is because he is humbled, not fastidious, when he stops, it
is because he is surfeited, and not because he thinks nature has given
him unkindly food, or that he fears famine.[11] I have seen a man of
true taste pause for a quarter of an hour to look at the channellings
that recent rain had traced in a heap of cinders.

Sec. 14. And criminality.

And here is evident another reason of that duty which we owe respecting
impressions of sight, namely, to discipline ourselves to the enjoyment
of those which are eternal in their nature, not only because these are
the most acute, but because they are the most easily, constantly, and
unselfishly attainable. For had it been ordained by the Almighty that
the highest pleasures of sight should be those of most difficult
attainment, and that to arrive at them it should be necessary to
accumulate gilded palaces tower over tower, and pile artificial
mountains around insinuated lakes, there would have been a direct
contradiction between the unselfish duties and inherent desires of every
individual. But no such contradiction exists in the system of Divine
Providence, which, leaving it open to us, if we will, as creatures in
probation, to abuse this sense like every other, and pamper it with
selfish and thoughtless vanities as we pamper the palate with deadly
meats, until the appetite of tasteful cruelty is lost in its sickened
satiety, incapable of pleasure unless, Caligula like, it concentrate the
labor of a million of lives into the sensation of an hour, leaves it
also open to us, by humble and loving ways, to make ourselves
susceptible of deep delight from the meanest objects of creation, and of
a delight which shall not separate us from our fellows, nor require the
sacrifice of any duty or occupation, but which shall bind us closer to
men and to God, and be with us always, harmonized with every action,
consistent with every claim, unchanging and eternal.

Sec. 15. How certain conclusions respecting beauty are by reason
demonstrable.

Seeing then that these qualities of material objects which are
calculated to give us this universal pleasure, are demonstrably constant
in their address to human nature, they must belong in some measure to
whatever has been esteemed beautiful throughout successive ages of the
world (and they are also by their definition common to all the works of
God). Therefore it is evident that it must be possible to reason them
out, as well as to feel