Before we can pretend to form any decision of this kind, everything must be known and ascertained on the side of the object or action.

Nothing remains but to feel, on our part, some sentiment of blame or approbation; whence we pronounce the action criminal or virtuous.
III.

This doctrine will become still more evident, if we compare moral beauty with natural, to which in many particulars it bears so near a resemblance.

It is on the proportion, relation, and position of parts, that all natural beauty depends; but it would be absurd thence to infer, that the perception of beauty, like that of truth in geometrical problems, consists wholly in the perception of relations, and was performed entirely by the understanding or intellectual faculties.

In all the sciences, our mind from the known relations investigates the unknown.