fame fubject, has illuftrated the fame obfervation by analizing the complex fenfation of pleasure we perceive from a view of a fine human face.

It will answer my purpose better, and more eminently contribute to throw light upon feveral other important particulars relating to Tafte, to confider the pleasures we receive from the prospect of a fine country landscape, and confequently from the defcription of rural Scenes in paftorals, and books of romance. This will, likewife, illuftrate the doctrine of ASSOCIATION, and the very probable opinion of Dr. Hartley, who fuppofed that it is the only mental principle employed in the formation, growth, and declenfion of all our intellectual pleafures and pains.

There is no perfon, who hath paffed much of his time in the country, but must have connected with the idea of it a variety of diftinct pleasures, which are now separately indiftinguishable, though the traces of them, ftill remaining in the mind, contribute to fwell the complex fenfation of pleafure which he feels upon the view of it. Among the principal ingredients in this complex fenfation, we may mention the pleasures with which our external fenfes have a thousand times been affected in the country; the sweet smells and the fine colours of flowers, the agreeable taste of fruits, the melody of birds, and the pleasure we have received from rural sports and pastimes. These, if we be advanced in life, we may have no great re

lifh for; yet the ideas of the pleasure we may formerly have received from thefe objects, ftill adhere to the idea of the fcenes in which they were enjoyed, and recur, in a confused sensation of pleafure, whenever thofe fcenes are prefented to the mind.

To these we may add the ideas of the healthfulness, and of the comparative innocence of a country life, the apparent usefulness of husbandry; a view of the plenty of the neceffaries and conveniencies of life which the earth affords; the ideas of novelty, beauty, and grandeur, with which we have, upon innumerable occafions, been ftruck in viewing the fcenes of nature; together with the ideas of the jocundity and happiness which our fellow-creatures must frequently have shared with us in a country life.

All these fources have contributed, in a greater or lefs degree, to the complex sense of pleasure which a fine country prospect affords; and to these a philofophical and devout obferver adds lively ideas of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, the marks of which are fo confpicuous in the vegetable and animal world. By him the Deity is feen in all his works; and though, upon the first view of a rural fcene, the ideas of the Divine Being and his providence be not diftinctly perceived, they cannot fail greatly to heighten every complex fenfation into which they really enter.

From

From the principle of affociation we may, likewife, account for the tumultuous pleasurable senfation we feel upon the view of the place where we paffed our infancy, the school where we were educated, or any other place, or person, with whom a great number of our ideas and fenfations have formerly been affociated, though they now form one complex fenfation, and are feparately indiftinguishable. Even painful fenfations, as they give no pain upon reflection, unless they have been extremely violent indeed, only contribute to heighten the complex pleafing emotion.

Sometimes it is obfervable, that, immediately upon feeling a tumultuous fenfation of this kind, the idea of fome particular affecting circumstance will occur diftinctly, it not having perfectly coalefced with the general complex fenfation; whereas, by degrees, it intirely vanishes into, and makes a part of it, and in its feparate state is quite forgotten. Facts of this nature are circumftances extremely favourable to this hypothesis of the mechanical generation of our intellectual pleasures and pains by the principle of affociation; are few perfons who attend to their feelings but must have observed them.

and there

It is easy to conceive that complex fenfations of this kind are capable of being transferred to objects which are fimilar to those with which they were originally associated, by means of any common property. Thus the complex fenfation, con

nected

nected at first with one particular country fcene, will be excited, though in a fainter degree, by the view of any other country scene: and thofe feelings, which were originally affociated with one particular school, will be revived by the fight of any other school, or even of any thing belonging to education. And, univerfally, objects poffeffed of properties common to those objects with which any fenfations have been firmly affociated, acquire, by their analogy to them, a power of exciting the fame fenfations, and confequently of affecting us in a fimilar manner with the objects whose properties they poffefs, in proportion to

their resemblance.

For example; the properties of uniformity, variety, and proportion, or a fitness to fome useful end having been perceived in moft of the objects with which pleasurable ideas and fenfations have been affociated, a complex pleasurable sensation will univerfally be annexed to the marks of uniformity, variety, and proportion, wherever they are perceived; fo that by noting the properties which are common to those objects which affect our imaginations in an agreeable manner, we may be enabled to give an enumeration of all the species of the pleasures of imagination that we are capable of; or of pointing out the different properties, and qualities, in objects which are adapted to give us pleasure, and contribute to our entertainment in works of taste and genius.

Whe

Whether it will be allowed that the principle of affociation is the fource of all the pleasures which are fuggested by objects of tafte, or not, it is manifeft that it must have a very confiderable influence in this affair, and will help us to account for much, if not all, of the variety that is obfervable in the taftes of different perfons.

Had all minds the very fame degree of fenfibility, that is, were they equally affected by the fame impreffions, and were we all expofed to the fame influences, through the whole course of our lives, there would be no room for the leaft diverfity of taste among mankind. For, in thofe circum ftances, we should all have affociated precifely the fame ideas and fenfations with the fame objects, and the fame properties of thofe objects; and we fhould feel those fentiments in the fame degree. But fince our fituations in life, and the occurrences of our lives, are fo very various, it cannot but have happened, that different perfons will have affociated different ideas and fenfations with the fame objects; and, confequently, they will be differently affected upon the perception of them. Moreover, fince mens minds are endued with very different degrees of fenfibility, fome perfons will be affected in a ftronger, and fome in a weaker manner, when their fenfations are of the fame kind. For the fame reafons, likewife, the fame perfon is liable to be affected in a very different manner by the fame objects, in different parts of his life, and in different fituations and difpofitions.

There