60 HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



the love of novelty in others ; and also that the same 

 persons love novelty in some things, while in other things 

 they cannot endure it. Many persons, for instance, are 

 fond of novelty in such matters as dress and music", to 

 whom the pain of reconsidering a religious or political 

 opinion would be unbearable. 



I should commence a perfectly inexhaustible subject 

 if I were to endeavour to trace all the applications 

 of this law, that slight novelty is pleasing, but great 

 novelty disagreeable ; for that law is connected with 

 the whole subject of human character, and all the 

 results of the action of human character in history, in 

 art, and even in language. I shall here only speak of 

 the importance of this principle in constituting the sense 

 of beauty. 

 Applica- The sense of beauty is a very complex fact, and I 

 tion of believe that no definition of beauty has yet been proposed 

 ciple to which really answers the purpose of a definition by in- 

 eauty. eluding all that it is meant to include, and excluding all 

 that it is meant to exclude. For the present purpose let 

 us narrow the subject as much as possible by excluding 

 moral beauty, such as that of a thoroughly amiable cha- 

 racter, and intellectual beauty, such as that of the theories 

 of gravitation and heat ; so that we shall have to do with the 

 beauty of sight and of sound alone. And let us also further 

 narrow the subject, by excluding all elements that properly 

 belong, not to the beautiful, but to the sublime and the 

 picturesqixe, which, though they are constantly mingled 

 with beauty, are perhaps radically distinct. Having thus 

 narrowed the subject to beauty of sight and of sound, leaving 

 out all elements of the sublime and of the picturesque, we 

 shall find that it is tolerably manageable for purposes of 

 analysis. I do not say, for I do not believe, that the complex 

 fact of the sense of beauty is capable of being referred to 

 any single principle of our nature. But I say that one 

 element of beauty, and that of the greatest importance, is 

 directly traceable to the law already stated, that slight 

 changes are agreeable, but great changes are painful. 

 Great changes or abrupt transitions are disagreeable to the 



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