222 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



makes a fyftem, that is one of feveral things ; for beauty, as I have 

 fliown*, is a perception, not of fenfe but of intelledt, which does 

 not perceive a fingle obje<5l, as our fenfe does, but feveral together ; 

 and, in that way, it perceives the relation they have to one another. 

 Beauty, therefore, like truth or fcience^ does not confift of a fingle 

 thing, but of the inany^ of which it forms one. This, I know, will 

 be thought, by fuch of my readers as are not philofophers, to be an 

 inconceivable paradox ; for they will fay, that intelledl undoubtedly 

 perceives that a fingle animal is a man or a horfe. But I afk How 

 does it perceive that ? And, I fay, it is by perceiving that the feveral 

 qualities, which conftitute a man or a horfe, are united in that ani- 

 mal, and make one of the many. In fhort, it is the genus or fpecies 

 of the thing, which intellect perceives, and which confifts of fe- 

 veral things that, coUeded together, make the thing one^ which is 

 therefore perceived by the intelledl : And it is only that union of 

 the qualities exifting in one obje£l that makes it an objedt of intel- 

 ledt ; whereas our fenfes perceive objedts juft as the brute perceives 

 them, that is altogether as they afFe<^ the fenfes, without any difcri- 

 mination of the qualities. 



Further, our intellect, if it be improved, as it ought to be, will in- 

 form us, that though there be fuch an order and arrangement of 

 material things, as makes us perceive one in many, and fo gives us 

 the idea of beauty, yet, where there is fuch an arrangement in the 

 qualities of mind, the beauty will be very much greater : We fliall 

 alfo learn, that tliere ought to be fuch an order in our minds ; and 

 that all the fubjedls of which our little world is compofed, that is our 

 intelledual, our animal and vegetable minds, fhould be in fuch order 

 as to make but one fyftem, of which all the parts are perfedly con- 

 fonant with one another ; which fyftem ftiould be our chief ftudy. 

 And it is a ftudy that will be rewarded with the greateft pleafure, as 

 well as profit, for it makes us know cur/elves^ which is not only the 



moft 

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