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V.

PART II.

CHA P. mankind are governed, may be traced to the influence of education and example. Amidft the infinite variety of forms, however, which our verfatile nature affumes, it cannot fail to strike an attentive obferver, that there are certain indelible features common to them all. In one fituation, we find good men attached to a republican form of government; in another, to a monarchy; but in all fituations, we find them devoted to the fervice of their country and of mankind, and disposed to regard, with reverence and love, the most abfurd and capricious inftitutions which cuftom has led them to connect with the order of fociety. The different appearances, therefore, which the political opinions and the political conduct of men exhibit, while they demonftrate to what a wonderful degree human nature be influenced by fituation and by early inftruction, evince the exiftence of fome common and original principles, which fit it for the political union, and illuftrate the uniform operation of thofe laws of affociation, to which, in all the ftages of society, it is equally subject.

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SIMILAR obfervations are applicable, and, indeed, in a ftill more striking degree, to the opinions of mankind on the important questions of religion and morality. The variety of fyftems which they have formed to themselves concerning these fubjects, has often excited the ridicule of the fceptic and the libertine; but if, on the one hand, this variety fhews, the folly of bigotry, and the reasonabless of mutual indulgence; the curiofity which has led men in every fituation to fuch fpeculations, and the influence which their conclufions, however abfurd, have had on their character and their happiness, prove, no less clearly,

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on the other, that there must be some principles from which they all derive their origin; and invite the philofopher to afcertain what are these original and immutable laws of the human mind.

"the religious principles
You will fcarcely be per-

"EXAMINE" (fays Mr. Hume) "which have prevailed in the world. "fuaded, that they are any thing but fick men's dreams; or,

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perhaps, will regard them more as the playfome whimsies of monkeys in human shape, than the serious, pofitive, dogma"tical affeverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the

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name of rational."" To oppofe the torrent of fcholaftic "religion by fuch feeble maxims as these, 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 pre"tending to stop the ocean with a bulrush." But what is the inference to which we are led by these observations? Is it, (to ufe the words of this ingenious writer,)" that the whole is a "riddle, an ænigma, an inexplicable mystery; and that doubt, "uncertainty, and fufpenfe, appear the only refult of our most

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accurate fcrutiny concerning this fubject?" Or fhould not rather the melancholy hiftories which he has exhibited of the foilies and caprices of fuperftition, direct our attention to thofe facred and indelible characters on the human mind, which all these perverfions of reafon are unable to obliterate; like that image of himfelf, which Phidias wished to perpetuate, by ftamping it so 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

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

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V.

PART II.

CHAP. 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 Al66 coran, than that this universal frame is without mind * he has expreffed the same feeling, which, in all ages and nations, has led good men, unaccustomed to reasoning, to an implicit faith in the creed of their infancy ;—a feeling which affords an evidence of the existence of the Deity, incomparably more ftriking, than if, unmixed with error and undebased by superftition, 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 fo effential to human happiness, as to procure an eafy accefs, 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 such impreffions, by a detail of the endless variety of forms, which they derive from cafual affociations, is furely an employment unfuitable to the dignity of philofophy. To

* Lord BACON, in his Effays.

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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 same common nature; and in the superstitions of Egypt, no less than in the lofty vifions of Plato, to recognize the exiftence of those moral ties which unite the heart of man to the Author of his being.

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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 concern→ ing the nature of Tafte. It is fufficient for my purpose to remark, that Taste 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 judgment; and is the flow result of an attentive examination and comparison of the agreeable or difagreeable effects produced on the mind by external objects.

SUCH of my readers as are acquainted with "An Essay on "the Nature and Principles of Tafte," lately published by Mr.

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V.

CHAP. Alifon, will not be furprised that I decline the difcuffion of a PART II. 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 history of Taste. That certain objects are fitted to give pleasure, and others difguft, to the mind, we know from experience alone; and it is impoffible for us, by any reasoning a priori, to explain, how the pleasure or the pain is produced. In the works of nature we find, in many inftances, 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 separate thofe circumstances from the reft, and ascertain 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 securing the pleafing effect; and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of fuperfluous or of disagreeable 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 observation of his fenfes.

THIS analogy between the progress of Taste from rudeness to refinement; and the progress of phyfical knowledge from the

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