In the infinite variety of natural combinations, we must expect to find the qualities of things the most remote imaginable from each other united in the same object.

We must expect also to find combinations of the same kind in the works of art.

But when we consider the power of an object upon our passions, we must know that when anything is intended to affect the mind by the force of some predominant property, the affection produced is like to be the more uniform and perfect, if all the other properties or qualities of the object be of the same nature, and tending to the same design as the principal.
"If black and white blend, soften, and unite A thousand ways, are there no black and white ?" If the qualities of the sublime and beautiful are sometimes found united, does this prove that they are the same; does it prove that they are any way allied; does it prove even that they are not opposite and contradictory?
Black and white may soften, may blend; but they are not therefore the same.

Nor, when they are so softened and blended with each other, or with different colors, is the power of black as black, or of white as white, so strong as when each stands uniform and distinguished.
FOOTNOTES: [24] Part IV.sect.

20.
[25] Part IV.sect.