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"felf with the name of rational."" To oppose "the torrent of fcholaftic religion by fuch feeble "maxims as thefe, that it is impoffible for the fame "thing to be and not to be; that the whole is greater than a part; that two and three make five; "is pretending to ftop the ocean with a bulrufh." But what is the inference to which we are led by these observations? Is it, (to use the words of this ingenious writer,)" that the whole is a riddle, an "ænigma, an inexplicable mystery; and that doubt, " uncertainty, and suspense, appear the only refult of our most accurate fcrutiny concerning this fubject?" Or fhould not rather the melancholy histories which he has exhibited of the follies and caprices of superftition, direct our attention to thofe facred and inde lible characters on the human mind, which all these perverfions of reafon are unable to obliterate; like that image of himself, which Phidias wifhed to perpetuate, by ftamping it fo deeply on the buckler of his Minerva; "ut nemo delere poffet aut divellere, "qui totam ftatuam non imminueret *." In truth, the more ftriking the contradictions, and the more ludicrous the ceremonies to which the pride of human reafon has thus been reconciled; the ftronger is our evidence that religion has a foundation in the nature of man. When the greatest of modern philofophers declares, that he would rather believe all the fables "in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, "than that this univerfal frame is without mind; "t

* Select Difcourfes by JOHN SMITH, p. 119. Cambridge, 1673

Lord BACON, in his Eays.

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369 he has expreffed the fame feeling, which, in all ages and nations, has led good men, unaccuftom. ed to reafoning, to an implicit faith in the creed of their infancy;-a feeling which affords an evidence of the existence of the Deity, incomparably more striking, than if, unmixed with error and undebased by superstition, this most important of all principles had commanded the univerfal affent of mankind. Where are the other truths, in the whole circle of the fciences, which are so effential to human happiness, as to procure an easy access, not only for themselves, but for whatever opinions may happen to be blended with them? Where are the truths fo venerable and commanding, as to impart their own fublimity to every trifling memorial which recals them to our remembrance; to bestow folemnity and elevation on every mode of expreffion by which they are conveyed; and which, in whatever scene they have habitually occupied the thoughts, confecrate every object which it prefents to our fenfes, and the very ground we have been accustomed to tread? To attempt to weaken the authority of fuch impreffions, by a detail of the endless variety of forms, which they derive from cafual affociations, is furely an employment unsuitable to the dignity of philofophy. To the vulgar, it may be amufing, in this, as in other inftances, to indulge their wonder at what is new or uncommon; but to the philofopher it belongs to perceive, under all these various disguises, the workings of the fame common nature; and in the superstitions of Egypt, no less than in the lofty vifions of Plato, to recognize the existence of thofe moral ties which

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which unite the heart of man to the Author of his

being.

SECTION II.

Influence of the Affociation of Ideas on our Judgments in Matters of Tafte.

THE very general obfervations which I am to make in this Section, do not prefuppofe any particular theory concerning the nature of Tafte. It is fufficient for my purpose to remark, that Tafte is not a fimple and original faculty, but a power gradually formed by experience and obfervation. It implies, indeed, as its ground-work, a certain degree of natural fenfibility; but it implies alfo the exercise of the judg. ment; and is the flow refult of an attentive examina. tion and comparison of the agreeable or difagreeable effects produced on the mind by external objects.

Such of my readers as are acquainted with "An "Effay on the Nature and Principles of Tafte," lately published by Mr. Alison, will not be furprised that I decline the difcuffion of a fubject which he has treated with fo much ingenuity and elegance.

The view which was formerly given of the process, by which the general laws of the material world are investigated, and which I endeavoured to illuftrate by the state of medicine among rude nations, is strictly applicable to the hiftory of Tafte. That certain ob jects are fitted to give pleasure, and others difgust, to the mind, we know from experience alone; and it is

impoffible for us, by any reafoning a priori, to explain, how the pleasure or the pain is produced. In the works of nature we find, in many instances, Beauty and Sublimity involved among circumftances, which are either indifferent, or which obftruct the general effect and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can feparate thofe circumftances from the reft, and afcertain with what particular qualities the pleasing effect is connected. Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies Nature, will copy her fervilely, that he may be certain of fecuring the pleafing effect; and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of fuperfluous or of difagreeable concomitants. Experience and obfervation alone can enable him to make this difcrimination to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultlefs than ever fell under the obfervation of his fenfes.

This analogy between the progrefs of Taste from rudeness to refinement; and the progrefs of phyfical knowledge from the fuperftitions of a favage tribe, to the investigation of the laws of nature, proceeds on the fuppofition, that, as in the material world there are general facts, beyond which philofophy is unable to proceed; fo, in the conftitution of man, there is an inexplicable adaptation of the mind to the objects with which his faculties are converfant; in confequence of which, these objects are fitted to produce agreeable or difagreeable emotions. In both cafes, reasoning may be employed with propriety to refer particular phenomena to general principles; but in Bb 2 both

both cases, we must at last arrive at principles of which no account can be given, but that such is the will of our Maker.

A great part, too, of the remarks which were made in the last Section on the origin of popular prejudices, may be applied to explain the influence of cafual affociations on Tafte; but these remarks do not fo completely exhaust the subject, as to fuperfede the neceffity of farther illuftration. In matters of Tafte, the effects which we confider, are produced on the Mind itself; and are accompanied either with pleasure or with pain. Hence the tendency to cafual affociation, is much stronger than it commonly is, with respect to phyfical events; and when fuch affociations are once formed, as they do not lead to any important inconvenience, fimilar to thofe which refult from physical mistakes, they are not fo likely to be corrected by mere experience, unaflifted by study. To this it is owing, that the influence of affociation on our judgments concerning beauty and deformity, is ftill more remarkable than on our fpeculative conclufions; a circumstance which has led fome philofophers to fuppofe, that affociation is fufficient to account for the origin of these notions; and that there is no fuch thing as a standard of Tafte, founded on the principles of the human conftitution. But this is undoubtedly pushing the theory a great deal too far. The affociation of ideas can never account for the origin of a new notion; or of a pleasure effentially different from all the others which we know. It may, indeed, enable us to conceive how a thing indifferent in itself, may become a fource of pleasure, by being