“As the fancy delights in every thing that is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still more pleased the more it finds of these perfections in the same object, so it is capable of receiving a new satisfaction by the assistance of another sense.  Thus any continued sound, as the music of birds, or a fall of waters, awakens every moment the mind of the beholder, and makes him more attentive to the several beauties of the place, that lie before him.  Thus if there arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, they heighten the pleasure of the imagination, and make even the colours and verdure of the landschape appear more agreeable; for the ideas of both senses recommend each other, and are pleasanter together than when they enter the mind separately:  As the different colours of a picture, when they are well disposed, set off one another, and receive an additional beauty from the advantage of the situation.” [Addison, spectator 412, final paragraph.]

In this phaenomenon we may remark the association both of impressions and ideas, as well as the mutual assistance they lend each other.

SECT.  V OF THE INFLUENCE OF THESE RELATIONS ON PRIDE AND HUMILITY

These principles being established on unquestionable experience, I begin to consider how we shall apply them, by revolving over all the causes of pride and humility, whether these causes be regarded, as the qualities, that operate, or as the subjects, on which the qualities are placed.  In examining these qualities I immediately find many of them to concur in producing the sensation of pain and pleasure, independent of those affections, which I here endeavour to explain.  Thus the beauty of our person, of itself, and by its very appearance, gives pleasure, as well as pride; and its deformity, pain as well as humility.  A magnificent feast delights us, and a sordid one displeases.  What I discover to be true in some instances, I suppose to be so in all; and take it for granted at present, without any farther proof, that every cause of pride, by its peculiar qualities, produces a separate pleasure, and of humility a separate uneasiness.

Again, in considering the subjects, to which these qualities adhere, I make a new supposition, which also appears probable from many obvious instances, viz, that these subjects are either parts of ourselves, or something nearly related to us.  Thus the good and bad qualities of our actions and manners constitute virtue and vice, and determine our personal character, than which nothing operates more strongly on these passions.  In like manner, it is the beauty or deformity of our person, houses, equipage, or furniture, by which we are rendered either vain or humble.  The same qualities, when transfered to subjects, which bear us no relation, influence not in the smallest degree either of these affections.