IN apologizing for the frequent negligences of

the fublimeft authors of Greece, "Thofe god-like "geniuses," fays Longinus, "were well affured, "that Nature had not intended man for a low"fpirited or ignoble being: but bringing us into "life and the midst of this wide universe, as before

66

a multitude affembled at fome heroic folemnity, "that we might be fpectators of all her magnifi66 cence, and candidates high in emulation for the "prize of glory; fhe has therefore implanted in

66 our fouls an inextinguishable love of every thing and exalted, of every thing which appears "divine beyond our comprehenfion. Whence it

66 great

comes to pass, that even the whole world is not “an object sufficient for the depth and rapidity of "human imagination, which often fallies forth be"yond the limits of all that surrounds us. Let 66 any man caft his eye through the whole circle of "our existence, and confider how especially it "abounds in excellent and grand objects; he will "foon acknowledge for what enjoyments and pur"fuits we were deftined. Thus by the very pro"penfity of nature we are led to admire, not little "fprings or fhallow rivulets, however clear and "delicious, but the Nile, the Rhine, the Danube, "and, much more than all, the Ocean, &c."

DIONYS. LONG. de Sublim. § xxiv.

Ver. 202. The empyreal wafte.

"Ne fe peut-il point qu'il y a un grand espace

"au dela de la region des etoiles? Que fe foit le "ciel empyrée, ou non, toujours cet efpace im❝ menfe qui environne toute cette region, pourra "etre rempli de bonheur et de gloire. Il pourra "etre conçu comme l'ocean, où fe rendent les "fleuves de toutes les creatures bienheureuses, 66 quand elles feront venues à leur perfection dans "le fyfteme des etoiles."

Theodicée, part i. § 19.

LEIBNITZ dans la

Ver. 204. Whofe unfading light, &c.

It was a notion of the great Mr. Huygens, that be fixed ftars at fuch a diftance from our

there may folar fyftem, as that their light should not have had time to reach us, even from the creation of the world to this day.

Ver. 234.

-the neglect

Of all familiar profpects, &c.

It is here faid, that in confequence of the love

of novelty, objects which at firft were highly delightful to the mind, lofe that effect by repeated attention to them. But the inftance of habit is opposed to this observation; for there, objects at first diftafteful are in time rendered entirely agreeable by repeated attention.

The difficulty in this cafe will be removed, if we confider, that, when objects at first agreeable, lofe that influence by frequently recurring, the mind is wholly paffive, and the perception involuntary; but habit, on the other hand, generally suppofes choice and activity accompanying it so that the pleasure arifes here not from the object, but from the mind's confcious determination of its own activity; and confequently increases in proportion to the frequency of that determination.

It will still be urged perhaps, that a familiarity with disagreeable objects renders them at length acceptable, even when there is no room for the mind to refolve or act at all. In this cafe, the appearance must be accounted for, one of these ways.