198 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



not only has not defined the beautiful, any more than Plato or Arif- 

 totle, but lias faid that it could not be defined, being only to be ap- 

 prehended by the common fcnfe and feelings of men. As to Ariftotle, 

 however, I think I fliould not do juftice to him, if I did not obfervc 

 that he wrote a book upon the fubjedl of the Beautiful, which i»- 

 now lofl *. Tins, I think, fhiows that he himfelf was not fatisfied, 

 any more than I am, with the account he has given us of the beau- 

 tiful in his Poetics and Rhetoric. If that book, upon the beautiful, 

 had been preferved, it would have made the matter quite clear, and- 

 faved me a great deal of trouble. 



And here we may obferve an eflential difference betwixt the pcr- 

 eeptions of fenfe and thofe of intelledl ; for the fenfe only perceives- 

 corporeal objeds, either one fingle object, or many of them to- 

 gether, but all and each of them by itfelf and without any relation 

 to any thing elfe : Whereas the intelled; perceives things only as 

 they are connected together and have a relation to one another. 

 Thus it is the Intelled, and the intelle£t only, which perceives the 

 p-enufes and fpeciefes of things: Even individual objedls of fenfe 

 it perceives only by connedling together the feveral qualities of the 

 objeds, and in that way making otie of themj in which way, as 

 I have obfervedf , the intelled: forms an idea of a particular objed of 

 fenfe. It is, therefore, the intelled, and the intelled only, that makes 

 one of the many; wherein, as I have fhown %, all fcience confifls, which 

 is produced by intelligence, and intelligence only, though fenfe fur- 

 ni(h the materials. — And thus, I think, I have clearly explained 

 the difference betwixt the perceptions of fenfe and thofe of intelled ; 

 a difference, which has not, I think, been fufficiently attended to, nei- 

 ther by autient nor modern philofophers: And from the difference 

 betwixt thefe two perceptions, I think, I have made it evident, that 

 beauty muft be a perception of the intelled, and not of the fenfe. 



Thofe 



• See p. 105 of Vol. II. of this work. f Page 167. % Page 173. 



