Joseph Addison—Oxford scholar, poet, playwright, essayist, and politician—figures in the history of philosophy chiefly on the strength of his Essay on the Pleasures of the Imagination, published in 1712 as numbers 411 through 421 of his and Richard Steele's journal The Spectator.

Addison defines "pleasures of the imagination" as "such [pleasures] as arise from visible objects" (no. 411). He calls "primary" those derived from things present to vision, "secondary" those derived from things merely called to mind. There are three qualities of objects from which the primary pleasures may arise: greatness, novelty, and beauty. Greatness is an extensiveness that throws the viewer into "a pleasing astonishment," as in, for example, the sight of a mountain range. Novelty includes what is new or unfamiliar to the viewer, as a fresh meadow in spring may be, as well as what continually changes its appearance, for example, a waterfall...