174 OF INSTINCT. SECT.XVI.6, 



All thefe various kinds of pleafure at length become 

 aflbciated with the form of the mother's bread; 

 which the infant embraces with its hands, preffes 

 with its lips, and watches with its eyes ; and thus 

 acquires more accurate ideas of the form of its 

 mother's bofom, than of the odour and flavour or 

 warmth, which it perceives bv its other fenfes. 

 And hence at our maturer years, when any object 

 of vifion is prefented to us, which by its waving 

 9r fpiral lines bears any fimilitude to the form of 

 the female bofom, whether it be found in a land- 

 fcape with foft gradations of rifmg and defcending 

 furface, or in the forms of fome antique vafes, or 

 in other works of the pencil or the chiflel, we feel 

 a general glow of d ( elight, which feems to influence 

 all our fenfes ; and, if the objecl: be not too large, 

 we experience an attraction to embrace it with our 

 arms, and to falute it with our lips, as we did in 

 our early infancy the bofom of our mother. And 

 thus we find, according to the ingenious idea of 

 Hogarth, that the waving lines of beauty were ori- 

 ginally taken from the temple of Venus. 



This animal attraction is love; which is a fenfa- 

 tion, when the object is prefent ; and a defire, when 

 it is abfent. Which conftitutes-the pureft fource of 

 human felicity, the cordial drop in the otherwife 

 vapid cup of life, and which overpays mankind for 

 the care and labour, which are attached to the pre- 

 eminence of his fituation above other animals. 



It mould have been obferved, that colour as well 

 as form fometimes enters into our idea of a beauti- 

 ful object, as a good complexion for inftance, be- 

 caufe a fine or fair colour is in general a fign of 

 health, and conveys to us an idea of the warmth of 

 the object i and a pale countenance on the contrary 

 gives an idea of its being cold to the touch. 



It was before remarked, that young animals ufe 

 their lips to diftinguifh the forms of things, as well 



as 



