4 which is raised by the contemplation of beautiful objects in nature; and diffuses over the mind, an agreeable and complacent serenity. Mr. Addison is an eminent example of this style. 6. The acuteness of taste depends upon the gifts of nature; its correctness upon those of art; sensibility will produce the former, and judgment the latter. A relish for those beauties which strike the senses, is to be elicited only by sensibility: but to form a just opinion of a work of genius, sound judgment, and enlarged experience are essential acquirements. Taste is capable of very high improvement, and owes much to habit. A person unused to mu ́sic, when be hears one of Handel's sublimest pieces, however pleased he may be with the general effect, will be totally unable to discriminate the beauties of each part, and their masterly arrangement. The man who surveys one of Rubens', or Raphael's pictures, may admire the brilliancy of colouring, and be surprised and pleased with the effect: but accurate and constant inspection alone can make him acquainted with that nice adjustment of light and shadow, which produces the grand and beautiful whole. And so of sculpture. The poetry of Homer, of Virgil, and of Milton, will always please from its intrinsic beauty; but the casual reader of these sublime productions, perceives not half their excellencies. This refined enjoyment is reserved for those, who possess by nature, the power of discerning, and acquire by art the faculty of appreciating their several beauties. Taste, then, whether we apply it to music, painting, sculpture, poetry, or any other art, is that harmony between the fancy and the judgment, which causes beauties to be viewed with pleasure, and defects with dislike. 7. The author of Philosophical Essays' combats with spirit, the opinion, that the pleasures of the imagination can only be enjoyed in full perfection, in youth: and encourages those who have hitherto neglected them. Nothing can be more captivating than his description of the new and charming scenes, which this faculty opens to the view. Instances have frequently occurred (says Mr. Stewart) of individuals, in whom the power of imagination, has, at a more advanced period of life, been found susceptible of culture, to a wonderful degree. In such men, what an ac cession is gained to their most refined pleasures! What enchantments are added to their most ordinary perceptions! The mind, awakening, as if from a trance, to a new existence, becomes habituated to the most interesting aspects of life and nature; the intellectual eye is purged of its film; and things the most familiar and unnoticed, disclose charms invisible before. The same objects and events which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the powers and capacities of the soul; the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so un-looked for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasures of vicissitude, conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man who, after having lost in vulgar occupation, and vulgar amusements, his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth; 'The meanest floweret of the vale, Select Books on Taste. Gerard and Knight on Taste. Stewart, in his Philosophical Es says, 4to. Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful. Alison's Essay on Taste, 2 vols. 8vo. and the writers on Rhetoric, and the Belles Lettres, named at the end of chap. v. sect. 2. p. 44. CHAP. VIII. ANTIENT PHILOSOPHY and PHILOSOPHERS. ANTIENT philosophy, or the principles asserted and propagated by antient philosophers, may be divided into Pythagorean, Aristotelian, Peripatetic, Socratic, Platonic, Academic, Cyrenaic, Epicurean, Stoic, Cynic, and Sceptic. 1. Pythagorean Philosophy was taught by the philosophers who adhered to the doctrines of Pythagoras, who flourished about 500 years before Christ. They taught that there is one God, an incorruptible and invisible Being, and therefore only to be worshipped with a pure mind; and that there is a relationship between the gods and man, which is supposed to have been borrowed from the Christian doctrine of Providence. They asserted a transmigration of souls, and therefore the immortality of the soul. They taught that virtue is harmony, health, and every good thing, and inculcated in an impressive manner the duties of children towards their parents. The disciples of this school were exhorted to cherish sentiments honourable to the female sex. 2. Aristotelian Philosophy. This was taught by Aristotle, and maintained by his followers; it was also called peripatetic. Aristotle was a disciple of Plato, but his system differed greatly from that of his master. Without enumerating his prínciples, it may be observed that most of them were false, and his reasonings inconclusive. The 3. Peripatetic Philosophy, so called from a sect of philosophers the followers of Aristotle. Cicero tells us that Plato left two excellent disciples Xenocrates and Aristotle, who founded two sects, who differed in name. former called academics, because they held their conferences in the academy: the latter who followed Aristotle were called peripatetics, or walkers, because they disputed walking in the lyceum or school. 4. Socratic Philosophy. This comprised the doctrines and opinions with regard to morality and religion, maintained and taught by Socrates about 400 years before Christ. Socrates was one of the best and wisest persons in the heathen world. The first introduction of moral philosophy is ascribed to him. He it was that led men from the coutemplation of the heavens to consider themselves, their own passions, opinions, faculties, duties, and actions. It was he who, when all the other philosophers boasted that they knew all things, first owned that he knew nothing but this, that he knew nothing. Socrates wrote nothing himself, yet almost all the sects of Greece refer their origin to his discipline. The genuine principles of his philosophy are stated in the Memorabilia of Xenophon: Plato by attributing to his master conceptions, sublime indeed, but evidently borrowed from, and embellished with the mythology of, the Pythagorean school, has rendered his writings on this point apocryphal. 5. Platonic Philosophy. This was founded by Plato, who lived about 350 years before Christ. It appears to have been drawn from traditions founded upon early revelations: from scattered fragments of the ancient patriar chal creed and there is scarcely any thing good or commendable said of the Deity, but what he had from antient creeds, which prevailed before the general defection to idolatry. Plato confesses that the Greeks borrowed their knowledge of the one infinite God from an antient people, better and nearer to God than they. His account of man's state of innocence-that he was born of the earth-that he was naked-that he enjoyed a truly happy state--that he conversed with brutes-that a personage was expected, who would give mankind a model for devotion, &c. in. short, all parts of his philosophy bear evident marks of being derived from Revelation. 6. Academic Philosophy was originally derived from Socrates and Plato, who taught in a grove near Athens, consecrated to the memory of Academus, an Athenian here. Labour and caution in their researches in opposition to rash and hasty decisions, were the distinguishing characteristics of the disciples of the antient academy. The sceptical notions of Arcesilaus, Carneades, and the other disciples of the succeeding academics, were of a very opposite nature to those which were inculcated by Socrates and Plato. 7. Cyrenaic Philosophy, so called from Aristippus of Cyrene, a disciple of Socrates. Their leading tenets were unfriendly to virtue and the welfare of society. This sect was afterwards divided into three branches, when it soon. languished and sunk into deserved obscurity. 8. Epicurean Philosophy, so named from Epicurus the founder. The Epicureans have in all ages been decried for their morals and their attachment to the pleasures of sense; and in the common use of the word, Epicurean signifies an indolent, effeminate, and voluptuous person. But there were two kinds of Epicureans, the rigid and the remiss. The rigid were strictly attached to the sentiments of Epicurus, and placed all their happiness in the pure pleasures of the mind, resulting from the practice of virtue. The remiss placed all their happiness in pleasures of the body, in eating, drinking, &c. The former who were the genuine Epicureans, called the others the sophists of their sect. Epicurus flourished more than 300 years before Christ. 9. Stoic Philosophy includes the followers of Zeno; so called because Zeno used to teach under a portico or piazza. He is supposed to have borrowed many of his dog the mata from the Phenician philosophy, which was in fact taken from the Jewish. Many things also appear to be borrowed from the schools of Socrates and Plato. The morality of the Stoics was couched in paradoxes:-as, wise man is void of all passion and perturbation of mindthat pain is no real evil-that a wise man is happy in the midst of the severest torture that a wise man is always the same, and always joyful—that none but a wise man is free and rich, or ought to be esteemed or acknowledged as a king, magistrate, poet, or philosopher-that all wise men are great that all things are a wise man's who is contented with himself—that wise men are the only true friends and lovers-that, nothing ever happens to a wise man be yond expectation that all good things are equal, and equally to be desired-and that goodness admits of no increase or diminution; with many others. They acknowledged one God, whom they called mind, fate, Jupiter, and believed that the human soul survived the body. 10. Cynic Philosophy. The disciples of this sect valued themselves upon a contempt of every thing, especially riches and estates, arts and sciences; all excepting morality. The founder of this sect was Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates, pearly 400 years before Christ. He was called an ingenuous and sincere dog, it being the distinguished character of the Cynics to attack and bark at the wicked, and to defend and fawn on the good; hence they were called Cynics. Antisthenes had an academy not far from the gates of Athens. There is an affinity between the Stoics and the Cynics; but the former were more modest and reserved than the latter, who are said to have hanished all shame. Diogenes was of this sect; he lived 380 years before Christ. 11. Sceptic Philosophy. The doctrines and opinions of the Sceptics, called also Pyrrhonism, from its author Pyrrho, who lived about 500 years before Christ. The antient scepticism consisted in doubting of every thing, in affirming nothing, and in keeping the judgment in suspense on every thing. Socrates, as was before observed, used to say, 'I know nothing but this, that I know nothing:' which the Sceptics altered to this, I know nothing, not even this, that I know nothing.' In concluding these observations on the antient philoso |