from that limit up to the ultimate point of sublimity, I call the region of intellectual pleasure, genius, or taste; and in its center I place grace, whose influence pervades, cheers, and nourishes, every part of it, an object which, in this ideal region, is similar in its situation and degree to that of common sense in the common or fundamental region.  Grace seems to partake of the perception both of beauty and of sublimity, as common sense partakes of nature and of art.  Grace is the characteristic object or general form of the ideal region, and its perception is the general limit of the powers of imagination or taste.  Few, very few, attain to the point of sublimity; the ne plus ultra of human conception! the alpha and omega.  The sentiment of sublimity sinks into the source of nature, and that of the source of nature mounts to the sentiment of sublimity, each point seeming to each the cause and the effect; the origin and the end!

[Footnote A:  I use that expression, because it is the peculiar motion of grace as well as of a flame.]

Having thus drawn the outline of my pyramidical mental system, I propose to expatiate a little on each point or stage throughout the great characteristic line of intellectual power.

The first point The exact center, nature, or the origin of our intellectual faculties, admits of no investigation, its idea, as I have observed before, loses itself in the sentiment of sublimity, and we see nothing; and therefore I pass on to an object which is perceptible, the common general character of humanity, exterior and inferior.  I have placed them on a line, because their ideas are so analogous, that they unite in one.

Section 1. Common Sense and common Form.

Perfection seems to be the ground-work both of common sense and of common form; and, what prevents each from being perfect, is the adventitious blemishes, the additions to, and the diminutions from, what is perfect, making the too little and the too large.  But, these defects being distributed in, small portions throughout the general common form and common mind, they constitute an object, whether visible or intellectual, between perfection and imperfection, namely, that of mediocrity, neither exciting admiration nor disgust.  And, as experience gives the general idea of the common and true appearance of the human form, as well to the rustic as to the most enlightened philosopher, so consequently does it enable him to see deformity, or what is an unusual appearance in that form.

But, though unusual defects seem to be evident to every eye, it is only to the man of taste and nice discernment that the same degree of unusual beauties are equally perceptible; which corresponds with my opinion, that the ground-work of humanity is perfection, and that its blemishes only tinge its pure white, not discolour it so much, but, when held at a distance, i.e. in abstract idea, it is still a white, like