derive their shadowy Existence in a mimetic Transcript from Objects
in the Material World, or from Passions, Characters, and Manners.
Nevertheless that _internal Sense_ we call TASTE (which is a Herald
for the whole human System, in it's three different Parts, the
refined Faculties of Perception, the gross Organs of Sense, and the
intermediate Powers of Imagination) has as quick a Feeling of this
secondary Excellence of the Arts, as for the primary Graces; and
seizes the Heart with Rapture long before the Senses, and Reason in
Conjunction, can _prove_ this Beauty by collating the Imitations with
their Originals.

If it should be asked _why_ external Objects affect the human Breast
in this Manner, I would answer, that the ALMIGHTY has in this, as well
as in all his other Works, out of his abundant Goodness and Love to
his Creatures, so _attuned_ our Minds to Truth, that all Beauty from
without should make a responsive Harmony vibrate within. But should
any of those more curious Gentlemen, who busy themselves With
Enquiries into Matters, which the Deity, for Reasons known only to
himself, has placed above our limited Capacities, demand _how_ he has
so formed us, I should refer them, with proper Contempt, to their more
aged Brethren, who may justly in Derision be stiled _the Philosophers
of ultimate Causes_. To you, my dear Friend, whose truly philosophical
and religious Taste concludes that whatever GOD ordains is right,
it is sufficient to have proved that _Truth_ is the Cause of all
_Beauty_, and that Truth flows from the Fountain of all Perfection, in
whose unfathomable Depth finite Thought should never venture with
any other Intention than to wonder and adore. But I find I have been
imperceptibly led on from Thought to Thought, not only to trespass
upon the common Stile of a Letter, by these abstruse Reasonings and
religious Conclusions, but upon the ordinary length of one likewise;