Proportion and uniformity never coincide: things perfectly fimilar are uniform; but proportion is never applied to them: the four fides and angles of a fquare: are equal and perfectly uniform; but we fay not that they are proportional. Thus, proportion always implies inequality or difference; but then it implies it to a certain degree only: the most agreeable proportion resembles a maximum in mathematics; a greater or less inequality or difference is lefs agreeable.

27. Order regards various particulars. First, in tracing or furveying objects, we are directed by a sense of order: we conceive it to be more orderly, that we should pafs from a principle to its acceffories and from a whole to its parts, than in the contrary direction. Next, with respect to the pofition of things, a fenfe of order directs us to place together things intimately connected. Thirdly, in placing things that have no natural connection, that order appears the most perfect, where the particulars are made to bear the ftrongest relation to each other that pofition can give them. Thus parallelism is the ftrongest relation

that

that pofition can bestow upon ftraight lines: If they be fo placed as by production to interfect each other, the relation is lefs per fect. A large body in the middle and two equal bodies of less fize, one on each side, is an order that produces the strongest relation the bodies are fufceptible of by pofition. The relation betwixt the two equal bodies would be ftronger by juxtapofition; but they would not both have the fame relation to the third.

28. The beauty or agreeableness of an object, as it enters into the original percep tion, enters also into the fecondary perception or idea. An idea of imagination is alfo agreeable; though in a lower degree than an idea of memory, where the objects are of the fame kind. But this defect in the ideas of imagination is abundantly fupply'd by their greatnefs and variety. For the i magination acting without control, can fabricate ideas of finer visible objects, of more noble and heroic actions, of greater wic kedness, of more furprising events, than ever in fact exifted. And by communicating thefe ideas in words, painting, fculpture, 3 D

VOL. III.

&c. the influence of the imagination is not lefs extenfive than great otse aty 29. In the nature of every man, there is fomewhat original, that ferves to distinguish him from others, that tends to form a character, and, with the concurrence of external accidents, to make him meek or fiery, candid or deceitful, refolute or timorous, chearful or morofe. This original bent is termed difpofition. Which must be diftinguished from a principle: no original bent obtains the latter appellation, but what belongs to the whole fpecies. A principle makes part of the common nature of man: a difpofition makes part of the nature of this or that man. A propenfity comprehends both; for it fignifies indifferently either a principle or a difpofition.

30. Affection, fignifying a fettled bent of mind toward a particular being or thing, occupies a middle place betwixt propenfity on the one hand, and paffion on the other. A propenfity being original, muft exift before any opportunity be offered to exert it: affection can never be original; because, having a fpecial relation to a particular object,

it cannot exift till the object be prefented." Again, paffion depends on the prefence of the object, in idea at leaft, if not in reality:" when the idea vanishes, the paffion vanishes with it. Affection, on the contrary, once settled on a person, is a lafting connection; and, like other connections, fubfifts even when we do not think of it. A familiar example will clear the whole. There may be in the mind a propenfity to gratitude,, which, through want of an object, happens never to be exerted, and which therefore is never discovered even by the person who has it. Another who has the fame propenfity, meets with a kindly office that makes him grateful to his benefactor: an intimate connection is formed betwixt them, termed affection; which, like other connections, has a permanent existence, though not always in view. The affection, for the most part, lies dormant, till an opportunity offer of exerting it in this circumftance, it is converted into the paffion of gratitude; and the opportunity is greedily feized for testifying gratitude in the moft complete manner. 31. Averfion, I think, must be opposed 3 D 2

to

to affection, and not to defire, as it commonly is. We have an affection for one perfon; we have an averfion to another: the former difpofes us to do good to its object, the lat ter to do ill. ཟ་སྒྲ་སྐྱ

32. What is a fentiment? It is not a perception; for a perception fignifies our consciousness of external objects. It is not conscioufnefs of an internal action; fuch as thinking, fufpending thought, inclining, refolving, willing, &c. Neither is it a conception of relation amongst objects or of their differences: a conception of this kind, is termed opinion. The term fentiment is appropriated to thofe thoughts that are fuggefted by a paffion or emotion.

33. Attention is that state of mind which prepares a man to receive impreffions. According to the degree of attention, objects make a ftronger or weaker impreffion *, In

Bacon, in his natural history, makes the following ob fervations. Sounds are meliorated by the intenfion of the fenfe, where the common fenfe is collected most to the par ticular fenfe of hearing, and the fight fufpended. Therefore founds are fweeter, as well as greater, in the night than in the day and I fuppofe they are tweeter to blind men than to others:

and