of the Sciences and Arts. 2<< 



to believe that ignorance and barbarifm are again 

 aiming to eftablilh their ancient empire, and to 

 fear that their endeavours are not without 

 fuccefs. 



It has been before obferved, that the pleafures 

 we receive from the fine arts depend on an 

 original or inftindive power of the mind, which I 

 have chofen to call the fentimental faculty: 

 meaning to infer, that, as the improvements we 

 make in virtue and knowledge, are founded on 

 the moral and rational powers, fo the acquifitions 

 we make in the arts, confift in the improvement 

 of certain feelings intimately conneaed by fome 

 fecret and inexplicable union with the effefts of 

 thofe arts. 



Whether the improvement of this faculty be, 

 like that of our other endowments, a duty in- 

 cumbent on uss and if fo, whether that duty 

 ought to have a preference to any, and which, of 

 thofe particular occupations we have before no- 

 ticed ^ and again, which of thofe arts, employed 

 in the cultivation of our feelings, is moft power- 

 ful and efficacious in that refped, and ought 

 more particularly to claim our regard, are quef- 

 tions which might admit of long inquiry, but 

 which I fhall touch upon as briefly as poffiblc; 



The arts now alluded to, are thofe of poetry, 

 mufic, and painting, or as they are called, in 

 diftindion from manual ingenuity, the polite arts. 



Althongh 



