kind, in order to form our own conduct; or with some scientific view, in order to determine some important subject of rational inquiry, it is nothing better than reading romance. By reading hiftory with some farther view, as a means to a farther end, we make it a science. It then engages our active powers. It is a serious business, and is capable of being pursued with continued and increasing ardour. Otherwise, history is no more than an amusement; and, confidering what hath ever been the state of the political world, and the general objects of hiftorians, it must exhibit many scenes extremely difagreeable to a reader of humanity and delicacy.

LECTURE

To

LECTURE XIX.

Of NOVELTY.

O the general account of the pleasures we receive from the exercife of our perceptive and active powers, I fhall fubjoin a particular account of thofe properties of objects which derive their power of pleasing from the fame fource.

To this, in the first place, we must have recourse for the charms of NOVELTY. For the firft perception of an object makes a much stronger impreffion than any fubfequent perception of it. This must neceffarily be the cafe if perception depend upon any mechanical laws affecting the brain. Upon whatever principle we account for it, the oftener any fenfations are repeated, the lefs we are affected by them. But the chief fource of the charms of novelty is the exercise of our active powers. Both previous to the perception of any new object, if we have any intimation of it, and immediately upon the perception of it, whether it be a new scene in nature, a new train of adventures, or a new fyftem of principles, the mind is full of expectation, and is eagerly employed in furveying it; which keeps the attention strongly awake, and gives the object an opportunity

portunity of making a deep impreffion. Whereas when this firft curiofity is gratified, and the object is become familiar, we view it in a more curfory and fuperficial manner; there being then no reafon for fo close an attention to it, as we expect no new knowledge or information.

This conftant appetite, as we may call it, for novelty, feems to be infeparable from beings indued with the faculty of reafon and reflection, and whofe happiness depends upon the use they make of the advantages attending their fituation. Being habitually in queft of happiness, we naturally examine every new object with peculiar attention; but when once we are acquainted with all the properties and powers of it, and know how much it is capable of contributing to our main purpose, our examination is finished, and the motive for our curiofity is at an end. Moreover, to apply a general obfervation made in a preceding lecture, as the mind conforms itself to the ideas which engage its attention, and it hath no ̧ other method of judging of itself but from its fituation, the perception of a new train of ideas is like its entering upon a new world, and enjoying a new being, and a new mode of exift

ence.

So loud and inceffant is the call for novelty in the pleasures of the imagination, that the generality of readers feel little or no defire to re-perufe a performance which is calculated rather to please

than

than to inftruct. If a fecond perufal do give pleasure, it is either by the discovery of new beauties, or a confiderable time after the firft perufal, when the fubject, or the method of treating it, hath been almost forgotten, and when, confequently, it is in a manner new: for no perfon, I believe, would throw away his time upon a performance which he was beforehand fatisfied could present him with no new ideas, or new views of things.

If the reason why we first engage in any new study, or undertake to read any work of genius, be not explicitly the profpect of being entertained with new objects, and new reflections, as is often the cafe, we, notwithstanding, never cease to be under the influence of that principle during the whole time that we are employed about it. The profpect of advantage in general, or the expectation of receiving inftruction and improvement, may have been our firft and leading motive to those purfuits; but the ultimate ends of our conduct are not of a nature to be attended to conftantly, and to influence particular actions. Whatever motive it was that first put our faculties in motion, it is generally, in these cafes, the charms of novelty that keep up the vigour of their exertion. And a happy provision it is in our conftitution, that when great and important motives, from the neceffary nature of things, intermit their influence, there are a variety of

other

other fubfidiary Springs of action at hand, which are fufficient to carry on the work with vigour, by the help of only occafional reinforcements from the original and first-moving power. Thus a perfon undertakes a journey with a view to fome advantage he expects to derive from it, yet he may foon lose fight of this, and, notwithstanding, continue to travel with pleafure; not propelled by his original impulfe, but entertained with a variety of scenes which his change of place continually presents him with.

This craving appetite for novelty hath produced many very whimfical and extravagant effects in works of tafte and genius. To this many new schemes of philofophy, new species of compofition, and new peculiarities of style, owe their birth. Novelty is the fureft and the readieft road to fame, for all the numerous com→ petitors for that exquifite fpecies of fatisfaction; the first inquiry concerning any performance in literature always being, Is there any thing new in it?

Nor is the defire of novelty lefs confpicuous in other objects of taste. What other recommendation have the Chinese tafte, and the revival of the Gothic, in architecture, the pantomime entertainments, with all their varieties, on the theatre, and the new forms in which mufical entertainments are daily exhibited? Doth not a regard to novelty influence our choice of the furniture of