THE REAL CAUSE OF BEAUTY.
Having endeavored to show what beauty is not, it remains that we should
examine, at least with equal attention, in what it really consists.
Beauty is a thing much too affecting not to depend upon some positive
qualities. And since it is no creature of our reason, since it strikes
us without any reference to use, and even where no use at all can be
discerned, since the order and method of nature is generally very
different from our measures and proportions, we must conclude that
beauty is, for the greater part, some quality in bodies acting
mechanically upon the human mind by the intervention of the senses. We
ought, therefore, to consider attentively in what manner those sensible
qualities are disposed, in such things as by experience we find
beautiful, or which excite in us the passion of love, or some
correspondent affection.