volume we pardon many defects that would make an epigram intolerable. In short, the observation holds in general, that beauty is connected with regularity in great objects as well as in small; but with a remarkable difference, that in passing from small to great, regularity is less and less required. The distinction betwixt primary and secondary qualities in matter, seems now fully established. Heat and cold, though seeming to exist in bodies, are discovered to be effects caused by these bodies in a sensitive being. Colour, which the eye represents as spread upon a substance, has no existence but in the mind of the spectator. Perceptions of this kind, which, by a delusion of sense, are attributed to external subjects, are termed _secondary qualities_, in contradistinction to figure, extension, solidity, which are primary qualities, and which are not separable, even in imagination, from the subjects they belong to. This suggests a curious inquiry, Whether beauty be a primary or only a secondary quality of objects? The question is easily determined with respect to the beauty of colour; for if colour be a secondary quality existing no where but in the mind of the spectator, its beauty must be of the same kind. This conclusion must also hold with respect to the beauty of utility, which is plainly a conception of the mind, arising not merely from sight, but from reflecting that the thing is fitted for some good end or purpose. The question is more intricate with respect to the beauty of regularity. If regularity be a primary quality, why not also its beauty? That this is not a good consequence, will appear from considering, that beauty, in its very conception, refers to a percipient; for an object is said to be beautiful, for no other reason but that it appears so to a spectator. The same piece of matter which to man appears beautiful, may possibly to another being appear ugly. Beauty therefore, which for its existence depends upon the percipient as much as upon the object perceived, cannot be an inherent property of either. What else then can it be, but a perception in the mind occasioned by certain objects? The same reasoning is applicable to the beauty of order, of uniformity, of grandeur. Accordingly, it may be pronounced in general, that beauty in no case whatever is a real quality of matter. And hence it is wittily observed by the poet, that beauty is not in the countenance, but in the lover’s eye. This reasoning is undoubtedly solid: and the only cause of doubt or hesitation is, that we are taught a different lesson by sense. By a singular determination of nature, we perceive both beauty and colour as belonging to the object; and, like figure or extension, as inherent properties. This mechanism is uncommon; and when nature, to fulfil her intention, chuseth any singular method of operation, we may be certain of some final cause that cannot be reached by ordinary means. It appears to me, that a perception of beauty