A man needs no arguments to make him discern and approve what is beautiful: it strikes at first sight, and attracts without a reason. And as this beauty is found in the shape and form of corporeal things, so also is there analogous to it a beauty of another kind, an order, a symmetry, and comeliness in the moral world. And as the eye perceiveth the one, so the mind doth by a certain interior sense perceive the other, which sense, talent, or faculty, is ever quickest and purest in the noblest minds.
ATTRIBUTION:
George Berkeley (1685–1753), Irish bishop, philosopher. Alciphron, in “Alciphron: or the Minute Philosopher,” dial. 3, sect. 3, p. 116, The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, eds. A. Luce and T. Jessop, London, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd. (1948-1957).
