On the other hand, the generation of mankind is
a great purpose, and it is requisite that men should be animated to the
pursuit of it by some great incentive. It is therefore attended with a
very high pleasure; but as it is by no means designed to be our constant
business, it is not fit that the absence of this pleasure should be
attended with any considerable pain. The difference between men and
brutes, in this point, seems to be remarkable. Men are at all times
pretty equally disposed to the pleasures of love, because they are to be
guided by reason in the time and manner of indulging them. Had any great
pain arisen from the want of this satisfaction, reason, I am afraid,
would find great difficulties in the performance of its office. But
brutes that obey laws, in the execution of which their own reason has
but little share, have their stated seasons; at such times it is not
improbable that the sensation from the want is very troublesome, because
the end must be then answered, or be missed in many, perhaps forever; as
the inclination returns only with its season.

SECTION X.

OF BEAUTY.

The passion which belongs to generation, merely as such, is lust only.
This is evident in brutes, whose passions are more unmixed, and which
pursue their purposes more directly than ours. The only distinction they
observe with regard to their mates, is that of sex. It is true, that
they stick severally to their own species in preference to all others.
But this preference, I imagine, does not arise from any sense of beauty
which they find in their species, as Mr. Addison supposes, but from a
law of some other kind, to which they are subject; and this we may
fairly conclude, from their apparent want of choice amongst those
objects to which the barriers of their species have confined them. But
man, who is a creature adapted to a greater variety and intricacy of
relation, connects with the general passion the idea of some _social_
qualities, which direct and heighten the appetite which he has in common
with all other animals; and as he is not designed like them to live at
large, it is fit that he should have some thing to create a preference,
and fix his choice; and this in general should be some sensible quality;
as no other can so quickly, so powerfully, or so surely produce its
effect. The object therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love,
is the _beauty_ of the _sex_. Men are carried to the sex in general, as
it is the