BEA 



BEA 



approaches gradually to a perfect conso- 

 nance with the other, till at last the un- 

 dulations vanish, and have a smooth and 

 uniform consonance. These heats are of 

 use in tuning an organ to any degree of 

 exactness. The beats of two dissonant 

 organ pipes r&semble the beating of the 

 pulse to the touch : and, like the human 

 pulse in a fever, the more dissonant are 

 the sounds, the quicker they beat, and 

 the slower as they become better in tune, 

 till at length they are lost in the coinci- 

 dent vibrations of the two sounds. 



BEATS, in a watch or clock, are the 

 strokes made by the fangs or pallets of 

 the spindle of the balance, or of the pads 

 in a royal pendulum. To find the beats of 

 the balance in all watches going, or in 

 one turn of any wheel. Having found 

 the number of turns which the crown- 

 wheel makes in one turn of the wheel you 

 seek for, those turns of the crown-wheel, 

 multiplied by its notches, give half the 

 number of beats in that one turn of the 

 wheel. For the balance or swing has 

 two strokes to every tooth of the crown- 

 wheel, inasmuch as each of the two pal- 

 lets hath its blow against each tooth of 

 the crown-wheel , whence it is, that a 

 pendulum that beats seconds has in its 

 crown-wheel only 30 teeth. See WATCH- 

 WORK. 



BEAVER, in zoology. See CASTOR. 



BEAUTY, a general term for whatever 

 excites in us pleasing sensations, or an 

 idea of approbation. 



Hence the notion annexed to beauty 

 may be distinguished into ideas and sen- 

 sations ; the former of which occupy the 

 mind; the latter affect the heart; thus, 

 an object may please the understanding 

 without interesting the sense ; and on the 

 other hand, we perceive agreeable sen- 

 sations, excited by some objects, whose 

 ideas are no way related to any thing that 

 is praise-worthy. 



It is on account of these distinctions, 

 that the difficulty lies of fixing an univer- 

 sal characteristic of beauty, in regard that 

 the persons vary, according to their dif- 

 ferent turns of mind, and habitudes of bo- 

 dy ; and consequently the relations of ob- 

 jects to those ideas and sensations do in 

 like manner vary ; whence arise the dif- 

 ferent opinions of beauty in painting, wo- 

 men, &c. 



Beauty, in its most extensive sense, 

 may perhaps be properly defined, that 

 quality or union of qualities in the ob- 

 jects of perception, whether they be ma- 

 terial, intellectual, or moral, which is best 

 calculated to excite emotions of pleasure 

 in the minds of intelligent creatures. We 

 VOL. II, 



say calculated to produce these effects in. 

 the minds of intelligent creatures, be- 

 cause, although beauty is, like truth, un- 

 changeable in itself, it is only in propor- 

 tion to the measure of our intelligence 

 that we are capable of perceiving and en- 

 joying it. Hence the distinction between 

 beauty and taste ; the former, the object, 

 ever existing, ever the same ; the latter, 

 the power of perception, fluctuating and 

 changing, in proportion to the perfection 

 of our organs of sense and the improve- 

 ment of our reasoning faculties. That the 

 organs of sense vary in their degrees of 

 perfection in different men, experience 

 every day demonstrates : that the eye of 

 one, the ear of another, the palate, the 

 smell, or the touch of a third, is by nature 

 formed with more exquisite workman- 

 ship than in others, no one can doubt ; 

 and that these organs of sense can be 

 again rendered still more correct by their 

 particular education or frequent prac- 

 tice, is equally certain. Thus the man, 

 whose eye has been long accustomed to 

 measure distances, shall seldom be under 

 the necessity of recurring to the rule ; 

 the accomplished artist shall in a moment 

 discover the various colours, and the 

 proportions of each required to produce 

 any complex tint, or, like Apelles, draw 

 the line marking the scarcely perceptible 

 distinction between excellence and per- 

 fection. 



Beauty, as opposed to deformity, is as 

 goodness to evil, as truth to falsehood, OP 

 as right to wrong, and may therefore be 

 considered as an outward demonstration 

 vouchsafed by the Almighty, to bring us, 

 by analogy, to the contemplation of those 

 divine attributes by which we are bound 

 to regulate our lives in this material 

 world, that we may be fitted for that state 

 of purity and happiness which we are 

 promised in the world Of spiritual exist- 

 ence. If this conclusion be admitted, it 

 is no longer a question why beauty gives 

 us pleasure ; it is sufficient that it does so. 



But if mankind are not by nature equal- 

 ly endowed with the powers of discri- 

 minating or judging of beauty, what is the 

 standard or rule by which we are to as- 

 certain what is really beautiful, much less 

 the different degrees of beauty which 

 any given object presents ? for will not 

 each man say, my judgment is right ; 

 yours, inasmuch as you differ from me, 

 wrong ? 



To this, and similar objections, we 

 should not hesitate to reply thus : Al- 

 though no individual can properly be con- 

 sidered a competent and unerring judge, 

 mankind, in the aggregate, may j and we 



X 



