disproportion or seeming deformity, if we can show the necessity
of that particular construction for the use intended! A ship
appears more beautiful to an artist, or one moderately skilled in
navigation, where its prow is wide and swelling beyond its poop,
than if it were framed with a precise geometrical regularity, in
contradiction to all the laws of mechanics. A building, whose
doors and windows were exact squares, would hurt the eye by that
very proportion; as ill adapted to the figure of a human
creature, for whose service the fabric was intended.

What wonder then, that a man, whose habits and conduct are
hurtful to society, and dangerous or pernicious to every one who
has an intercourse with him, should, on that account, be an
object of disapprobation, and communicate to every spectator the
strongest sentiment of disgust and hatred.



[Footnote: We ought not to imagine, because an inanimate object
may be useful as well as a man, that therefore it ought also,
according to this system, to merit he appellation of VIRTUOUS.
The sentiments, excited by utility, are, in the two cases, very
different; and the one is mixed with affection, esteem,
approbation, &c., and not the other. In like manner, an inanimate
object may have good colour and proportions as well as a human
figure. But can we ever be in love with the former? There are a
numerous set of passions and sentiments, of which thinking
rational beings are, by the original constitution of nature, the
only proper objects: and though the very same qualities be
transferred to an insensible, inanimate being, they will not