty to recommend it. But as those things which engage us 4 us merely by their novelty, cannot attach us for any length of time, curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections: it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very eafily satisfied; and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety. Curiofity, from its nature, is a very active principle; it quickly runs over the greatest part of its objects, and foon exhausts the variety which is commonly to be met with in nature; the fame things make frequent returns, and they return with less and less of any agreeable effect. In short, 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 sensations than those 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 passions befideş curiosity in ourselves. These powers and passions shall be confidered in their place. But whatever these powers are, or upon what principle foever they affect the mind, it is absolutely necessary that they should not be exerted in those things which a daily vulgar use have brought into a stale unaffecting familiarity. Some degree of novelty muft be one of the materials in every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself more or lefs with all our passions. : SECT SECT. II. PAIN AND PLEASURE. IT seems 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 some measure new, should be capable of exciting pain or pleasure from other causes. Pain and pleasure are simple 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 necessarily from the removal of fome pleasure; as they think pleasure does from the ceasing or diminution of some 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 necessarily dependent on each other for their existence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference. When I am carried from this state into a state of actual pleasure, it does not appear necessary that I should pass through the medium of any fort of pain. If in such a state of indifference, or ease, or tranquillity, or call it what you please, you were to be suddenly entertained / |