

Analysis of Taste. 85 



mentioned above, is combined with the sensorial power of irritation; 

 that is in common language, the acquired habit assists the power of 

 the stimulus. 



This not only obtains in the annual, lunar, and diurnal catena- 

 tions of animal motions, as explained in Zoonomia, Sect. XXXVI. 

 which are thus performed with great facility and energy ; but in every 

 less circle of actions or ideas, as in the burden of a song, or the re- 

 iterations of a dance. To the facility and distinctness, with which 

 we hear sounds at repeated intervals, we owe the pleasure, which we 

 receive from musical time, and from poetic time, as described in 

 Botanic Garden, V. II. Interlude III. And to this the pleasure we 

 receive from the rhimes and alliterations of modern versification; the 

 source of which without this key would be difficult to discover. 



There is no variety of notes referable to the gamut in the beating of 

 a drum, yet if it be performed in musical time, it is agreeable to aur 

 ears ; and therefore this pleasurable sensation must be owing to the 

 repetition of the divisions of the sounds at certain intervals of time, or 

 musical bars. Whether these times or bars are distinguished by a 

 pause, or by an emphasis, or accent, certain it is, that this distinc- 

 tion is perpetually repeated; otherwise the ear could not determine 

 instantly, whether the successions of sound were j n common or in 

 triple time. 



But besides these little circles of musical time, there are the greater 

 returning periods, and the still more distinct chorusses ; which, like 

 the rhimes at the end of verses, owe their beauty to repetition ; that 

 is, to the facility and distinctness with which we perceive sounds, 

 which we expect to perceive or have perceived before ; or in the lan- 

 guage of this work, to the greater ease and energy with which our 

 organ is excited by the combined sensorial powers of association and 

 irritation, than by the latter singly. 



This kind of pleasure arising from repetition, that is from the fa- 

 cility and distinctness with which we perceive and understand repeat ed 

 sensations, enters into all the agreeable arts; and when it is carried to 

 excess is termed formality. The art of dancing like that of music de- 

 pends for a great part of the pleasure, it aifords, on repetition; archi- 

 tecture, especially the Grecian, consists of one part being a repetition 



