affect the imagination with these
commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, must have
the same power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is
only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or
displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense
is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must
be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of
men. A little attention will convince us that this must of necessity be
the case.

But in the imagination, besides the pain or pleasure arising 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 results from one or other of
these causes. And these causes operate pretty uniformly upon all men,
because they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived
from any particular habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very justly and
finely observes of wit, that it is chiefly conversant in tracing
resemblances; he remarks, at the same time, that the business of
judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on
this supposition, that there is no material distinction between the wit
and the judgment, as they both seem to result from different operations
of the same faculty of _comparing_. But in reality, whether they are or
are not dependent on the same power of the mind, they differ so very
materially in many respects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is
one of the rarest things in the world. When two distinct objects are
unlike to each other, it is only what we expect; things are in their
common way; and therefore they make no impression on the imagination:
but when two distinct objects have a resemblance, we are struck, we
attend to them, and we are pleased. The mind of man has naturally a far
greater alacrity and satisfaction in tracing resemblances than in
searching for differences; because by making resemblances we produce
_new images_; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making
distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself
is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is
something of a negative and indirect 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 some pleasure. In the e