The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull

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СКАЧАТЬ double entertainment. Groves, fields, meadows, are at any season of the year pleasant to look upon, but never so much as at the beginning of the spring, when they are all new and fresh, with their first gloss upon them, and not yet too much accustomed and familiar to the eye. For this reason there is nothing more enlivens a prospect, than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of water, when the scene is perpetually changing, and entertaining the sight every moment with something that is new: We are quickly tired with looking upon hills and valleys, where every thing continues fixed and settled in the same place and posture; but find our thoughts not a little agitated and relieved at the sight of such objects as are ever in motion, and sliding away from beneath the eye of the beholder.”

      The final reason or cause why it is so.

      After this description of several effects of novelty, it will be easy to every one to run over many more of the same class in his imagination; and the reason why we are so made, is because we are made for motion and progress: not to stand still, but to go forward and proceed; we are made for encrease, and gradual advancement; and therefore variety is naturally so agreeable, that we cannot be easy without making some new acquirements.

      How this itch of novelty is checked and ballanced by the power of habit.

      But by way of counterpoise in our frame to this useful desire of novelty, and delight in variety, lest it should render us too superficial in our attention to objects, and too rambling and desultory in our quest of knowledge, it is so ordered by our make, that by continuing a little while our attention to the same object, a liking to it is contracted: an object, by being frequently present to our view, becomes<49> familiar to us, we form an intimacy with it.^a And thus, as the pleasure of friendship retains us from continually running about in search of new faces, so the habitude of studying in the same train, or of considering the same kind of ideas, by rendring them more agreeable to us, contributes to make us more fixed and steady in our application to the consideration of an object, till we have fully examined it. It prevents our becoming too changeable and unsettled in our pursuit of knowledge, ever to make great advances in any kind of it. Such is the power of habit, which shall be more fully considered afterwards: and hence the sage advice given by philosophers with regard to the choice of one’s business or profession in life, “To choose the best, that is, the most advantageous, and custom will make it agreeable.”

      The natural delight of the mind in beauty.

      In natural beauty.

      Thus we are led to enquire after analogies and general laws in nature.

      III. The mind naturally delights in comparing ideas, and in traceing their agreements and disagreements, their resemblances and differences; and it is thus that knowledge is acquired. But which greatly contributes at once to give pleasure to the mind in the pursuit of knowledge, and to direct it to the proper objects and methods of inquiry, is the natural delight of the mind in uniformity amidst variety; or in other words, in unity of design, and the consent of parts to one end. The objects of contemplation that please immediately, or at their first appearance to the mind, are those that are found upon after-examination, to be regular, to have unity, or to make systems easily taken in and comprehended by the mind. Every such form naturally attracts the mind, and is wonderfully agreeable to it. It could not do so, were we not so formed as<50> to receive a particular, distinguishing pleasure from such objects: for whatever pleases, necessarily presupposes an aptitude or disposition in our nature to be agreeably affected by it. Now being so framed as to be naturally and necessarily affected by such objects as have been described, in an agreeable manner, we are thus prompted by nature to delight in the contemplation of such objects, and to seek after them. We are by this means led, impelled and directed to resolve every object into its constituent parts, and to refer these parts to one another, and to their common end; or to consider a thing as a whole, and to look out for its principal meaning scope and intent, and to enquire how that is accomplished; by which means, by the simplest, and those that are merely necessary, or by too complex a way and superfluous toil. It is thus we are led to enquire into nature, trace its analogies and harmonies, or general laws, and to admire its simplicity and frugality. And in like manner in abstract science, as in mathematics, for example, we are conducted by the same principle, to aim at universal conclusions, or such general theorems and canons, as contain in them a great variety of particular cases. It is the same taste that enables us to distinguish what we call ease and grace, whether in external motion, or any composition of wit and genius; namely, our sense of the beauty which consists in the due medium between the nimium & parum, the too little and too much; for so the decorum is defined by the antients; and all beauty, whether in nature itself, or in the arts that imitate nature, ultimately resolves itself into the observance of this maxim, “Frustra sit per plura quod per pauciora fieri potest.” Nature is beautiful, because nature “nihil frustra facit.”²⁶ Nature is simple, and we are most aptly contrived to delight in nature, to find out the proper way of studying and imitating it, by<51> our natural delight in the beauty which results from simplicity and regularity.^a

      The natural delight of our mind in moral beauty.

      Thus we are led to enquire after good final reasons.

      But besides our natural sense of beauty and harmony in material objects, arising from unity amidst variety, we have analogous to it another sense, viz. a sense of beauty in affections, actions and characters. Beauty in merely corporeal forms is indeed exceeding entertaining to the mind. “There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction and complacency through the imagination, and gives a finishing to any thing that is great or uncommon. The first discovery of it strikes the mind with secret joy, and spreads a chearfulness and delight through all its faculties.”²⁷ But does not every one feel that beauty of the moral kind is yet more charming and transporting than any corporeal beauty! And what is that, but such a tendency of an action to publick good, as shews generous intention, and benevolent affection in the agent. Now as by the former sense we are impelled and pointed to look out for unity of design, simplicity and consent of parts, and therefore to trace analogies in nature, and to reduce like appearances to general laws; so by the latter, we are prompted and directed to enquire after the goodness and fitness of general laws, that is, their tendency to the good of the whole to which they belong, or which<52> is constituted and regulated by them. This taste of the mind as naturally leads us to such researches as any other appetite impells us to gratify it. And do not these two dispositions in our nature, so analogous to one another, make an excellent provision or assistance for our making progress in knowledge? They naturally point us towards the objects, and methods of enquiring, that will be at once most pleasing and useful. They tell us, as it were, what we ought chiefly to employ our enquiries about, and how we ought to manage them.

      The natural delight of our mind in great objects.

      IV. To conclude. We are considerably aided and directed in our researches after knowledge, by our natural delight in great objects, or such as wonderfully dilate and expand the mind, and put its grasp to the trial. For thus we are prompted not only to admire the grandeur of nature in general, or in the large and astonishing prospects its immensity affords us; and in the greatness of some particular objects of nature, of an enlivening and sublime kind; but in that greatness of manner which appears every where in its methods of operation, even in the minutest objects of sense; and to copy after this greatness of nature in our imitations of it by arts.^a The mind being naturally great,<53> and fond of power and perfection, delights highly in trying its strength, and in stretching itself, and there fore is exceeding pleased with those objects<54> that dilate it, or give it occasion and excite it to expand itself.

      The imagination a most useful power.

      It is necessary to render us capable of social commerce by discourse.

      We could not have mutual commerce by discourse, were not the moral world analogous to the natural СКАЧАТЬ