and a relaxation somewhat below the natural tone seems to me to be the cause of all positive pleasure.Who is a stranger to that manner of expression so common in all times and in all countries,of being softened,relaxed,enervated,dissolved,melted away by pleasure?The universal voice of mankind,faithful to their feelings,concurs in affirming this uniform and general effect:and although some odd and particular instance may perhaps be found,wherein there appears a considerable degree of positive pleasure,without all the characters of relaxation,we must not therefore reject the conclusion we had drawn from a concurrence of many experiments;but we must still retain it,subjoining the exceptions which may occur,according to the judicious rule laid down by Sir Isaac Newton in the third book of his Optics.Our position will,I conceive,appear confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt,if we can show that such things as we have already observed to be the genuine constituents of beauty,have each of them,separately taken,a natural tendency to relax the fibres.And if it must be allowed us,that the appearance of the human body,when all these constituents are united together before the sensory,further favours this opinion,we may venture,I believe,to conclude,that the passion called love is produced by this relaxation.By the same method of reasoning which we have used in the inquiry into the causes of the sublime,we may likewise conclude,that as a beautiful object presented to the sense,by causing a relaxation of the body,produces the passion of love in the mind;so if by any means the passion should first have its origin in the mind,a relaxation of the outward organs will as certainly ensue in a degree proportioned to the cause.
XX
Why Smoothness Is Beautiful It is to explain the true cause of visual beauty,that I call in the assistance of the other senses.If it appears that smoothness is a principal cause of pleasure to the touch,taste,smell,and hearing,it will be easily admitted a constituent of visual beauty;especially as we have before shown,that this quality is found almost without exception in all bodies that are by general consent held beautiful.There can be no doubt that bodies which are rough and angular,rouse and vellicate the organs of feeling,causing a sense of pain,which consists in the violent tension or contraction of the muscular fibres.
On the contrary,the application of smooth bodies relaxes;gentle stroking with a smooth hand allays violent pains and cramps,and relaxes the suffering parts from their unnatural tension;and it has therefore very often no mean effect in removing swellings and obstructions.The sense of feeling is highly gratified with smooth bodies.A bed smoothly laid,and soft,that is,where the resistance is every way inconsiderable,is a great luxury,disposing to an universal relaxation,and inducing beyond anything else that species of it called sleep.
XXI
Sweetness,Its Nature Nor is it only in the touch that smooth bodies cause positive pleasure by relaxation.In the smell and taste,we find all things agreeable to them,and which are commonly called sweet,to be of a smooth nature,and that they all evidently tend to relax their respective sensories.Let us first consider the taste.Since it is most easy to inquire into the property of liquids,and since all things seem to want a fluid vehicle to make them tasted at all,I intend rather to consider the liquid than the solid parts of our food.The vehicles of all tastes are water and oil.And what determines the taste is some salt,which affects variously according to its nature,or its manner of being combined with other things.Water and oil,simply considered,are capable of giving some pleasure to the taste.Water,when simple,is insipid,inodorous,colourless,and smooth;it is found,when not cold,to be a great resolver of spasms,and lubricator of the fibres;this power it probably owes to its smoothness.
For as fluidity depends,according to the most general opinion,on the roundness,smoothness,and weak cohesion,of the component parts of any body;and as water acts merely as a simple fluid;it follows that the cause of its fluidity is likewise the cause of its relaxing quality;namely,the smoothness and slippery texture of its parts.The other fluid vehicle of taste is oil.This too,when simple,is insipid,inodorous,colourless,and smooth to the touch and taste.It is smoother than water,and in many cases yet more relaxing.Oil is in some degree pleasant to the eye,the touch,and the taste,insipid as it is.Water is not so grateful;which I do not know on what principle to account for,other than that water is not so soft and smooth.Suppose that to this oil or water were added a certain quantity of a specific salt,which had a power of putting the nervous papillae of the tongue into a gentle vibratory motion;
as suppose,sugar dissolved in it.The smoothness of the oil,and the vibratory power of the salt,cause the sense we call sweetness.In all sweet bodies,sugar,or a substance very little different from sugar,is constantly found.Every species of salt,examined by the microscope,has its own distinct,regular,invariable form.That of nitre is a pointed oblong;that of sea-salt an exact cube;that of sugar a perfect globe.If you have tried how smooth globular bodies,as the marbles with which boys amuse themselves,have affected the touch when they are rolled backward and forward and over one another,you will easily conceive how sweetness,which consists in a salt of such nature,affects the taste;for a single globe,(though somewhat pleasant to the feeling,)yet by the regularity of its form,and the somewhat too sudden deviation of its parts from a right line,is nothing near so pleasant to the touch as several globes,where the hand gently rises to one and falls to another;and this pleasure is greatly increased if the globes are in motion,and sliding over one another;
