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produces perfect beauty than deformity, 

 that is, than deformity of any one kind : 

 for instance, the line that forms the ridge 

 of the nose, is beautiful when strait; this is 

 the central form, which is oftener found - 

 than either concave, convex, or any irre- 

 gular form that shall be proposed. As we 

 are, therefore, more accustomed to beauty 

 than deformity, we may conclude that to 

 be the reason why we approve and ad- 

 mire it. 



He then observes, that whoever pretends 

 to defend the preference he gives to one 

 form rather than to another, — as of a swan 

 to a dove, — by endeavouring to prove that 

 this more beautiful form proceeds from a 

 particular gradation of magnitude, undula- 

 tion of a curve, or direction of a line, or 

 whatever other conceit of his imagination 

 he shall fix on as a criterion of form, will 

 be continually contradicting himself, and 

 find that nature will not be subjected to such 

 narrow rules. The most general reason of 

 preference is custom, which, in a certain 

 sense, makes white black, and black white; it 



