Languages & literature > Abridgement of lectures on rhetoric

BEAUTY and OTHEX PLEASURES OT TASTE.
Beauty next to Sublimity affords the higheft
pleafure to the imagination. The emotion, which it rai£-
es, is eafily diftinguifhed from that of fublimity.) It is
of a calmer kind ; more gentle and foothing ; ^loes not
elevate the mind fo much, but produces a pleafmg fe-
renity.j? Sublimity excites a feeling, too violent to be
lading ; the pleafure, pi-oceeding from Beauty, admits
longer duration. It .extends alfo to a much greater
variety of obje&s, than fublimity ; to a variety indeed
fo great, that the fenfations, which beautiful objefls ex¬
cite, differ exceedingly, not in degree only, but alfo in
kind, from each other. Hence no word is ufed in a
more undetermined fignification, than Beauty. It is ap¬
plied to almoft every external object, which pleafes the
eye or the ear ; to many of the graces of writing ; to
feveral difpofitions of the mind ; nay, to fome objects
of abftradt fcience. We fpeak frequently of a beautiful
tree or flower ; a beautiful poem ; a beautiful charac¬
ter ; and a beautiful theorem in mathematics.
/'Colo%feems to afford tire fimplefl inftance of Beauty.l
Affociation of ideas, it is probable, has fome influence
on the pleafurc, which we receive from colors. Green,
for example, may appear more beautiful from being
connefted in our ideas with rural fcenes ana profpects ;
white with innocence ; blue with the ferenity of the fky.
Independently of affonations of this fcrt all, that y.-.'