interesting event when the reader meets with no interruption. The emotions produced by our perceptions in a train, have been little considered, and less understood. The subject therefore required an elaborate discussion. It may surprise some readers, to find variety treated as only contributing to make a train of perceptions pleasant, when it is commonly held to be a necessary ingredient in beauty of whatever kind; according to the definition, “That beauty consists in uniformity amidst variety.” But after the subject is explained and illustrated as above, I presume it will be evident, that this definition, however applicable to one or other species, is far from being just with respect to beauty in general. Variety contributes no share to the beauty of a moral action, nor of a mathematical theorem; and numberless are the beautiful objects of sight that have little or no variety in them. A globe, the most uniform of all figures, is of all the most beautiful; and a square, though more beautiful than a trapezium, hath less variety in its constituent parts. The foregoing definition, which at best is but obscurely expressed, is only applicable to a number of objects in a group or in succession, among which indeed a due mixture of uniformity and variety is always agreeable, provided the particular objects, separately considered, be in any degree beautiful. Uniformity amidst variety among ugly objects, affords no pleasure. This circumstance is totally omitted in the definition; and indeed to have mentioned it, would at first glance show the definition to be imperfect. To define beauty as arising from beautiful objects blended together in a due proportion of uniformity and variety, would be too gross to pass current; as nothing can be more gross, than to employ in a definition the very term that is proposed to be explained. APPENDIX to Chap. IX. _Concerning the works of nature._ In natural objects, whether we regard their internal or external structure, beauty and design are equally conspicuous. We shall begin with the outside of nature, as what first presents itself. The figure of an organic body, is generally regular. The trunk of a tree, its branches, and their ramifications, are nearly round, and form a series regularly decreasing from the trunk to the smallest fibre. Uniformity is no where more remarkable than in the leaves, which, in the same species, have all the same colour, size, and shape. The seeds and fruits are all regular figures, approaching for the most part to the globular form. Hence a plant, especially of the larger kind, with its trunk, branches, foliage, and fruit, is a delightful object.