resented;
or from the correspondence of the several parts of any arrangement with
each other. It is the very same taste which relishes a demonstration in
geometry, that is pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an
original, and touched with the harmony of music.

All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are
therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some with
more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same way. A
picture that is unlike, is false. Disproportionate ordinance of parts is
not right because it cannot be true until it ceases to be a contradiction
to assert that the parts have no relation to the whole. Colouring is
true where it is naturally adapted to the eye, from brightness, from
softness, from harmony, from resemblance; because these agree with their
object, nature, and therefore are true: as true as mathematical
demonstration; but known to be true only to those who study these things.

But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or prejudice.
With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste which conforms to
it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the second sort of truth,
which may be called truth upon sufferance, or truth by courtesy, it is
not fixed, but variable. However, whilst these opinions and prejudices
on which it is founded continue, they operate as truth; and the art,
whose office it is to please the mind, as well as instruct it, must
direct itself according to opinion, or it will not attain its end.

In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally diffused, or
long received, the taste which conforms to them approaches nearer to
certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to real science, even where
opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. And since they
deserve, on account of their duration and extent, to be considered as
really true, they become capable of no small decree of stability and
determination by their permanent and uniform nature.

As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more transitory, this
secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from real
science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed in practice;
though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it does not
stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most respectable
opinions received amongst mankind.

Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed w