of which I have spoken, and who, whether they are feelingly alive or not to each fine impulse, can always point out those qualities in objects which warm into existence this internal emotion in others, and which have often rendered themselves sensible of their chaste and captivating influence, we shall find that the standard of taste is not so difficult to be discovered as some would have us imagine. Men of refined taste seldom differ much in their ideas of beauty; but men who judge of beauty from their own immediate and individual emotions, who judge from what they feel, and not from any previous knowledge or experience, are eternally at variance on the subject. It is not wonderful, therefore, that an opinion should prevail, that beauty is no quality in objects, and has its existence only in the mind ; nor is it more strange that the maxim, "it is fruitless to dispute concerning tastes," should descend into a proverb. This, it is true, is not the place to prove the existence of beauty in external objects; but as taste is conversant only in ideal perceptions; if beauty has only an imaginary being, I will examine, in the following chapter, whether there be any qualities in matter or in mind fitted to awaken in us the idea of beauty, or rather fitted to produce those emotions of delight to the exciting cause of which the term beautiful is applied.

CHAP. II.

On Beauty, abstractedly considered, as an Object of Taste.

If beauty be no quality in objects, it is certain that all disputes concerning taste must be extremely absurd, as it is disputing about a supposed something which has no existence. The object of taste, taking it even in the popular sense of the expression, is to perceive and enjoy the beauties of nature and of art. If, then, such beauties have no existence, taste is exercised in the discovery of a phantom of its own creation, and the best taste, consequently, cannot differ from the worst; because the good taste, as well as the bad, is in pursuit of a shadow, or rather the shadow of a shade.

It is certain that this sceptical opinion has entirely originated from that diversity of sentiment regarding beauty, which always has and always will prevail on the subject among men who judge of it, not from that experimental knowledge which I call taste, but from their own immediate feelings

and sensibilities. If a sufficient cause can be shewn why men should always differ in their ideas of beauty, who are guided in their judgments by no standard but that of the emotions which it diversely excites, it will not be difficult to perceive why the opinion should prevail, that beauty is no quality in objects. Those who judge of beauty by the emotion which it excites, are infinitely more in number than those who judge of it from that experience which is acquired by taste, or, to speak more explicitly, the former compose the bulk of pretenders to taste. It must, therefore, naturally occur to them, that as they can never agree in their ideas, even of those more obvious beauties with which they are chiefly conversant, and as almost each of them creates a beauty of his own, or at least imagines that he perceives beauty in an object 'which is devoid of it to all but himself, it must, say, under these circumstances, naturally occur to them, that beauty is only the creation of the brain, and has no real existence in the nature of things. That such an opinion should prevail among those who cannot agree in their ideas of beauty, appears to me very natural, and it requires little experience to know that those who are thus divided on the subject are the most numerous class of judges. It is equally certain that this class judge of beauty without

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any rule or standard whatever, but that of their own feelings; and if, while the common feelings of mankind are allowed to be the true standard of taste, it can be shewn that the particular feelings of every individual are, in general, calculated to deceive him, it must necessarily follow, that all who judge of beauty by their own feelings are apt to differ with each other, and consequently apt to adopt the opinion that beauty has no real existence in the nature of things. The point to be proved therefore is, that the particular feelings of every individual are apt to deceive him in forming an estimate of beauty, when he has recourse to no other standard; for if this can be proved, it accounts not only for the scepticism which has prevailed on the subject, but it also evinces, that every individual who would form a correct idea of beauty, must look for some other standard beyond that of his own feelings, or, in other words, that though we can form no idea of beauty without consulting our own feelings, there is still a higher tribunal to which we must ultimately appeal.

To shew, then, that every one is liable to be mistaken, if he trust to his own feelings, in his perception of beauty, it must be observed, that we all, or the greater part of us, differ more or less in that exact portion of natural sensibility which we inherit from nature; that we are born with diffe

rent tempers, propensities, natural biases, and peculiarities of disposition; that these original and predisposing affections are again broken and modified by acquired habits, local prejudices, the influence of political and religious impressions, sometimes contracting, sometimes expanding the native energies and faculties of the mind, and by a thousand other influencing causes that remove us still farther from each other than our natural or original affections would have done; that all these causes strongly influence our judgments, opinions, and estimate of things; that all our reasonings and conclusions, in a word, that every branch of our nature is powerfully determined by them, except that exercise of reason which is conversant only in demonstrative truths, or truths that have no relation to the nature of man, and which would be equally true if such a being as man had never been created. Thus circumstanced, it is not to be expected that we should be all equally affected by the same causes, though these causes are immutable in their own nature, and always act upon us with the same force. No truth can be more demonstratively certain, than that similar causes, operating on similar subjects, will produce similar effects; and that similar causes, operating on dissimilar subjects, will produce dissimilar effects. Those qualities in matter which excite in us the emotion of beauty, are causes which always act