Sect. XXII. 3. 1. AND IMIi ATION. aot 



facility and diftinctnefs, with, -which we perceive and underftand 

 repeated fenfations, enters into all the agreeable arts ; and when 

 it is carried to excefs is termed formality. The art of dancing like 

 that of mufic depends for a great part of the pleafure, it affords, 

 on repetition ; architecture, efpecially the Grecian, confifts of 

 one part being a repetition of another ; and hence the beauty of 

 the pyramidal outline in landfcape-painting 5 where one fide of 

 the picture may be faid in fome meafure to balance the other. 

 So univerfaliy does repetition contribute to our pleafure in the 

 fine arts, that beauty itfelf has been defined by fome writers to 

 cenfift in a due combination of uniformity and variety. See 

 Sea. XVI. 6. 



III. 1 . Man is termed by Ariftotle an imitative animal; this 

 propensity to imitation not only appears in the actions of children, 

 but in all the cuftoms and fafhions of the world : many thou- 

 fands tread in the beaten paths of others, for one who traverfes 

 regions of his own difcovery. The origin of this propenfity of 

 imitation Ijas not, that I recollect, been deduced from any known 

 principle ; when any action prefents itfelf to the view of a child, 

 as of whetting a knife, or threading a needle, the parts of this ac- 

 tion in refpect of time, motion, figure, are imitated by a part of 

 the retina of his eye ; to perform this action therefore with his 

 hands is eafier to him than to invent any new action, becaufe 

 it confifts in repeating with another fet of fibres, viz. with the 

 moving mufcles, what he had juft performed by fome parts of 

 the retina ; juft as in dancing we transfer the times of motion 

 from the actions of the auditory nerves to the mufcles of the limbs. 

 Imitation therefore confifts of repetition, which we have fhewn 

 above to be the eafieft kind of animal action, and which we per- 

 petually fall into, when we pofiefs an accumulation of fenforial 

 power, which is not other wife called into exertion. 



It has been fhewn, that our ideas are configurations of the or- 

 gans of fenfe, produced originally in co.nfequence of the ftimu- 

 lus of external bodies. And that thefe ideas, or configurations 

 of the organs of fenfe, refemble in fome property a correspond- 

 ent property of external matter ; as the parts of the fenfes of 

 fight and of touch, which are excited into action, refemble in 

 figure the figure of the flimulating body 5 and probably alfo the 

 colour, and the quantity of denfity, which they perceive. As 

 explained in Se^.t. XIV. 2. 2. Hence it appears, that our per- 

 ceptions themfelves are copies, that is, imitations of fome prop- 

 erties of external matter; and the propenfity to imitation is thus 

 interwoven with our exiftence, as it is produced by the ftimuli 

 of external bodies, and is afterwards repeated by our volitions 



Vol. I. C c and 



