If we admit the power of association, and can also shew, that associations, sufficient in kind and degree, concur, in fact, in the several instances of our intellectual pleasures and pains, this will of itself exclude all other causes for these pleasures and pains, such as instinct, for instance. If we cannot trace out associations sufficient in kind and degree, still it will not be necessary to have recourse to other causes, because great allowances are to be made for the novelty, complexness, and intricacy of the subject. However, on the other hand, analogy may perhaps lead us to conclude, that as instinct prevails much, and reason a little, in brutes, so instinct ought to prevail a little in us. Let the facts speak for themselves.
Section I
I begin with the pleasures and pains of imagination; and shall endeavour to derive each species of them by association, either from those of sensation, ambition, self-interest, sympathy, theopathy, and the moral sense, or from foreign ones of imagination. They may be distinguished into the seven kinds that follow.
First, The pleasures arising from the beauty of the natural world.
Secondly, Those from the works of art.
Thirdly, From the liberal arts of music, painting, and poetry.
Fourthly, From the sciences.
Fifthly, From the beauty of the person.
Sixthly, From wit and humour.
Seventhly, The pains which arise from gross absurdity, inconsistency, or deformity.
The pleasures arising from the contemplation of the beauties of the natural world seem to admit of the following analysis.
