Here’s the never-to-be-forgotten Professor Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), writing about chickens:
The peculiar Beauty of Fowls can scarce be omitted, which arises from the vast Variety of Feathers, a curious Sort of Machines adapted to many admirable Uses, which retain a vast Resemblance in their Structure among all the Species, and a perfect Uniformity in those of the same Species in the corresponding Parts, and in the two Sides of each Individual; besides all the Beauty of lively Colours and gradual Shades, not only in the external Appearance of the Fowl, resulting from an artful Combination of shaded Feathers, but often visible even in one Feather separately.
H/t PS.
I feel it’s important for your readers to know, Chris, why chickens – and fowl generally – are so beautiful.
It is – obviously – because they exhibit “Uniformity amidst Variety”. As Hutcheson insists we all already know, this is the basic principle of beauty – guaranteed and instantiated by the free choice of God – which even the meanest of the vulgar may discern through their internal perceptive Sense of Beauty.
Of course, certain more advanced instances of uniformity amidst variety require a special subtlty and sophistication to discern – but that merely shows that men are not equal in their perceptive capacities in line with God-given reason, not that all beauty is not, at base, founded in Uniformity amidst Variety.
Consequently, it is a self-evident truth known to all honest enquirers that as squares are more uniform than triangles, squares are more beautiful than triangles (and so on):
(Sadly, this is about as fun as Hutcheson’s philosophy gets. From here onwards it’s generally just incoherence and desperate point-scoring against Mandeville.)
Would it be indelicate to point out that English philosophy might have had a collective chip — chips — on its shoulder following the assassination of Francis Bacon by a chicken? Just saying.
I’ve eaten so many chips (i.e. French fries) over the last month or so, Max. Vast quantities of chips.