them. There is in all men a fufficient remembrance of the original natural caufes of pleafure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their fenses to that ftandard, and to regulate their feel-, ings and opinions by it. Suppofe one who had fo 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 fquills; there is hardly any doubt but that he would prefer the butter or honey to this naufeous morfel, or to any other 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 fome 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 the natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all the fenfes, of the fight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of the fenfes, is the fame in all, high and low, learned and unlearned. Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are prefented by the fense; the mind of man poffeffes a fort 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 fenfes, or in combining thofe images in a new manner, and according to a different à different order. This power is called imagination; and to this belongs whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it must be obferved, that the power of the imagination is incapable of producing any thing abfolutely new; it can only vary the difpofition of those ideas which it has received from the fenfes. Now the imagination is the most extenfive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our fears and our hopes, and of all our paffions that are connected with them; and whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with these commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impreffion, must have the fame power pretty equally over all men. For fince the imagination is only the reprefentation of the fenfes, it can only be pleafed or displeased with the images, from the fame principle on which the fenfe is pleafed or displeased with the realities; and confequently there must be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the fenfes of men. A little attention will convince us that this muft of neceffity be the cafe. But in the imagination, befides the pain or pleafure arifing 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 refults from one or other of thefe caufes. And thefe caufes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, because because they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived from any particular habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very juftly and finely obferves of wit, that it is chiefly converfant in tracing refemblances: he remarks at the fame time, that the bufinefs of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on this fuppofition, that there is no material diftinction between the wit and the judgment, as they both feem to refult from different operations of the fame faculty of comparing. But in reality, whether they are or are not dependent on the fame power of the mind, they differ fo very materially in many refpects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rareft things in the world. When two diftinct objects are unlike to each other, it is only what we expect; things are in their common way; and therefore they make no impreffion on the imagination: but when two diftinct objects have a refemblance, we are ftruck, we attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and fatisfaction in tracing refemblances than in fearching for differences: becaufe by making resemblances we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our ftock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself is 'more fevere and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is fomething of a negative and in direct 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 fome pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by this, but the diffatisfaction to find that I had been impofed 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 fimilitudes, comparisons, metaphors, and allegories, who have been weak and backward in diftinguishing and forting their ideas. And it is for a reafon of this kind, that Homer and the oriental writers, though very fond of fimilitudes, and though they often ftrike out fuch as are truly admirable, feldom take care to have them exact; that is, they are taken with the general resemblance, they paint it ftrongly, and they take no notice of the difference which may be found between the things compared. Now, as the pleasure of refemblance is that which principally flatters the imagination, all men are nearly equal in this point, as far as their knowledge of the things reprefented or compared extends. The principle of this knowledge is very much accidental, as it depends upon experience and obfervation, and not on the strength or weaknefs of any natural faculty; and it is from this difference in knowledge, that what we commonly, though though with no great exactness, call a difference in tafte proceeds. A man to whom fculpture is new, fees a barber's block, or fome ordinary piece of ftatuary; he is immediately ftruck and pleased, because he fees fomething like an human figure; and, entirely taken up with this likenefs, he does not at all attend to its defects. No perfon, I believe, at the first time of feeing a piece of imita tion ever did. Some time after, we suppose that this novice lights upon a more artificial work of the fame nature; he now begins to look with contempt on what he admired at firft; not that he admired it even then for its unlikenefs 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 fo different figures, is ftrictly the fame; and though his knowledge is improved, his tafte is not altered. Hitherto his mistake was from a want of knowledge in art, and this arofe from his inexperience; but he may be ftill deficient from a want of knowledge in nature. For it is poffible that the man in question may stop here, and that the mafter-piece of a great hand may please him no more than the middling performance of a vulgar artift; and this not for want of better or higher relish, but because all men do not obferve with fufficient accuracy on the human figure to enable them to judge properly of an imitation of it. And that the critical tafte does not depend |