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such an induction. Indeed, it is in this way alone that any general conclusions, in matters of this sort, can be ascertained. The difference which has been so much insisted on by some writers, between philosophical criticism, and that which they have been pleased to call experimental or tentative, turns entirely on the greater or less generality of the principles to which the appeal is made. Where the tentative critic contents himself with an accumulation of parallel passages and of critical authorities, the philosopher appeals to the acknowledged sources of pleasure in the constitution of human nature. But these sources were at first investigated by experiment and induction, no less than the rules which are deduced from an examination of the beauties of Homer and of Virgil; or, to speak more correctly, it is the former alone that are ascertained by induction, properly so called; while the others often amount to little more than the statements of an empirical and unenlightened experience.

A dispute somewhat analogous to this might be conceived to arise about the comparative distances of two different objects from a particular spot (about the distances, I shall suppose, of two large and spreading Oaks); each party insisting confidently on the evidence of his senses, in support of his own judgment. How is it possible to bring them to an agreement, but by appealing to those very circumstances, or signs, upon which all our perceptions of distance proceed, even when we are the least aware of any exercise of thought? If the one party should observe, for instance, to his companion, that the

minute parts of the tree, which the latter affirms to be the most remote,that its smaller ramifications, its foliage, and the texture of its bark, are seen much more distinctly than the corresponding parts of the other; he could not fail in immediately convincing him of the inaccuracy of his estimate. In like man. ner, the philosophical principles of criticism, when obtained by an extensive and cautious induction, may be fairly appealed to in questions of Taste; although Taste itself, considered as a power of the mind, must, in every individual, be the result of his own personal experience; no less than the acquired powers of perception by which his eye estimates the distances and magnitudes of objects. In this point of view, therefore, we may apply literally to intellectual Taste, the assertion formerly quoted from Quinctilian: "Non magis arte traditur quam gus"tus aut odor."

I must not conclude this branch of my subject without doing justice to some authors who appear to have entertained perfectly just and correct ideas concerning the nature of Taste, as an acquired principle, although none of them, as far as I know, has at all examined the process by which it is generated. The first author I shall quote is Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose sagacity often seizes happily on the truth, without the formality of logical deduction. "The real substance," he observes," of what goes "under the name of Taste, is fixed and established "in the nature of things. There are certain and "regular causes by which the imagination and the "passions of men are affected; and the knowledge

"of these causes is acquired by a laborious and diligent investigation of nature, and by the same "slow progress, as wisdom or knowledge of every kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired."

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Mr Burke has stated still more explicitly his dissent from the opinion, that "Taste is 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 excel"lencies or the defects of a composition."-" So "far," he continues, "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 sud"den, it is often far from being right. Men of the best "taste, by consideration, come frequently to change "those 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

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improve our judgment, by extending our know "ledge, 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

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"to their presumption and rashness, and not any "hidden 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, at"tain not only a soundness, but a readiness of judg"ment, as men do by the same methods on all other "occasions. At first they are obliged to spell, but "at last 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

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upon matter within the sphere of mere naked rea"son, but must have observed the extreme readi"ness with which the whole process of the argu"ment is carried on, the grounds discovered, the "objections raised and answered, and the conclu❝sions drawn from premises, with a quickness al"together as great as the taste can be supposed to "work with; and yet where nothing but plain rea"son either is, or can be suspected to operate. To "multiply principles for every different appearance "is useless, and unphilosophical too, in a high degree."

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The only other passage I shall add to these quotations is from Mr Hughes, who, almost a century ago, described the nature and genesis of taste, with admirable good sense and conciseness, in the following terms: "What we call Taste, is a kind of ex"tempore judgment; it is a settled habit of dis"tinguishing, without staying to attend to rules or

"ratiocination, and arises from long use and expe"rience."

I intend to resume, on some future occasion, the subject of this Chapter, and to illustrate that progress of Taste from rudeness to refinement, which accompanies the advancement of social civilization. In this respect, its history will be found to be somewhat analogous to that of human Reason; the taste of each successive age being formed on the study of more perfect models than that of the age before it ; and leaving, in its turn, to after times a more elevated ground-work, on which they may raise their own superstructure.

This traditionary Taste (imbibed in early life, partly from the received rules of critics, and partly from the study of approved models of excellence) is all that the bulk of men aspire to, and perhaps all that they are qualified to acquire. But it is the province of a leading mind to outstrip its contemporaries, by instituting new experiments for its own improvement; and, in proportion as the observation and experience of the race are enlarged, the means are facilitated of accomplishing such combinations with success, by the multiplication of those selected materials out of which they are to be formed.

In individuals of this description, Taste includes Genius as one of its elements; as Genius, in any one of the fine arts, necessarily implies a certain portion of Taste. In both cases, precepts and models,

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