, that the power we have
over sensations and preferences depends mainly on the exercise of
attention through certain prolonged periods, and that by this exercise,
we arrive at ultimate, constant, and common sources of agreeableness,
casting off those which are external, accidental, and individual.

Sec. 8. Especially with respect to ideas of beauty.

That then which is required in order to the attainment of accurate
conclusions respecting the essence of the beautiful, is nothing more
than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it,
by which those which are shallow, false, or peculiar to times and
temperaments, may be distinguished from those that are eternal. And this
dwelling upon, and fond contemplation of them, (the anschauung of the
Germans,) is perhaps as much as was meant by the Greek theoria; and it
is indeed a very noble exercise of the souls of men, and one by which
they are peculiarly distinguished from the anima of lower creatures,
which cannot, I think, be proved to have any capacity of contemplation
at all, but only a restless vividness of perception and conception, the
"fancy" of Hooker (Eccl. Pol. Book i. Chap. vi. 2). And yet this
dwelling upon them comes not up to that which I wish to express by the
word theoria, unless it be accompanied by full perception of their being
a gift from and manifestation of God, and by all those other nobler
emotions before described, since not until so felt is their essential
nature comprehended.

Sec. 9. Errors induced by the power of habit.

But two very important points are to be observed respecting the
direction and discipline of the attention in the early stages of
judgment. The first, that, for many beneficent purposes, the nature of
man has been made reconcilable by custom to many things naturally
painful to it, and even improper for it, and that therefore, though by
continued experience, united with thought, we may discover that which is
best of several, yet if we submit ourselves to authority or fashion, and
close our eyes, we may be by custom made to tolerate, and even to love
and long for, that which is naturally painful and pernicious to us,
whence arise incalculable embarrassments on the subject of art.

Sec. 10. The necessity of submission in early stages of judgment.

The second, that, in order to the discovery of that which is best of two
things, it is necessary that both should be equally submitted to the
attention; and t