and has a beauty of its own, diftinct from that of every other fpecies. It is upon this account that a learned Jefuit, father Buffier, has determined that the beauty of every object confifts in that form and colour, which is most ufual among things of that particular fort to which it belongs. Thus, in the human form, the beauty of each feature lies in a certain middle equally removed from a variety of other forms that are ugly. A beautiful nose, for example, is one that is neither very long, nor very short, neither very streight, nor very crooked, but a fort of middle among all these extremes, and lefs different from any one of them, than all of them are from one another. It is the form which nature feems to have aimed at in them all, which, however, the deviates from in a great variety of ways, and very feldom hits exactly; but to which all thofe deviations ftill bear a very strong refemblance. When a number of drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all mifs it in fome refpects, yet they will all resemble it more than they refemble one another; the general character of the pattern will run through them all; the most fingular and odd will be those which are moft wide of it; and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate delineations will bear a greater refemblance to the most careless, than the careless ones will bear to one another. In the fame manner, in each fpecies of creatures, what is most beautiful bears the strongest characters of the general fabric of the fpecies, and has the strongest

I

strongest resemblance to the greater part of the individuals with which it is claffed. Monfters, on the contrary, or what is perfectly deformed, are always most fingular and odd, and have the leaft refemblance to the generality of that species to which they belong. And thus the beauty of each fpecies, though in one fense the rarest of all things, because few individuals hit this middle form exactly, yet in another, is the most common, because all the deviations from it resemble it more than they refemble one another. The most customary form, therefore, is in each fpecies of things, according to him, the most beautiful. And hence it is that a certain practice and experience in contemplating each species of objects is requifite, before we can judge of its beauty, or know wherein the middle and most usual form confifts. The niceft judgment concerning the beauty of the human fpecies, will not help us to judge of that of flowers, or horses, or any other fpecies of things. It is for the fame reafon that in different climates and where different customs and ways of living take place, as the generality of any species receives a different conformation from those circumstances, fo different ideas of its beauty prevail. The beauty of a Moorish is not exactly the fame with that of an English horse. What different ideas are formed in different nations concerning the beauty of the human shape and countenance? A fair complexion is a fhocking deformity upon the coaft of Guinea. Thick lips and a flat nose are a beauty. In

fome

fome nations long ears that hang down upon the shoulders are the objects of univerfal admiration. In China if a lady's foot is fo large as to be fit to walk upon, fhe is regarded as a monster of uglinefs. Some of the favage nations in North-America tie four boards round the heads of their children, and thus fqueeze them, while the bones are tender and griftly, into a form that is almoft perfectly fquare. Europeans are aftonished at the abfurd barbarity of this practice, to which fome miffionaries have imputed the fingular stupidity of those nations among whom it prevails. But when they condemn those favages, they do not reflect that the ladies in Europe had, till within these very few years, been endeavouring, for near a century paft, to squeeze the beautiful roundness of their natural shape into a fquare form of the fame kind. And that notwithstanding the many diftortions and difeases which this practice was known to occafion, cuftom had rendered it agreeable among fome of the moft civilized nations, which, perhaps, the world ever beheld.

Such is the fyftem of this learned and ingenious father, concerning the nature of beauty; of which the whole charm, according to him, would thus feem to arife from its falling in with the habits which custom had impreffed upon the imagination, with regard to things of each particular kind. I cannot, however, be induced to believe that our sense even of external beauty is founded altogether on custom. The utility of any form, its fitness

for

Part V. for the useful purposes for which it was intended, evidently recommends it, and renders it agreeable to us independent of custom. Certain colours are more agreeable than others, and give more delight to the eye the first time it ever beholds them. A fmooth furface is more agreeable than a rough one. Variety is more pleafing than a tedious undiverfified uniformity. Connected variety, in which each new appearance feems to be introduced by what went before it, and in which all the adjoining parts feem to have some natural relation to one another, is more agreeable than a disjointed and disorderly affemblage of unconnected objects. But though I cannot admit that cuftom is the fole principle of beauty, yet I can fo far allow the truth of this ingenious. fyftem as to grant, that there is scarce any one external form fo beautiful as to please, if quite contrary to cuftom and unlike whatever we have been used to in that particular fpecies of things or fo deformed as not to be agreeable, if custom uniformly supports it, and habituates us to see it in every fingle individual of the kind.

CHAP.

Of the influence of custom and fashion upɔn moral. fentiments.

S

INCE our fentiments concerning beauty of every kind, are so much influenced by cuftom and fashion, it cannot be expected, that thofe, concerning the beauty of conduct, should be entirely exempted from the dominion, of those principles. Their influence here, however, feems to be much less than it is every where elfe. There is, perhaps, no form of external objects, how abfurd and fantaftical foever, to which cuftom will not reconcile us, or which fashion will not render even agreeable. But the characters and conduct of a Nero, or a Claudius, are what no custom will ever reconcile us to, what no fafhion will ever render agreeable; but the one will always be the object of dread and hatred; the other of fcorn and derifion. The principles of the imagination, upon which our sense of beauty depends, are of a very nice and de-. licate nature, and may eafily be altered by habit and education: but the fentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation, are founded on the strongest and most vigorous paffions of human nature; and though they may be somewhat warpt, cannot be entirely per

verted.

But