SECTION XI.

HOW FAR THE IDEA OF BEAUTY MAY BE APPLIED TO VIRTUE.

From what has been said in the foregoing section, we may easily see how far the application of beauty to virtue may be made with propriety.  The general application of this quality to virtue has a strong tendency to confound our ideas of things, and it has given rise to an infinite deal of whimsical theory; as the affixing the name of beauty to proportion, congruity, and perfection, as well as to qualities of things yet more remote from our natural ideas of it, and from one another, has tended to confound our ideas of beauty, and left us no standard or rule to judge by, that was not even more uncertain and fallacious than our own fancies.  This loose and inaccurate manner of speaking has therefore misled us both in the theory of taste and of morals; and induced us to remove the science of our duties from their proper basis (our reason, our relations, and our necessities), to rest it upon, foundations altogether visionary and unsubstantial.

SECTION XII.

THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY.

Having endeavored to show what beauty is not, it remains that we should examine, at least with equal attention, in what it really consists.  Beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon some positive qualities.  And since it is no creature of our reason, since it strikes us without any reference to use, and even where no use at all can be discerned, since the order and method of nature is generally very different from our measures and proportions, we must conclude that beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses.  We ought, therefore, to consider attentively in what manner those sensible qualities are disposed, in such things as by experience we find beautiful, or which excite in us the passion of love, or some correspondent affection.

SECTION XIII.

BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS SMALL.

The most obvious point that presents itself to us in examining any object is its extent or quantity.  And what degree of extent prevails in bodies that are held beautiful, may be gathered from the usual manner of expression concerning it.  I am told that, in most languages, the objects of love are spoken of under diminutive epithets.  It is so in all the languages of which I have any knowledge.  In Greek the [Greek:  ion] and other diminutive terms are almost always the terms of affection and tenderness.  These diminutives were commonly added by the Greeks to the names of persons with whom they conversed on terms of friendship and familiarity.  Though the Romans were a people of less quick and delicate feelings, yet they naturally slid into the lessening termination upon the same occasions.  Anciently, in the English language, the diminishing ling