/ 



128 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



* refufed to take it, notwithftanding many arguments that were ufed 

 ' both by the Dodor and the Governor, who accompanied him, 

 ' and who had a confiderable influence over the Hindoo. They 



* promiied that it fhould remain aa inviolable fecret; but he replied, 

 ' with great calmnefs, " That he could not conceal it from himfelf ;" 



* and, a few days after, fell a vidim to his perfeverance''".' And here 

 WG may obferve, that, in this refped as well as in many other, the 

 fenfe of the Beautiful and Becoming does diftinguiih man eflentially 

 from the brute ; for the brute, fo far from voluntarily refigning his 

 life, defends it in every w^ay poffiblc. 



Beauty is the foundation, too, of love and frlendflilp among men; 

 of companion, beneficence, and generofity; and in fhort, as I have 

 faid, of every virtue; and I will add of reUgion ; for there can be 

 no religion without the love of God. Now, there can be no love of 

 God, any more than of man, without a fenfe of Beauty in the ob- 

 jed of our 4ove. Our Scripture, therefore, very properly recommends 

 to us the ftudy of " what is honeft, (it fliould be of ivhat is Beauti- 

 " ful^ what is pralfe-worthy, and of good report f". And I would 

 have every Chriftian confider, whether he can love God or his 

 neighbour as he ought to do, not knowing what Beauty, the objed 

 of love, is; or, whether he can have fo much as an idea of the Beau- 

 ty of HoUuefs^ if he has not a proper perception and feeling of Beau- 

 ty ; or, laftly, whether he can have any conception of the joys of 

 heaven, which we are promifed, when we live as we ought to do 

 here on earth, if we know not what the Beautiful is, and that it is 

 the only enjoyment of the iatelledual mind. 



Further, it is the love of knowledge, and the Beauty of fclence, 

 as well as the ufe it may be of in life, that makes us cultivate it; 

 and without Tafte, that is a fenfe of the Beautiful in Arts, no fme 



art 



*= Ibid. p. 72. t ''^ee Vol. /j. cf Origin of Lang. p. 368, 3^9. & 370. 



