which the author has made his own discoveries, if he
should be so happy as to have made any that are valuable.

But to cut off all pretence for cavilling, I mean by the word taste, no
more than that faculty or those faculties of the mind, which are
affected with, or which form a judgment of, the works of imagination and
the elegant arts. This is, I think, the most general idea of that word,
and what is the least connected with any particular theory. And my point
in this inquiry is, to find whether there are any principles, on which
the imagination is affected, so common to all, so grounded and certain,
as to supply the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them. And such
principles of taste I fancy there are; however paradoxical it may seem
to those, who on a superficial view imagine that there is so great a
diversity of tastes, both in kind and degree, that nothing can be more
indeterminate.

All the natural powers in man, which I know, that are conversant about
external objects, are the senses; the imagination; and the judgment. And
first with regard to the senses. We do and we must suppose, that as the
conformation of their organs are nearly or altogether the same in all
men, so the manner of perceiving external objects is in all men the
same, or with little difference. We are satisfied that what appears to
be light to one eye, appears light to another; that what seems sweet to
one palate, is sweet to another; that what is dark and bitter to this
man, is likewise dark and bitter to that; and we conclude in the same
manner of great and little, hard and soft, hot and cold, rough and
smooth; and indeed of all the natural qualities and affections of
bodies. If we suffer ourselves to imagine, that their senses present to
different men different images of things, this sceptical proceeding will
make every sort of reasoning on every subject vain and frivolous, even
that sceptical reasoning itself which had persuaded us to entertain a
doubt concerning the agreement of our perceptions. But as there will be
little doubt that bodies present similar images to the whole species, it
must necessarily be allowed, that the pleasures and the pains which
every object excites in one man, it must raise in all mankind, whilst
it operates naturally, simply, and by its proper powers only: for if we
deny this, we must imagine that the same cause, operating in the same
manner, and on subjects of the same kind, will produce different
effects