to their exertion. But what they have in view is generally a trifle, in comparison of what they already actually poffefs. If a man be provided with the neceffaries of life, or be able to provide them by his labour; if he enjoy tolerable health, and be confcious of no crime; he can hardly feel much uneafinefs, unless he be haunted by fome of thofe phantoms of the imagination which men fometimes raise to disturb their own repose.' P. 65. 66.

The limitation of his doctrine in the following paffage is stated, we think, with great candour and moderation.

If God had fo pleafed, he could undoubtedly have rendered every being he has formed completely happy. He could have made them incapable even of rendering themselves miferable: He could have made them neceffary, inftead of voluntary agents; and compelled them to a in the way that would infallibly have produced felicity; or he might have contrived things in fuch a manner, that they must have been happy in whatever way they acted. He has not ordered matters in any fuch way; and therefore we may be fure that he never intended to do fo. Every thing is fo conducted, that his creatures arife to greater and greater degrees of happiness, in confequence of their own exertion, and in confequence of the improvement which, by his appointment, follows from their exertions. The more wife and the more virtuous they become, the more happy they are of confequence. It is evident, there fore, though the Deity intended to communicate happiness, and has done fo in the most liberal manner, yet this was not the only end which he had in view. His beneficence must be confidered as connected with the other active principles of his nature. He intended to make man happy; but it was in a particular manner, which he knew would at last contribute to the greatest general felicity of the fpecies. If we fuppofe benevolence, or the difpofition to confer immediate or unqualified happinefs, to be the only principle of action in the Divine Mind, we can fee no reason why there should be evil of any kind in the world at all; fince, undoubtedly, his wifdom was fufficient to foresee it, and his power to prevent it. But fince there is much more happiness than mifery in the world, we have fufficient reafon to conclude that he acted from benevolence. The prefumption arifing from this confideration evidently is, that he must have alfo had other principles of action befides benevolence; but whether fubfervient to it, upon the whole, or not, is not the prefent queftion.' p. 82. 83.

To Mr Hume's ingenious argument against afcribing any higher degree of goodness to the Deity than is difplayed in his works, Mr Arthur alfo makes a very fatisfactory anfwer in the latter part of this difcourfe.

In the fourth difcourfe, on the juftice and moral government of God, we meet with fome very elegant obfervations on the punishment which vice neceffarily carries along with it.

The remarks on a future ftate, with which the difcourfe concludes, appear to us to place the reasonableness of that doctrine in a very striking light.

The

The prefent plan of the Divine Government renders this expecta tion more frong and better founded, than it would have been upon any other fuppofition. If there had been no tendency in virtue to produce happiness, nor in vice to produce mifery at prefent, we could not have had any certainty that there is a moral adminiftration established; and from obferving the prefent course of things, and seeing that virtue and happiness were perfectly difunited, we would have been apt, from ana logy, to conclude, that they would always be difunited, and that there would be no ftate of retribution. Perceiving no reason to believe that God is juft, we could not, on fuch a fuppofition, be led to conclude, that he would fome time or other act as a juft and impartial judge. If, on the contrary, virtue had been always fully and invariably rewarded in this ftate of things, and vice, in like manner, fully and invariably punifhed; if happiness and virtue, vice and mifery, had been uniformly united, and never been separated; we might have been much more uncertain of a future ftate, than we are at prefent. Such a ftate would be a perfect state, and we could perceive no end that could be served by any alteration in it. If men, therefore, died under fuch a difpenfation or, in other words, went out of that flate; we might be apt to think they had fully received their reward, and were never more to exist.

There is, however, another view of the matter, even upon this fuppofition, that would ftill leave the queftion in fufpenfe; for if God be good and juft, it cannot be believed, that he would exterminate from existence, those whom he had already countenanced and rewarded: And therefore, if he took them away from their prefent condition, it must be to answer fome good ends to them; and fince they were happy here, the only end he could have in view, would be to render them ftill happier in another ftate. The government, however, that is in fact eftablifhed, in which we fee clear and manifeft marks of a moral adminiftration of justice and equity, but intermixed with certain irregularities and exceptions, furnifhes us with an argument in favour of a future ftate of existence, much more convincing than any that could be fuggefted by an adminiftration apparently more perfect and impartial. It leads us to confider ourselves as only in the beginning of our existence, in a state of trial and of difcipline; and it neceffarily directs our views to another, connected with and founded upon it, which will be a state of final retribution. p. 125. 126.

We have already given fo many quotations from these discourses, that we are afraid to enter on the next, of evils and their causes, and of the systems refpecting them,' left we should be tempted to fwell this article greatly beyond its proper bounds. We fhall therefore leave the depths of theology, with once more affuring our readers, that if they are inclined to venture into these arduous paths, they cannot eafily intruft themfelves to the conduct of a fafer or more intelligent guide than Mr Arthur.

Mr Arthur's first discourse, in the fecond part of the work, is on qualities of inanimate objects, which excite agreeable fenfations. He obferves that there are varieties in thefe fenfations.

A

A gentle flowing rivulet, and an impetuous torrent, do not affect us in the fame manner. The mind is difpofed to tranquillity by the one, and roused and agitated by the other. The diftinction between the fenfations occafioned by fublime and by beautiful objects, is univerfally known. The characters of these fentiments are exceedingly dif ferent. The fenfation of beauty is gay and enlivening. The fenfation of fublimity is folemn and elevating. p. 184. 185.

The fentiments of men, however, are not always uniform, in thefe refpects: Some men have emotions of fublimity and beauty, from perceptions which do not occafion these feelings in others; but notwithstanding fuch diverfities, there is a regularity in these fentiments, on the whole, which is a proof that they are not founded on caprice.

When men are placed in fituations in which their paffions are altogether uninterested, they difcover little variety in their judgments concerning beauty and fublimity. The rainbow and the morning fky have called forth the fame fenfations in all ages: The parterre of modern times exhibits the fame flowers that were cultivated by former generations: The forms of human beauty which charmed the remote ages of antiqui ty, tranfmitted to future times by the art of the ftatuary, are ftill looked upon as patterns of excellence.' p. 189.

Mr Arthur endeavours to point out, in this difcourfe, the cir cumftances in the colour and figure of external objects, which occafion the fenfation of beauty. Moft of our readers are probably acquainted with the elegant theory of Mr Alifon, which accounts for all our perceptions of fublimity or beauty in inanimate objects, from their habitual affociation with fome fimple ideas of emotion, and the confequent fuggeftion of fomething interesting to our felfish or fympathetic feelings. This theory, which had been imperfectly anticipated by thofe who refolved the impreffions of beauty into a perception of utility, fitnefs, &c. had not been communicated to the public when Mr Arthur compofed thefe difcourfes. He accordingly follows the footsteps of Hogarth, Huchefon and Burke, in afcribing the emotions produced by beauti ful objects to the direct agency of their external qualities, and applies himself to the enumeration of thofe properties that appear to produce this effect. In his opinion, the circumstances in external objects which occafion the fenfation of beauty, are 'infenfible connexion' and' quick fucceffion' of fhades in colour, and parts in figure. He illustrates this pofition from the example of the verdure of nature.

It is equally removed from the fierceness of the red, and the languor of the violet. The furfaces on which it is ufually feen, are fmooth and gloffy. Hence the different lights exhibit upon them, all the shades of this colour, from that which approaches the blue to that which joins the yellow, infenfibly connected with one another. At the fame time,

ne

no one fhade occupies fo large a fpace as to be contemplated by itself, feparately from the fhades connected with it. These two circumstances of infenfible connexion, and quick fucceffion among the different shades, seem to be the cause that this colour upon vegetables is fo highly agreeable, as all acknowledge it to be. By means of the infenfible and uninterrupted connexion which fubfifts among the different fhades, it af fumes the appearance of a regular whole, and enters the mind with the greateft facility. The quicknefs of the fucceffion occafions the gaiety of the fenfation. When the mind broods over a fingle thought, it is in a folemu state; but when a variety of objects, fo united as not to embarrass it, are prefented before it, it is gay and cheerful. Similar obfervations may be made on all the other beautiful colours. P. 191.

192.

Similar obfervations he applies to figure; and those on Mr Ho garth's line of beauty appear to be juft and ingenious. He then proceeds to fhew, in oppofition to Mr Burke, that angular figures are frequently beautiful, although he admits that a fquare is lefs beautiful than a circle.

The parts of which it is compofed are connected, as belonging to a whole; but they are large and few, and do not follow one another in quick fucceffion. The fenfation, therefore, has little gaiety. p. 195.

To render his opinions more precife, he tells us, that forming our conceptions of beauty, it is proper to throw out of confideration every thing except colour and figure; and that though utili ty, or other confiderations, may render the fight of an object agreeable or desirable, it is always eafy to diftinguish this fort of affection from that which is produced directly by its beauty. Beauty, he concludes, is not the common name of every thing which excites agreeable fenfations: it is a property of colour and figure alone, and belongs to nothing else, in a proper fenfe.'

Now, even if we could pais over the fundamental error of this theory, it appears to us that it is evidently liable to the charge of inconfiftency. Beauty, according to Mr Arthur's own hypothe fis, is not perceived immediately by any organ or faculty of the mind; it refults merely from the excitation of lively and various ideas, fuggefted by the rapid fucceffion of connected parts in a beautiful object but if this be the cafe, every thing else that excites a rapid and lively fucceffion of ideas, fhould be denominated beautful, as well as the alterations of colour and figure; and if it be undeniably true, that many external objects do suggest a variety of lively ideas, that have no connexion with colour or form, it feems altogether unreasonable to deny that their beauty is increafed or occafioned by these affociations. The beauty of any object, according to Mr Arthur's definition of it, confifts in its power of exciting lively ideas; and it is evident that he has given à defective account of the caufes of their beauty, if fuch ideas

may

may be excited, as they indubitably may, by other qualities than the shape and the colour.

In the two following difcourfes, however, Mr Arthur proceeds to accommodate the theories of Mr Burke and Dr Hutchefon, concerning beauty, to his own; and he certainly points out, with great acuteness, what is erroneous in their opinions; and fhews that, in as far as they are correct, they coincide very much with those which he had previously afferted. Our limits will not now permit us to enter into an investigation of our author's doctrines in the fubfequent effays. We add the following judicious obfervations upon the alleged influence of custom in matters of tafte.

Suppofe a man to have spent the whole of his life in a village, in which there is only one elegant houfe, and all the reft are mean cottages; will not this perfon pronounce that house the most beautiful in the village? On what does he found his judgment? It is, no doubt, the most rare form of a house he has ever feen; but furely it is not alfo the most common, for all the other houses in the village resemble one another more than they resemble it. Let a man who has vifited all the cathedrals in the kingdom, be brought to St Paul's, it will appear to him. unlike any of thofe which he had formerly vifited. All those great buildings which he had been examir ing, were built in the form of a crois, and in the Gothic flyle of architecture: All of them had a confiderable refemblance to one another. He now beholds a building of a very different kind; but it will not, on that account, appear to him deformed or monftrous. He will certainly admire it as a noble piece of architecture. Is there a child who does not prefer a smooth furface to a rough one; and a regular figure, in which all the parts are connected with one another, to an unformed and unconnected mafs? The long arched neck of the fwan is fingular among birds, and the branching antlers of the ftag among beats; but they are not upon this account reckoned ugly or monitrous: On the contrary, all acknowledge that they are beautiful. p. 332 3.

It is readily acknowledged, that agreeable fenfations are derived from an attention to the laws of cuftom and fashion. Thefe, however, ought to be diftinguished from thofe pleafures of tafte which are derived from what is really beautiful or grand in the works of nature or of art. In ali probability, it has principally been owing to a neglect of this important diftinction, that the principles of talte have fometimes been reprefented as arbitrary and capricious. Every thing which entirely depends upon cuilom, is certainly capricious. But there are many agreeable objects that have continued throughout all ages to be agreeable. Fashion may fometimes oppofe the natural principles of beauty and elegance; but whenever it does fo, it cannot be very lafting. The love of grace and elegance mult at laft prevail, though it fhould be after a tedious itruggle. The fashion in gardening, and in building, is now more fuitable to nature than it formerly was; and, in all probability, it will laft much longer than thofe fallions which immediately preceded it.

VOL. IV. NO. 7.

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