196 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



*' the parts of the fame objedt." In this volume* I have fliown 

 the difference betwixt the Beaitt'iftd and the Good. From the paf- 

 fage of Vol. V. above quoted, it appears that I may claim the merit 

 of having firft given a definition of the Beautiful; a thing of fo very- 

 great influence in human life, that the nature of it fhoulJ be moil 

 carefully ftudied by every philofopher: For it is not only the foun- 

 dation, as I have fhown, of virtue and religion, but it is the fource 

 of that principle which is fo predominant in human nature, that a 

 man, who is entirely void of it, cannot be confidered to be a man ; 

 1 mean the principle of honour f . It produces alfo that love which 

 every man of genius and tafte has for the fciences and fine arts ; for 

 fuch a man loves them, not for the profit they may bring him, but 

 for their beauty — In fhort, it is the fource of every thing that is 

 great and noble in our natures or that can make us happy. I there- 

 fore think, that the Stoicks were in the right, when they maintain- 

 ed that the 70 naXov was not only \\\t fiimmum bonum, or chief good^ 

 but the only ^00^ of man ; and, indeed, it is the only good and the 

 only plcaiure of his intellect, by which he is a man, and is diftinguilh- 

 ed from all th^ other animals of this earth J. And it is the only plea- 

 fure of all intellediual beings, even of the Supreme Being ; for, as 

 we are told in the laft verfe of the firft chapter of Genefu^ God, af- 

 ter he had finiflied his whole work of creation, faw all things that 

 he had made, " And behold they were «aAa 7.ia.<)^' as it is in the 

 Septuagint, that is, very beautiful^ not very goody as we have tranf- 

 lated it : And, as he faw that thele things were very beautiful^ 

 they muft have given him pleaiure. In the paffage, neverthelefs, 

 which I have quoted from Volume V. of this work, I have 

 {hown, that, though Plato and Ariftotle have fpoken a great deal, 

 and particularly Plato, of the ro ;>caAw, yet neither of them have 



given 



* Page 118. t Vol. V. p. 125. 



X See on this fubjea Vol. V. p. 135.— and Chap. XIV. of Book III, of the fame 

 volume. 



