THE aEJNli:RAL STRUCTCJR*^ 137 



die than change their appropriate leaf. All this looks like 

 a determhiatioii in the sense itself to particular taste* In 

 hke manner, smells affect the nose with sensations pleasur- 

 able or disgusting. Some sounds, or compositions of sound, 

 delight the ear ; others torture it. Habit can do much in 

 all these cases — and it is well for us that it can, for it is th s 

 power which reconciles us to many necessities ; but has the 

 distinction, in the mean time, of agreeable and disagreeable 

 no foundation in the sense itself? What is true of the other 

 senses is most probably true of the eye — the analogy is irre- 

 sistible — namely, that there belongs to it an original consti- 

 tution, fitted to receive pleasure from some impressions, and 

 pain from others. 



I do not, however, know that the argument which alleges 

 beauty as a final cause rests ujDon this concession. We pos- 

 sess a sense of beauty, however we come by it. It in fact 

 exists. Things are not indifierent to this sense ; all objects 

 do not suit it : many, which we see, are agreeable to it ; 

 many others disagreeable. It is certainly not the effect ol 

 habit upon the particular object, because the most agreeable 

 objects are often the most rare ; many which are very com- 

 mon, continue to be offensive. If they be niade supportable 

 by habit, it is all which habit can do ; they never become 

 agreeable. If this sense, therefore, be acquired, it is a result — 

 the produce of numerous and complicated actions of external 

 objects upon the senses, and of the mind upon its sensations. 

 With this result there must be a certain congruity, to enable 

 any particular object to please : and that congruity, w^e con- 

 tend, is consulted in the aspect which is given to animal 

 and vegetable bodies. 



IV. The skin and covering of animals is that upon which 

 their appearance chiefly depends ; and it is that part which, 

 perhaps, in all animals, is most decorated, and most free 

 from impurities. But were beauty or agreeableness oi 

 aspect entirely out of the question, there is another purpose 

 answered by this integument, and by the collocation of the 



