122 M.de Tclier on the Vleafures of the Mind 
choice of a good objeCl, and in making every thing 
tend to the exprefiion of it, as to one common 
end. Certain it is, that this correfpondence of 
the parts with the whole, is to be confidered, as , 
the firft and principal caufe of agreeable fenfations. 
It is alone fufficient to give beauty to the moll 
fimple objeCts ; and, if other embellifhments are 
wanted, it becomes the ftandard of their propriety, 
and the rule by which we can determine, whether 
they are real beauties, or only (tuning blemifhes. 
But to give the mind an eafier and more agreeable 
perception of the objeCt, art has (till gone farther. 
Among all thele parts which are made to refer to 
one common end, a principal one is chofen, to 
which all others are fubordinate, and which 
becomes like a center of re-union for them. 
Architecture can illuftrate this. Unacquainted 
with the real beauties of their art, the Gothic 
architects never failed to place, on both Tides of 
the body of their buildings, fuch enormous wings, 
or rather mafies of ftone, as almoft totally eclipfed 
it, and kept the fight divided and undetermined. 
Bromante , PalladiOy and after them mod of the 
modern architects, taught, perhaps, by Vitruvius , 
but certainly more acquainted than their pre- 
deceflfors with what would (trike the eyes agree¬ 
ably, have placed, in the middle of their buildings, 
a principal part, which, eminent above the reft, 
gives the fight a fixed point, from which it can 
glance 
