: From "The Bee, Being Essays on the Most Interesting
Subjects," and published in 1759. Of these essays eight had been
previously published as weekly contributions.]

[Footnote 53: Letter No. III in "The Citizen of the World," the writer
being a Chinaman.]

EDMUND BURKE

Born in Ireland in 1729, died is 1797; educated at Trinity
College, Dublin; elected to Parliament in 1766; made his
famous speech on American affairs in 1774; became
Paymaster-general and Privy Counselor in 1782; conducted the
impeachment trial of Warren Hastings in 1787-95; published
"Natural Society" in 1756; "The Sublime and Beautiful" in
1756; "The Present Discontent" in 1770; "Reflections on the
Revolution in France" in 1790.

I

THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD TASTE[54]

On a superficial view we may seem to differ very widely from each
other in our reasonings, and no less in our pleasures; but
notwithstanding this difference, which I think to be rather apparent
than real, it is probable that the standard both of reason and taste
is the same in all human creatures. For if there were not some
principles of judgment as well as of sentiment common to all mankind,
no hold could possibly be taken either on their reason or their
passions sufficient to maintain the ordinary correspondence of life.
It appears indeed to be generally acknowledged that with regard to
truth and falsehood there is something fixt. We find people in their
disputes continually appealing to certain tests and standards, which
are allowed on all sides, and are supposed to be established in our
common nature.

But there is not the same obvious concurrence in any uniform or
settled principles which relate to taste. It is even commonly supposed
that this delicate and aerial faculty, which seems too volatile to
endure even the chains of a definition, can not be properly tried by
any test, nor regulated by any standard. There is so continual a call
for the exercise of the reasoning faculty, and it is so much
strengthened by perpetual contention, that certain maxims of right
reason seem to be tacitly settled amongst the most ignorant. The
learned have improved on this rude science and reduced those maxims
into a system. If taste has not been so happily cultivated, it was not
that the subject was barren, but that the laborers were few or
negligent; for to say the truth, there are not the same interesting
motives to impel us to fix the