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"The external sense of taste, by which we diftinguifh and relish the various kinds of food, has given occafion to a metaphorical application of its name to this internal power of the mind, by which we perceive what is beautiful, and what is deformed or defective in the various objects that we contemplate. "Like the taste of the palate, it relishes fome things, is difgufted with others; with regard to many, is indifferent or dubious, and is confiderably influenced by habit, by affociations, and by opinion. Thefe obvious analogies between external and internal taste, have led men, in all ages, and in all or moft polifhed languages, to give the name of the external fenfe to this power of difcerning what is beautiful with pleafure, and what is ugly and faulty in its kind with difguft.

"In treating of this as an intellectual power of the mind, I intend only to make fome obfervations, first on its nature, and then on its objects.

1. In the external fenfe of tafte, we are led by reafon and reflection to diftinguish between the agreeable fenfation we feel, and the quality in the object which occafions it. Both have the fame name, and on that account are apt to be confounded by the vulgar, and even by philofophers. The fenfation I feel when I taste any fapid body is in my mind; but there is a real quality in the body which is the cause of this fenfation. These two things have the fame name in language, not from any fimilitude in their nature, but because the one is the fign of the other, and becaufe there is little occafion in common life to diftinguish them.

notice of it now is, that the internal power of tafe bears a great analogy in this refpect to the external.

"When a beautiful object is before us, we may diftinguith the agreeable emotion it produces in us, from the quality of the object which caufes that emotion. When I hear an air in mufic that pleases me, I fay, it is fine, it is excellent. This excellence is not in me; it is in the mufic. But the pleasure it gives is not in the mutic; it is in me. Perhaps I cannot fay what it is in the tune that pleafes my ear, as I cannot fay what it is in a fapid body that pleafes my palate; but there is a quality in the fapid body which pleafes my palate, and I call it a delicious tafte; and there is a quality in the tune that pleases my tate, and I call it a fine or an excellent air.

"This ought the rather to be obferved, because it is become a fafhion among modern philofophers, to refolve all our perceptions into mere feelings or fenfations in the perfon that perceives, without any thing correfponding to those feelings in the external object. According to thefe philofophers, there is no heat in the fire, no taste in a fapid body; the taste and the heat being only in the person that feels them. In like manner, there is no beauty in any object whatsoever; it is only a fenfation or feeling in the perfon that perceives it.

"The language and the common fenfe of mankind contradict this theory. Even those who hold it, find themselves obliged to use a language that contradicts it. I had occafion to fhow, that there is no ⚫folid foundation for it when applied to the fecondary qualities of body; and the fame arguments fhow c qually, that it has no folid founda

This was fully explained in treating of the fecondary qualities of bodies. The reafon of taking

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Our judgment of beauty is in many cafes more enlightened. A work of art may appear beautiful to the most ignorant, even to a child. It pleases, but he knows not why. To one who underftands it perfectly, and perceives how every part is fitted with exact judgment to its end, the beauty is not myfterious; it is perfectly comprehended; and he knows wherein it confifts, as well as how it affects him.

2. We may obferve, that, though all the tastes we perceive by the palate are either agreeable, or difagreeable, or indifferent; yet, among thofe that are agreeable, there is great diverfity, not in degree only, but in kind. And as we have not generical names for all the different kinds of taste, we diftinguish them by the bodies in which they are found.

"In like manner, all the objects of our internal tafle are either beautiful, or difagreeable, or indifferent; yet of beauty there is a great diverfity, not only of degree, but of kind: the beauty of a demontiration, the beauty of a poem, the beauty of a palace, the beauty of a piece of mufic, the beauty of a fine woman, and many more that might be named, are different kinds of beauty; and we have no names to diftinguish

them but the names of the different objects to which they belong.

"As there is fuch diverfity in the kinds of beauty as well as in the degrees, we need not think it ftrange that philofophers have gone into different fyftems in analyfing it, and enumerating its fimple ingredients. They have made many juft obfervations on the fubject; but, from the love of fimplicity, have reduced it to fewer principles than the nature of the thing will permit, having had in their eye fome parti cular kinds of beauty, while they overlooked others.

"There are moral beauties as well as natural; beauties in the objects of fenfe, and in intellectual objects; in the works of men, and in the works of God; in things inanimate, in brute animals, and in rational beings; in the conftitution of the body of man, and in the conftitution of his mind. There is no real excellence which has not its beauty to a difcerning eye, when placed in a proper point of view; and it is as difficult to enumerate the ingredients of beauty as the ingredients of real excellence.

"3. The taste of the palate may be accounted most just and perfect, when we relifh the things that are fit for the nourishment of the body, and are difgufted with things of a contrary nature. The manifeft intention of nature in giving us this fenfe, is, that we may difcern what it is fit for us to eat and to drink, and what it is not. Brute animals are directed in the choice of their food merely by their tafte. Led by this guide, they chufe the food that pature intended for them, and feldom make mistakes, unless they be pinched by hunger, or deceived by artificial compofitions. In infants. likewife the talte is commonly found

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and uncorrupted, and of the fimple productions of nature they relifh the things that are most whole

fome.

In like manner, our internal tafle ought to be accounted moft juft and perfect, when we are pleafed with things that are moft excellent in their kind, and difpleafed with the contrary. The intention of nature is no lefs evident in this internal tafte than in the external. Every excellence has a real beauty and charm that makes it an agreeable object to those who have the faculty of difcerning its beauty; and this faculty is what we call a good tafte. "A man, who, by any diforder in his mental powers, or by bad habits, has contracted a relish for what has no real excellence, or what is deformed and defective, has a depraved tafte, like one who finds a more agreeable relish in afhes or cinders than in the moft wholesome food. As we must acknowledge the taste of the palate to be depraved in this cafe, there is the fame reason to think the taste of the mind depraved in the other,

"There is therefore a juft and rational taste, and there is a depraved and corrupted tale. For it is too evident, that, by bad education, bad habits, and wrong affoci-, ations, men may acquire a relifh for naftinefs, for rudenels, and ill breeding, and for many other deformities. To fay that fuch a tale is not vitiated, is no lefs abfurd than to fay, that the fickly girl who delights in eating charcoal and to bacco-pipes, has as jutt and natural a tafte as when the is in perfect health.

66 4. The force of cuftom, of fancy, and of cafual affociations, is very great both upon the external and internal tafte. An Efkimaux can regale himself with a draught

of whale-oil, and a Canadian can feast upon a dog. A Kamchatkadale lives upon putrid fish, and is fometimes reduced to eat the bark of trees. The taste of rum, or of green tea, is at firft as naufeous as that of ipecacuan, to fome perfons, who may be brought by ufe to re lifh what they once found fo difagreeable.

"When we fee fuch variéties in the tale of the palate produced by cuftem and affociations, and fome perhaps by contitution, we may be the lefs furprifed that the fame caufes fhould produce like varieties in the tale of beauty; that the African fhould efeem thick lips and a flat nofe; that other nations fhould draw out their ears, till they hang over their shoulders; that in one nation ladies fhould paint their faces, and in another should make them fhine with greafe.

66 5: Those who conceive that there is no fiandard in nature by which tafte may be regulated, and that the common proverb, that there ought to be no difpute about tafte, is to be taken in the utmolt latitude, go upon flender and infufficient ground. The fame arguments might be ufed with equal force against any fiandard of truth.

"Whole nations by the force of prejudice are brought to believe the grofieft abfurdities; and why fhould it be thought that the tafte is lefs capable of being perverted than the judgment? It must indeed be acknow edged, that men differ more in the faculty of tae than in what we commonly call judgment; and therefore it may be expected that they fhould be more liable to have their tafte corrupted in matters of beauty and deformity, than their judgment in matters of truth and error.

"If we make due allowance for

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this, we fhall fee that it is as eafy to account for the variety of tastes, though there be in nature a stand ard of true beauty, and confequently of good tafte; as it is to account for the variety and contrariety of opinions, though there be in nature a standard of truth, and confequently of right judgment.

6. Nay, if we speak accurately and ftrictly, we fhall find, that, in every operation of tafte, there is judgment implied.

"When a man pronounces a poem or a palace to be beautiful, he affirms fomething of that poem or that palace; and every afhrmation or denial expreffes judgment. For we cannot better define judgment, than by faying that it is an affirmation or denial of one thing concern ing another. I had occafion to fhow, when treating of judgment, that it is implied in every perception of our external fenfes. There is an immediate conviction and belief of the existence of the quality perceived, whether it be colour, or found, or figure; and the fame thing holds in the perception of beauty or deformity.

"if it be faid that the perception of beauty is merely a feeling in the mind that perceives, without any belief of excellence in the object, the neceffary confequence of this opinion is, that when I fay Virgil's Georgics is a beautiful poem, I mean not to fay any thing of the poem, but only fomething concerning myfelf and my feelings. Why fhould I ufe a language that exprefles the contrary of what I

mean?

"My language, according to the neceffary rules of conftruction, can bear no other meaning but this, that there is fomething in the poem, and not in me, which I call beauty. Even those who hold beauty to be

merely a feeling in the perfon that perceives it, find themselves under a neceflity of expreffing themfelves, as if beauty were folely a quality of the object, and not of the percipient.

"No reafon can be given why all mankind fhould exprefs themfelves thus, but that they believe what they fay. It is therefore contrary to the univerfal fenfe of man-' kind, expreffed by their language, that beauty is not really in the object, but is merely a feeling in the perfon who is faid to perceive it. Philofophers fhould be very cautious in oppofing the common fenteTM of mankind; for, when they do, they rarely mifs going wrong.

Our judgment of beauty is not indeed a dry and unaffecting judg ment, like that of a mathematical or metaphyfical truth. By the conftitution of our nature, it is accompanied with an agreeable feeling or emotion, for which we have no other name but the fenfe of beauty. This fenfe of beauty, like the perceptions of our other fenfes, implies not only a feeling, but an opinion of fome quality in the object which occafions that feeling.

"In objects that pleafe the tafte, we always judge that there is fome real excellence, fome fuperiority to thofe that do not pleafe. In fome cafes, that fuperior excellence is di ftinctly perceived, and can be pointed out; in other cafes, we have only a general notion of fome excellence which we cannot defcribe. Beauties of the former kind may be compared to the primary qualities perceived by the external fenfes ; thofe of the latter kind, to the fe'condary.

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more numerous in the very barbarous languages. Their fignifica tion, while they remain as pure interjections, is indefinite; but if I am not mistaken, during the progreffive ftate of language, many words, which were originally mere interjections, affume a definite fignification; and they prove a fruitful fource for the augmentation of language, by thus becoming in time claffed among the other parts of speech.

"ÍV. The first adjectives were probably the names of fubftances, in which the qualities denoted by the adjectives were predominant; or fome flight alteration of the name might take place for diftinction's fake: fpecimens of this kind of compofition we have in many adjectives of modern invention, fuch as beaiy, roguish, &c.

"V. The perfonal and demontrative pronouns, and particularly that of the fecond perfon, feem to have been, in moft languages, a kind of interjectional words, poffibly used by favages even before proper names. It is evident, that fing the proper name would not explain their meaning to ftrangers, at least must render it very ambigu ous. We may therefore conclude, that these interjectional expreffions ufually accompanied fome gefture, fuch as pointing to the object.

"The relative pronoun is derived from the demonstrative.

"VI. Adverbs fecm to be principally produced from three fources. First, from a fpecies of interjection, denoting an impulfe of the mind, as now, then, here, not, &c. Secondly, from a compofition of two or three words into one, as always, without, together, &c. Thirdly, from adjectives, by adding a fyllable void of fignification itself, but which ferves to denote that the word has chang

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Poffibly what are called the primitive adverbs, and which I have fuppofed originally interjections, might be traced into other parts of fpeech. Certain words, which, in the French language, are miftaken for negative particles, are not properly fo; nor is the rule of univerfal grammar, that two negatives make an affirmative, departed from in this inftance. Pas and point have originally the fenfe of nouns, and were used only to strengthen the negative, as Je n'irai pas, I avill not go a step.

"VII. There are fome barbarous languages almoft without conjunctions. Indeed it is plain that they must have been a very late invention, for a living author has traced most of the English conjunctions into the pronoun and the verb. He demonftrates that the conjunction that is no other than the neuter article dat of the Saxons, or indeed our relative neuter that. If is the imperative gif of the Saxon verb giran (to give). In like manner he derives an from an, the imperative of anan (anan) to grant ; yet from get, the imperative of getan (getan) to get; though (more properly pronounced by our clowns thef or thauf) from Sap (thaf) or darig, the imperative of darian or dargan, to allow. Left is the partici ple lered of leran (lefan) to dim

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