e; the eyelids are more
closed than usual, and the eyes roll gently with an inclination to the
object; the mouth is a little opened, and the breath drawn slowly, with
now and then a low sigh; the whole body is composed, and the hands fall
idly to the sides. All this is accompanied with an inward sense of
melting and languor. These appearances are always proportioned to the
degree of beauty in the object, and of sensibility in the observer. And
this gradation from the highest pitch of beauty and sensibility, even to
the lowest of mediocrity and indifference, and their correspondent
effects, ought to be kept in view, else this description will seem
exaggerated, which it certainly is not. But from this description it is
almost impossible not to conclude that beauty acts by relaxing the
solids of the whole system. There are all the appearances of such a
relaxation; 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 favors 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