causes, as we shall presently endeavour to show.

It cannot be a matter of controversy whether Beauty is limited to the
human form; the daily experience of the most ordinary man would answer
No: he finds it in the woods, the fields, in plants and animals,
nay, in a thousand objects, as he looks upon nature; nor, though
indefinitely diversified, does he hesitate to assign to each the same
epithet. And why? Because the feelings awakened by all are similar in
kind, though varying, doubtless, by many degrees in intenseness. Now
suppose he is asked of what personal advantage is all this beauty to
him. Verily, he would be puzzled to answer. It gives him pleasure,
perhaps great pleasure. And this is all he could say. But why should
the effect be different, except in degree, from the beauty of a human
being? We have already the answer in this concluding term. For what is
a human being but one who unites in himself a physical, intellectual,
and moral nature, which cannot in one become even an object of thought
without at least some obscure shadowings of its natural allies? How,
then, can we separate that which has an exclusive relation to his
physical form, without some perception of the moral and intellectual
with which it is joined? But how do we know that Beauty is limited
to such exclusive relation? This brings us to the great problem; so
simple and easy of solution in all other cases, yet so intricate and
apparently inexplicable in man. In other things, it would be felt
absurd to make it a question, whether referring to form, color, or
sound. A single instance will suffice. Let us suppose, then, an
unfamiliar object, whose habits, disposition, and so forth, are wholly
unknown, for instance, a bird of paradise, to be seen for the
first time by twenty persons, and they all instantly call it
beautiful;--could there be any doubt that the pleasure it produced
in each was of the same kind? or would any one of them ascribe his