raque nequit consistere rectum.
HOR.

To Mrs. MONTAGU.

MADAM,

Were I not prompted by gratitude, admiration, and affection, to
dedicate to you the best produce of my abilities, which I imagine this
to be, yet, as the subject, of which it particularly treats, is moral
excellence, the universal voice of mankind, with whom your very name
is synonymous with virtue itself, must plead my apology for taking
this liberty. Besides, madam, it was natural for me, as an author, to
with to avail myself of the advantage, which this address affords
me, of prepossessing the minds of my readers with an example of that
perfection to which all my arguments tend, as a preparative, or aid,
to their better comprehending my meaning.

The influence of virtue is every way beneficial! Your character,
not only secures me from all imputation of flattery, but this public
avowal of my admiration of its excellence conveys an honourable
testimony of the consistency of my principles; having endeavoured to
inculcate, that the love and esteem of true virtue is true honour. And
I may add, that the sweet gratification I feel, in the indulging the
strongest and best propension of my nature, in thus expatiating in its
praise, is true pleasure, true happiness.

I am, Madam,

Your obliged,

Most obedient,

And most humble, servant,

The AUTHOR.

CHAPTER I.

A SKETCH of the MENTAL SYSTEM respecting our Perceptions of Taste, &c.

The mind of man, introspecting itself, seems, as it were, (in
conjunction with the inscrutable principles of nature,) placed in the
central point of the creation: from whence, impelled by her energetic
powers and illumined by her light, the intellectual faculties, like
rays, shoot forth in direct tendency to their ultimate point of
perfection; and, as they advance, each individual mind imperceptibly
imbibes the influence and light of each, and is by this imbibition
alone enabled to approach it.

But, though the light of nature and of reason direct the human mind
to perfection, or true good, yet, being in its progress perpetually
impeded by adventitious causes, casual occurrences, &c. &c. which
induce false opinions of good and evil, its progressive powers
generally stop at a middle point between mere uncultivated nature and
perfection, a medium which constitutes what we call common sense, and
which, in degree, seems as distant from the perfection of the mental
faculties as common form