k on
which they grew; it tends to set the reader himself in the track of
invention, and to direct him into those paths in 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 pretense for caviling, 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 determinate.

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
skeptical proceeding will make every sort of reasoning on every
subject vain and frivolous, even that skeptical 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 tha