ant property, the affection
produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other
properties or qualities of the object be of the same nature, and tending
to the same design as the principal.

"If black and white blend, soften, and unite
A thousand ways, are there no black and white?"

If the qualities of the sublime and beautiful are sometimes found
united, does this prove that they are the same; does it prove that they
are any way allied; does it prove even that they are not opposite and
contradictory? Black and white may soften, may blend; but they are not
therefore the same. Nor, when they are so softened and blended with each
other, or with different colors, is the power of black as black, or of
white as white, so strong as when each stands uniform and distinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Part IV. sect. 20.

[25] Part IV. sect. 23.

[26] Part IV. sect. 25.

[27] L'Allegro.

[28]

"I ne'er am merry, when I hear sweet music."

SHAKESPEARE.

PART IV.

SECTION I.

OF THE EFFICIENT CAUSE OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL.

When I say, I intend to inquire into the efficient cause of sublimity
and beauty, I would not be understood to say, that I can come to the
ultimate cause. I do not pretend that I shall ever be able to explain
why certain affections of the body produce such a distinct emotion of
mind, and no other; or why the body is at all affected by the mind, or
the mind by the body. A little thought will show this to be impossible.
But I conceive, if we can discover what affections of the mind produce
certain emotions of the body; and what distinct feelings and qualities
of body shall produce certain determinate passions in the mind, and no
others, I fancy a great deal will be done; something not unuseful
towards a distinct knowledge of our passions, so far at least as we have
them at present under our consideration. This is all, I believe, we can
do. If we could advance a step farther, difficulties would still remain,
as we should be still equally distant from the first cause. When Newton
first discovered the property of attraction, and settled its laws, he
found it served very well to explain several of the most remarkable
phenomena in nature; but yet, with reference to the general system of
things, he could consider attraction but as an effect, whose cause at
that time he did not attempt to trace. But when he afterwards began to