90 Additional Notes. 



too glaring or tawdry. These gradations and contrasts of colours 

 have been practically employed both by the painters of landscape, and 

 by the planters of ornamental gardens ; though the theory of this part 

 of the pleasure derived from visible objects was not explained before 

 the publication of the paper on ocular spectra above mentioned ; which 

 is reprinted at the end of the first part of Zoonomia, and has thrown 

 great light on the actions of the nerves of sense in consequence of the 

 stimulus of external bodies, 



IV. Association of agreeable sentiments with visible objects. 



Besides the pleasure experienced simply by the perception of visible 

 objects, it has been already shown, that there is an additional plea- 

 sure arising from the inspection of those, which possess novelty, or 

 some degree of it; a second additional pleasure from those, which 

 possess in some degree a repetition of their parts; and a third from 

 those, which possess a succession of particular colours, which either 

 contrast or slide into each other, and which we have termed melody 

 of colours. 



We now step forward to the fourth source of the pleasures arising 

 from the contemplation of visible objects besides that simply of per- 

 ception, Avhich consists in our previous association of some agreeable 

 sentiment with certain forms or combinations of them. These four 

 kinds of pleasure singly or in combination constitute what is generally 

 understood by the word Taste in respect to the visible world; and by 

 parity of reasoning it is probable, that the pleasurable ideas received 

 by the other senses, or which are associated with language, may be 

 traced to similar sources. 



It has been shown by Bishop Berkeley in his ingenious essay on 

 vision, that the eye only acquaints us with the perception of light 

 and colours; and that our idea of the solidity of the bodies, which re- 

 flect them, is learnt by the organ of touch: he therefore calls our 

 vision the language of touch, observing that certain gradations of the 

 shades of colour, by our previous experience of having examined 

 similar bodies by our hands or lips, suggest our ideas of solidity, and 



