REGARDED A& A MASS. 
117 
offend the palate, others gratify it. In brutes and insects, 
this distinction is stronger and more regular than in man 
Every horse, ox, sheep, swine, when at liberty to choose, 
and when in a natural state, that is, when not vitiated by 
habits forced upon it, eats and rejects the same plants. 
Many insects which feed upon particular plants, will rather 
die than change their appropriate leaf. All this looks like 
a determination in the sense itself to particular tastes. In 
like manner, smells affect the nose with sensations pleasur¬ 
able or disgusting. Some sounds, or compositions of sound, 
delight the ear; others torture it. Habit can do much in 
all these cases, (and it is well for us that it can; for it is 
this power which reconciles us to many necessities,) but has 
the distinction, in the meantime, of agreeable and disa¬ 
greeable, no foundation in the sense itself? What is true 
of the other senses, is most probably true of the eye, (the 
analogy is irresistible,) viz. that there belongs to it an orig¬ 
inal constitution, fitted to receive pleasure from some im¬ 
pressions, and pain from others. 
I do not however know, that the argument which al¬ 
leges beauty as a final cause, rests upon this concession. 
We possess a sense of beauty, however we come by it. It 
in fact exists. Things are not indifferent to this sense; 
all objects do not suit it; many, which we see, are agree¬ 
able to it; many others disagreeable. It is certainly not 
the effect of habit upon the particular object, because the 
most agreeable objects are often the most rare; many, 
which are very common, continue to be offensive. If they 
be made supportable by habit, it is all which habit can do; 
they never become agreeable. If this sense, therefore, be 
acquired, it is a result; the produce of numerous and com¬ 
plicated actions of external objects upon the senses, and of 
the mind upon its sensations. With this result, there 
must be a certain congruity to enable any particular object 
to please: and that congruity, we contend, is consulted in 
the aspect which is given to animal and vegetable bodies. 
IV. The skin and covering of animals is that upon 
which their appearance chiefly depends, and it is that part 
which, perhaps, in all animals is most decorated, and most 
free from impurities. But were beauty, or agreeableness 
of aspect, entirely out of the question, there is another 
purpose answered by this integument, and by the collo¬ 
cation of the parts of the body beneath it, which is of 
still greater importance; and that purpose is concealment. 
Were it possible to view through the skin the mechanism 
f our bodies, the sight would frighten us out of our wits. 
