utiful
productions of nature are seeds and roots; and of art, spades and
millstones.

Sec. 3. Of the false opinion that beauty results from custom. Compare Chap.
vi. Sec. 1.

Somewhat more rational grounds appear for the assertion that the sense
of the beautiful arises from familiarity with the object, though even
this could not long be maintained by a thinking person. For all that can
be alleged in defence of such a supposition is, that familiarity
deprives some objects which at first appeared ugly, of much of their
repulsiveness, whence it is as rational to conclude that familiarity is
the cause of beauty, as it would be to argue that because it is possible
to acquire a taste for olives, therefore custom is the cause of
lusciousness in grapes. Nevertheless, there are some phenomena resulting
from the tendency of our nature to be influenced by habit of which it
may be well to observe the limits.

Sec. 4. The twofold operation of custom. It deadens sensation, but confirms
affection.

Sec. 5. But never either creates or destroys the essence of beauty.

Custom has a twofold operation: the one to deaden the frequency and
force of repeated impressions, the other to endear the familiar object
to the affections. Commonly, where the mind is vigorous, and the power
of sensation very perfect, it has rather the last operation than the
first; with meaner minds, the first takes place in the higher degree, so
that they are commonly characterized by a desire of excitement, and the
want of the loving, fixed, theoretic power. But both take place in some
degree with all men, so that as life advances, impressions of all kinds
become less rapturous owing to their repetition. It is however
beneficently ordained that repulsiveness shall be diminished by custom
in a far greater degree than the sensation of beauty, so that the
anatomist in a little time loses all sense of horror in the torn flesh,
and carous bone, while the sculptor ceases not to feel to the close of
his life, the deliciousness of every line of the outward frame. So then
as in that with which we are made familiar, the repulsiveness is
constantly diminishing, and such claims as it may be able to put forth
on the affections are daily becoming stronger, while in what is
submitted to us of new or strange, that which may be repulsive is felt
in its full force, while no hold is as yet laid on the affections, there
is a very strong preference induced in most