Of the beauty which the appearance of UTILITY bestows upon all the productions of art, and of the extensive influence of this fpecies of Beauty.

TH

HAT utility is one of the principal fources of beauty has been obferved by every body, who has confidered with

THE

THEORY

OF

MORAL SENTIMENTS.

PART IV.

Of the EFFECT of UTILITY upon the Sentiment of Approbation.

Confifting of One SECTION.

.CHA P. I.

Of the beauty which the appearance of UTILITY bestows upon all the productions of art, and of the extenfive influence of this fpecies of Beauty.

TH

ས

HAT utility is one of the principal fources of beauty has been obferved by every body, who has confidered with

any

attention what conftitutes the nature of beauty. The conveniency of a house gives pleasure to the spectator as well as its regularity, and he is as much hurt when he obferves the contrary defect, as when he fees the correspondent windows of different forms, or the door not placed exactly in the middle of the building. That the fitness of any system or machine to produce the end for which it was intended, bestows a certain propriety and beauty upon the whole, and renders the very thought and contemplation of it agreeable, is so very obvious that nobody has overlooked it.

The caufe too, why utility pleases, has of late been affigned by an ingenious and agreeable philofopher, who joins the greateft depth of thought to the greatest elegance of expreffion, and poffeffes the fingular and happy talent of treating the abftrufeft fubjects not only with the most perfect perfpicuity, but with the most lively eloquence. The utility of any object, according to him, pleafes the mafter by perpetually fuggesting to him the pleafure or conveniency which

it is fitted to promote. Every time he looks at it, he is put in mind of this pleafure; and the object in this manner becomes a fource of perpetual fatisfaction and; enjoyment. The spectator enters by fympathy into the fentiments of the mafter, and neceffarily views the object under the fame agreeable afpect. When we vifit the palaces of the great, we cannot help conceiving the fatisfaction we should enjoy if we ourfelves were the mafters, and were poffeffed of fo much artful and ingentiously contrived accommodation. A fimilar account is given why the appearance of inconveniency fhould render any object difagreeable both to the owner and to the fpectator.

But that this fitness, this happy contri-, vance of any production of art, fhould often be more valued, than the very end for which it was intended; and that the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any conveniency or pleafure, fhould frequently be more regarded, than that very conveniency or pleasure, in the attainment of