The foregoing description of beauty, so far as it is taken in by the
eye, may be greatly illustrated by describing the nature of objects
which produce a similar effect through the touch. This I call the
beautiful in FEELING. It corresponds wonderfully with what causes the
same species of pleasure to the sight. There is a chain in all our
sensations; they are all but different sorts of feelings calculated to
be affected by various sorts of objects, but all to be affected after
the same manner. All bodies that are pleasant to the touch, are so by
the slightness of the resistance they make. Resistance is either
to motion along the surface, or to the pressure of the parts on one
another: if the former be slight, we call the body smooth; if the
latter, soft. The chief pleasure we receive by feeling, is in the one or
the other of these qualities; and if there be a combination of both, our
pleasure is greatly increased. This is so plain, that it is rather more
fit to illustrate other things, than to be illustrated itself by an
example. The next source of pleasure in this sense, as in every other,
is the continually presenting somewhat new; and we find that bodies
which continually vary their surface, are much the most pleasant or
beautiful to the feeling, as any one that pleases may experience. The
third property in such objects is, that though the surface continually
varies its direction, it never varies it suddenly. The application
of anything sudden, even though the impression itself have little or
nothing of violence, is disagreeable. The quick application of a finger
a little warmer or colder than usual, without notice, makes us start; a
slight tap on the shoulder, not expected, has the same effect. Hence it
is that angular bodies, bodies that suddenly vary the direction of the
outline, afford so little pleasure to the feeling. Every such change is
a sort of climbing or falling in miniature; so that squares, triangles,
and other angular figures, are neither beautiful to the sight nor
feeling. Whoever compares his state of mind, on feeling soft, smooth,
variated, unangular bodies, with that in which he finds himself on the
view of a beautiful object, will perceive a very striking analogy in the
effects of both; and which may go a good way towards discovering their
common cause. Feeling and sight, in this respect, differ in but a
few points. The touch takes in the pleasure of softness, which is not
primarily an object of sight; the sight, on the other hand, comprehends
colour, which can hardly be made perceptible to the touch: the touch
again has the advantage in a new idea of pleasure resulting from a
moderate degree of warmth; but the eye triumphs in the infinite extent
and multiplicity of its objects. But there is such a similitude in the
pleasures of these senses, that I am apt to fancy, if it were possible
that one might discern colour by feeling (as it is said some blind
men have done), that the same colours, and the same disposition of
colouring, which are found beautiful to the sight, would be found
likewise most grateful to the touch. But, setting aside conjectures, let
us pass to the other sense: of Hearing.