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On Taste
On Taste
Introductory Discourse
On a superficial view, we may seem to differ very widely from each other
in our reasonings, and no less in our pleasures: but notwithstanding this
difference, which I think to be rather apparent than real, it is probable that
the standard both of reason and taste is the same in all human creatures. For
if there were not some principles of judgment as well as of sentiment common
to all mankind, no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or
their passions, sufficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life. It
appears indeed to be generally acknowledged, that with regard to truth and
falsehood there is something fixed. We find people in their disputes
continually appealing to certain tests and standards, which are allowed on all
sides, and are supposed to be established in our common nature. But there is
not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or settled principles which
relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed that this delicate and aerial
faculty, which seems too volatile to endure even the chains of a definition,
cannot be properly tried by any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is
so continual a call for the exercise of the reasoning faculty, and it is so
much strengthened by perpetual contention, that certain maxims of right reason
seem to be tacitly settled amongst the most ignorant. The learned have
improved on this rude science, and reduced those maxims into a system. If
taste has not been so happily cultivated, it was not that the subject was
barren, but that the labourers were few or negligent; for, to say the truth,
there are not the same interesting motives to impel us to fix the one, which
urge us to ascertain the other. And, after all, if men differ in their opinion
concerning such matters, their difference is not attended with the same
important consequences; else I make no doubt but that the logic of taste, if I
may be allowed the expression, might very possibly be as well digested, and we
might come to discuss matters of this nature with as much certainty, as those
which seem more immediately within the province of mere reason. And indeed, it
is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as our present, to
make this point as clear as possible; for if taste has no fixed principles, if
the imagination is not affected according to some invariable and certain laws,
our labour is likely to be employed to very little purpose; as it must be
judged a useless, if not an absurd undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice,
and to set up for a legislator of whims and fancies.
The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely
accurate; the thing which we understand by it is far from a simple and
determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable to
uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition, the
celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For, when we define, we seem
in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds of our own notions, which
we often take up by hazard, or embrace on trust, or form out of a limited and
partial consideration of the object before us; instead of extending our ideas
to take in all that nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining.
We are limited in our inquiry by the strict laws to which we have submitted at
our setting out.
- Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem,
Unde pudor proferre pedem vetat aut operis lex.
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards
informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the virtue of a
definition be what it will, in the order of things, it seems rather to follow
than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought to be considered as the result.
It must be acknowledged, that the methods of disquisition and teaching may be
sometimes different, and on very good reason undoubtedly; but, for my part, I
am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the
method of investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with
serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which
they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of invention, and
to direct him into those paths in which the author has made his own
discoveries, if he should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.
But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word Taste no
more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are affected
with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and the elegant
arts. This is, I think the most general idea of that word, and what is the
least connected with any particular theory. And my point in this inquiry is,
to find whether there are any principles, on which the imagination is
affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain, as to supply the means of
reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such principles of taste I fancy
there are; however paradoxical it may seem to those, who on a superficial view
imagine, that there is so great a diversity of tastes, both in kind and
degree, that nothing can be more indeterminate.
All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about
external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment. And first
with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that as the conformation
of their organs is nearly or altogether the same in all men, so the manner of
perceiving external objects is in all men the same, or with little difference.
We are satisfied that what appears to be light to one eye, appears light to
another; that what seems sweet to one palate, is sweet to another; that what
is dark and bitter to this man, is likewise dark and bitter to that; and we
conclude in the same manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold,
rough and smooth, and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of
bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine, that their senses present to
different men different images of things, this sceptical proceeding will make
every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even that
sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a doubt
concerning the agreement of our perceptions. But as there will be little doubt
that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it must necessarily
be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which every object excites in one
man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst it operates naturally, simply, and
by its proper powers only; for if we deny this, we must imagine that the same
cause, operating in the same manner, and on subjects of the same kind, will
produce different effects; which would be highly absurd. Let us first consider
this point in the sense of taste, and the rather, as the faculty in question
has taken its name from that sense. All men are agreed to call vinegar sour,
honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as they are all agreed in finding these
qualities in those objects, they do not in the least differ concerning their
effects with regard to pleasure and pain. They all concur in calling sweetness
pleasant, and sourness and bitterness unpleasant. Here there is no diversity
in their sentiments; and that there is not, appears fully from the consent of
all men in the metaphors which are taken from the sense of taste. A sour
temper, bitter expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms well and
strongly understood by all. And we are altogether as well understood when we
say, a sweet disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. It
is confessed, that custom and some other causes have made many deviations from
the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several tastes: but then
the power of distinguishing between the natural and the acquired relish
remains to the very last. A man frequently comes to prefer the taste of
tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavour of vinegar to that of milk; but this
makes no confusion in tastes, whilst he is sensible that the tobacco and
vinegar are not sweet, and whilst he knows that habit alone has reconciled his
palate to these alien pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and
with sufficient precision, concerning tastes. But should any man be found who
declares, that to him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and that he cannot
distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and vinegar are sweet,
milk bitter, and sugar sour; we immediately conclude that the organs of this
man are out of order, and that his palate is utterly vitiated. We are as far
from conferring with such a person upon tastes, as from reasoning concerning
the relations of quantity with one who should deny that all the parts together
were equal to the whole. We do not call a man of this kind wrong in his
notions, but absolutely mad. Exceptions of this sort, in either way, do not at
all impeach our general rule, nor make us conclude that men have various
principles concerning the relations of quantity or the taste of things. So
that when it is said, taste cannot be disputed, it can only mean, that no one
can strictly answer what pleasure or pain some particular man may find from
the taste of some particular thing. This indeed cannot be disputed; but we may
dispute, and with sufficient clearness too, concerning the things which are
naturally pleasing or disagreeable to the sense. But when we talk of any
peculiar or acquired relish, then we must know the habits, the prejudices, or
the distempers of this particular man, and we must draw our conclusion from
those.
This agreement of mankind is not confined to the taste solely. The
principle of pleasure derived from sight is the same in all. Light is more
pleasing than darkness. Summer, when the earth is clad in green, when the
heavens are serene and bright, is more agreeable than winter, when everything
makes a different appearance. I never remember that anything beautiful,
whether a man, a beast, a bird, or a plant, was ever shown, though it were to
a hundred people, that they did not all immediately agree that it was
beautiful, though some might have thought that it fell short of their
expectation, or that other things were still finer. I believe no man thinks a
goose to be more beautiful than a swan, or imagines that what they call a
Friesland hen excels a peacock. It must be observed, too, that the pleasures
of the sight are not near so complicated, and confused, and altered by
unnatural habits and associations, as the pleasures of the taste are; because
the pleasures of the sight more commonly acquiesce in themselves; and are not
so often altered by considerations which are independent of the sight itself.
But things do not spontaneously present themselves to the palate as they do to
the sight; they are generally applied to it, either as food or as medicine;
and, from the qualities which they possess for nutritive or medicinal
purposes, they often form the palate by degrees, and by force of these
associations. Thus opium is pleasing to Turks, on account of the agreeable
delirium it produces. Tobacco is the delight of Dutchmen, as it diffuses a
torpor and pleasing stupefaction. Fermented spirits please our common people,
because they banish care, and all consideration of future or present evils.
All of these would lie absolutely neglected if their properties had originally
gone no further than the taste; but all these together, with tea and coffee,
and some other things, have passed from the apothecary`s shop to our tables,
and were taken for health long before they were thought of for pleasure. The
effect of the drug has made us use it frequently; and frequent use, combined
with the agreeable effect, has made the taste itself at last agreeable. But
this does not in the least perplex our reasoning; because we distinguish to
the last the acquired from the natural relish. In describing the taste of an
unknown fruit, you would scarcely say that it had a sweet and pleasant flavour
like tobacco, opium, or garlic, although you spoke to those who were in the
constant use of these drugs, and had great pleasure in them. There is in all
men sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to
enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard, and
to regulate their feelings and opinions by it. Suppose one who had so vitiated
his palate as to take more pleasure in the taste of opium than in that of
butter or honey, to be presented with a bolus of squills; there is hardly any
doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey to this nauseous morsel, or
to any bitter drug to which he had not been accustomed; which proves that his
palate was naturally like that of other men in all things, that it is still
like the palate of other men in many things, and only vitiated in some
particular points. For in judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to
that which he has been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected
in a natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all
the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of the
senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned.
Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are
presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative power of
its own; either in representing at pleasure the images of things in the order
and manner in which they were received by the senses, or in combining those
images in a new manner, and according to a different order. This power is
called imagination; and to this belongs whatever is called wit, fancy,
invention, and the like. But it must be observed, that this power of the
imagination is incapable of producing anything absolutely new; it can only
vary the disposition of those ideas which it has received from the senses. Now
the imagination is the most extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is
the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are
connected with them; and whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with
these commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, must have
the same power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is only
the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or displeased with
the images, from the same principle on which the sense is pleased or
displeased with the realities; and consequently there must be just as close an
agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of men. A little attention will
convince us that this must of necessity be the case.
But in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising from the
properties of the natural object, a pleasure is perceived from the resemblance
which the imitation has to the original: the imagination, I conceive, can have
no pleasure but what results from one or other of these causes. And these
causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, because they operate by
principles in nature, and which are not derived from any particular habits or
advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and finely observes of wit, that it is
chiefly conversant in tracing resemblances: he remarks, at the same time, that
the business of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps
appear, on this supposition, that there is no material distinction between the
wit and the judgment, as they both seem to result from different operations of
the same faculty of comparing. But in reality, whether they are or are not
dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so very materially in
many respects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rarest
things in the world. When two distinct objects are unlike to each other, it is
only what we expect; things are in their common way; and therefore they make
no impression on the imagination: but when two distinct objects have a
resemblance, we are struck, we attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of
man has naturally a far greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing
resemblances than in searching for differences: because by making resemblances
we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in
making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task
itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is
something of a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me in the
morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added to my stock, gives
me some pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I
gain by this, but the dissatisfaction to find that I have been imposed upon?
Hence it is that men are much more naturally inclined to belief than to
incredulity. And it is upon this principle, that the most ignorant and
barbarous nations have frequently excelled in similitudes, comparisons,
metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward in distinguishing
and sorting their ideas. And it is for a reason of this kind, that Homer and
the Oriental writers, though very fond of similitudes, and though they often
strike out such as are truly admirable, seldom take care to have them exact;
that is, they are taken with the general resemblance, they paint it strongly,
and they take no notice of the difference which may be found between the
things compared.
Now, as the pleasure of resemblance is that which principally flatters
the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their
knowledge of the things represented or compared extends. The principle of this
knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends upon experience and
observation, and not on the strength or weakness of any natural faculty; and
it is from this difference in knowledge, that what we commonly, though with no
great exactness, call a difference in taste proceeds. A man to whom sculpture
is new, sees a barber`s block, or some ordinary piece of statuary, he is
immediately struck and pleased, because he sees something like a human figure;
and, entirely taken up with this likeness, he does not at all attend to its
defects. No person, I believe, at the first time of seeing a piece of
imitation ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a
more artificial work of the same nature; he now begins to look with contempt
on what he admired at first; not that he admired it even then for its
unlikeness to a man, but for that general, though inaccurate, resemblance
which it bore to the human figure. What he admired at different times in these
so different figures, is strictly the same; and though his knowledge is
improved, his taste is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of
knowledge in art; and this arose from his inexperience; but he may be still
deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is possible that the man
in question may stop here, and that the masterpiece of a great hand may please
him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artist: and this not for
want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not observe with
sufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an
imitation of it. And that the critical taste does not depend upon a superior
principle in men, but upon superior knowledge, may appear from several
instances. The story of the ancient painter and the shoemaker is very well
known. The shoemaker set the painter right with regard to some mistakes he had
made in the shoe of one of his figures, and which the painter, who had not
made such accurate observations on shoes, and was content with a general
resemblance, had never observed. But this was no impeachment to the taste of
the painter; it only showed some want of knowledge in the art of making shoes.
Let us imagine, that an anatomist had come into the painter`s working-room.
His piece is in general well done, the figure in question in a good attitude,
and the parts well adjusted to their various movements; yet the anatomist,
critical in his art, may observe the swell of some muscle not quite just in
the peculiar action of the figure. Here the anatomist observes what the
painter had not observed; and he passes by what the shoemaker had remarked.
But a want of the last critical knowledge in anatomy no more reflected on the
natural good taste of the painter or of any common observer of his piece, than
the want of an exact knowledge in the formation of a shoe. A fine piece of a
decollated head of St. John the Baptist was shown to a Turkish emperor; he
praised many things, but he observed one defect; he observed that the skin did
not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. The sultan on this occasion,
though his observation was very just, discovered no more natural taste than
the painter who executed this piece, or than a thousand European connoisseurs,
who probably never would have made the same observation. His Turkish Majesty
had indeed been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle, which the others
could only have represented in their imagination. On the subject of their
dislike there is a difference between all these people, arising from the
different kinds and degrees of their knowledge; but there is something in
common to the painter, the shoemaker, the anatomist, and the Turkish emperor,
the pleasure arising from a natural object, so far as each perceives it justly
imitated; the satisfaction in seeing an agreeable figure; the sympathy
proceeding from a striking and affecting incident. So far as taste is natural,
it is nearly common to all.
In poetry, and other pieces of imagination, the same parity may be
observed. It is true, that one man is charmed with Don Bellianis, and reads
Virgil coldly; whilst another is transported with the Eneid, and leaves Don
Bellianis to children. These two men seem to have a taste very different from
each other; but in fact they differ very little. In both these pieces, which
inspire such opposite sentiments, a tale exciting admiration is told; both are
full of action, both are passionate; in both are voyages, battles, triumphs,
and continual changes of fortune. The admirer of Don Bellianis perhaps does
not understand the refined language of the Eneid, who, if it was degraded into
the style of the Pilgrim`s Progress, might feel it in all its energy, on the
same principle which made him an admirer of Don Bellianis.
In his favourite author he is not shocked with the continual breaches of
probability, the confusion of times, the offences against manners, the
trampling upon geography; for he knows nothing of geography and chronology,
and he has never examined the grounds of probability. He perhaps reads of a
shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia; wholly taken up with so interesting an
event, and only solicitous for the fate of his hero, he is not in the least
troubled at this extravagant blunder. For why should he be shocked at a
shipwreck on the coast of Bohemia, who does not know but that Bohemia may be
an island in the Atlantic ocean? and after all, what reflection is this on the
natural good taste of the person here supposed?
So far then as taste belongs to the imagination, its principle is the
same in all men; there is no difference in the manner of their being affected,
nor in the causes of the affection; but in the degree there is a difference,
which arises from two causes principally; either from a greater degree of
natural sensibility, or from a closer and longer attention to the object. To
illustrate this by the procedure of the senses, in which the same difference
is found, let us suppose a very smooth marble table to be set before two men;
they both perceive it to be smooth; and they are both pleased with it because
of this quality. So far they agree. But suppose another, and after that
another table, the latter still smoother than the former, to be set before
them. It is now very probable that these men, who are so agreed upon what is
smooth, and in the pleasure from thence, will disagree when they come to
settle which table has the advantage in point of polish. Here is indeed the
great difference between tastes, when men come to compare the excess or
diminution of things which are judged by degree and not by measure. Nor is it
easy, when such a difference arises, to settle the point, if the excess or
diminution be not glaring. If we differ in opinion about two quantities, we
can have recourse to a common measure, which may decide the question with the
utmost exactness; and this, I take it, is what gives mathematical knowledge a
greater certainty than any other. But in things whose excess is not judged by
greater or smaller, as smoothness and roughness, hardness and softness,
darkness and light, the shades of colours, all these are very easily
distinguished when the difference is any way considerable, but not when it is
minute, for want of some common measures, which perhaps may never come to be
discovered. In these nice cases, supposing the acuteness of the sense equal,
the greater attention and habit in such things will have the advantage. In the
question about the tables, the marble-polisher will unquestionably determine
the most accurately. But notwithstanding this want of a common measure for
settling many disputes relative to the senses, and their representative the
imagination, we find that the principles are the same in all, and that there
is no disagreement until we come to examine into the pre-eminence or
difference of things, which brings us within the province of the judgment.
So long as we are conversant with the sensible qualities of things,
hardly any more than the imagination seems concerned; little more also than
the imagination seems concerned when the passions are represented, because by
the force of natural sympathy they are felt in all men without any recourse to
reasoning, and their justness recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear,
anger, joy, all these passions have, in their turns, affected every mind; and
they do not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain,
natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are
not confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon
the passions, but extend themselves to the manners, the characters, the
actions, and designs of men, their relations, their virtues, and vices, they
come within the province of the judgment, which is improved by attention, and
by the habit of reasoning. All these make a very considerable part of what are
considered as the objects of taste; and Horace sends us to the schools of
philosophy and the world for our instruction in them. Whatever certainty is to
be acquired in morality and the science of life; just the same degree of
certainty have we in what relates to them in the works of imitation. Indeed it
is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observances of time
and place, and of decency in general, which is only to be learned in those
schools to which Horace recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of
distinction, consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined
judgment. On the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its
most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but` is partly made up of a
perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of
the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning
the various relations to these, and concerning the human passions, manners,
and actions. All this is requisite to form taste, and the ground-work of all
these is the same in the human mind; for as the senses are the great originals
of all our ideas, and consequently of all our pleasures, if they are not
uncertain and arbitrary, the whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and
therefore there is a sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on these
matters.
Whilst we consider taste merely according to its nature and species, we
shall find its principles entirely uniform; but the degree in which these
principles prevail in the several individuals of mankind, is altogether as
different as the principles themselves are similar. For sensibility and
judgment, which are the qualities that compose what we commonly call a taste,
vary exceedingly in various people. From a defect in the former of these
qualities arises a want of taste; a weakness in the latter constitutes a wrong
or a bad one. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt, with tempers
so cold and phlegmatic, that they can hardly be said to be awake during the
whole course of their lives. Upon such persons the most striking objects make
but a faint and obscure impression. There are others so continually in the
agitation of gross and merely sensual pleasures, or so occupied in the low
drudgery of avarice, or so heated in the chase of honours and distinction,
that their minds, which had been used continually to the storms of these
violent and tempestuous passions, can hardly be put in motion by the delicate
and refined play of the imagination. These men, though from a different cause,
become as stupid and insensible as the former; but whenever either of these
happen to be struck with any natural elegance or greatness, or with these
qualities in any work of art, they are moved upon the same principle.
The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. And this may arise
from a natural weakness of understanding, (in whatever the strength of that
faculty may consist,) or, which is much more commonly the case, it may arise
from a want of proper and well-directed exercise, which alone can make it
strong and ready. Besides that ignorance, inattention, prejudice, rashness,
levity, obstinacy, in short, all those passions, and all those vices, which
pervert the judgment in other matters, prejudice it no less in this its more
refined and elegant province. These causes produce different opinions upon
everything which is an object of the understanding, without inducing us to
suppose that there are no settled principles of reason. And indeed, on the
whole, one may observe that there is rather less difference upon matters of
taste among mankind, than upon most of those which depend upon the naked
reason; and that men are far better agreed on the excellency of a description
in Virgil, than on the truth or falsehood of a theory of Aristotle.
A rectitude of judgment in the arts, which may be called a good taste,
does in a great measure depend upon sensibility; because, if the mind has no
bent to the pleasures of the imagination, it will never apply itself
sufficiently to works of that species to acquire a competent knowledge in
them. But, though a degree of sensibility is requisite to form a good
judgment, yet a good judgment does not necessarily arise from a quick
sensibility of pleasure; it frequently happens that a very poor judge, merely
by force of a greater complexional sensibility, is more affected by a very
poor piece, than the best judge by the most perfect; for as everything new,
extraordinary, grand, or passionate, is well calculated to affect such a
person, and that the faults do not affect him, his pleasure is more pure and
unmixed; and as it is merely a pleasure of the imagination, it is much higher
than any which is derived from a rectitude of the judgment; the judgment is
for the greater part employed in throwing stumbling-blocks in the way of the
imagination, in dissipating the scenes of its enchantment, and in tying us
down to the disagreeable yoke of our reason: for almost the only pleasure that
men have in judging better than others, consists in a sort of conscious pride
and superiority, which arises from thinking rightly; but then, this is an
indirect pleasure, a pleasure which does not immediately result from the
object which is under contemplation. In the morning of our days, when the
senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and
the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that surround us, how lively
at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we
form of things? I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from
the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age from
pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. Every
trivial cause of pleasure is apt to affect the man of too sanguine a
complexion: his appetite is too keen to suffer his taste to be delicate; and
he is in all respects what Ovid says of himself in love,
Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis,
Et semper causa est, cur ego semper amem.
One of this character can never be a refined judge; never what the comic poet
calls elegans formarum spectator. The excellence and force of a composition
must always be imperfectly estimated from its effect on the minds of any,
except we know the temper and character of those minds. The most powerful
effects of poetry and music have been displayed, and perhaps are still
displayed, where these arts are but in a very low and imperfect state. The
rude hearer is affected by the principles which operate in these arts even in
their rudest condition; and he is not skillful enough to perceive the defects.
But as the arts advance towards their perfection, the science of criticism
advances with equal pace, and the pleasure of judges is frequently interrupted
by the faults which are discovered in the most finished compositions.
Before I leave this subject I cannot help taking notice of an opinion
which many persons entertain, as if the taste were a separate faculty of the
mind, and distinct from the judgment and imagination; a species of instinct,
by which we are struck naturally, and at the first glance, without any
previous reasoning, with the excellencies, or the defects, of a composition.
So far as the imagination and the passions are concerned, I believe it true,
that the reason is little consulted; but where disposition, where decorum,
where congruity are concerned, in short, wherever the best taste differs from
the worst, I am convinced that the understanding operates, and nothing else;
and its operation is in reality far from being always sudden, or, when it is
sudden, it is often far from being right. Men of the best taste, by
consideration, come frequently to change these early and precipitate
judgments, which the mind, from its aversion to neutrality and doubt, loves to
form on the spot. It is known that the taste (whatever it is) is improved
exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady
attention to our object, and by frequent exercise. They who have not taken
these methods, if their taste decides quickly, it is always uncertainly; and
their quickness is owing to their presumption and rashness, and not to any
sudden irradiation, that in a moment dispels all darkness from their minds.
But they who have cultivated that species of knowledge which makes the object
of taste, by degrees, and habitually, attain not only a soundness, but a
readiness of judgment, as men do by the same methods on all other occasions.
At first they are obliged to spell, but at least they read with ease and with
celerity; but this celerity of its operation is no proof that the taste is a
distinct faculty. Nobody, I believe, has attended the course of a discussion,
which turned upon matters within the sphere of mere naked reason, but must
have observed the extreme readiness with which the whole process of the
argument is carried on, the grounds discovered, the objections raised and
answered, and the conclusions drawn from premises, with a quickness altogether
as great as the taste can be supposed to work with; and yet where nothing but
plain reason either is or can be suspected to operate. To multiply principles
for every different appearance, is useless, and unphilosophical too in a high
degree.
This matter might be pursued much further; but it is not the extent of
the subject which must prescribe our bounds, for what subject does not branch
out to infinity? It is the nature of our particular scheme, and the single
point of view in which we consider it, which ought to put a stop to our
researches.
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