The very instinct that is satisfied by beauty prefers one
beauty to another; and we have only to question and purge our aesthetic
feelings in order to obtain our criterion of taste. This criterion will
be natural, personal, autonomous; a circumstance that will give it
authority over our own judgment--which is all moral science is concerned
about--and will extend its authority over other minds also, in so far as
their constitution is similar to ours. In that measure what is a genuine
instance of reason in us, others will recognise for a genuine expression
of reason in themselves also.

[Sidenote: Different aesthetic endowments may be compared in quantity or
force.]

AEsthetic feeling, in different people, may make up a different fraction
of life and vary greatly in volume. The more nearly insensible a man is
the more incompetent he becomes to proclaim the values which sensibility
might have. To beauty men are habitually insensible, even while they are
awake and rationally active. Tomes of aesthetic criticism hang on a few
moments of real delight and intuition. It is in rare and scattered
instants that beauty smiles even on her adorers, who are reduced for
habitual comfort to remembering her past favours. An aesthetic glow may
pervade experience, but that circumstance is seldom remarked; it figures
only as an influence working subterraneously on thoughts and judgments
which in themselves take a cognitive or practical direction. Only when
the aesthetic ingredient becomes predominant do we exclaim, How
beautiful! Ordinarily the pleasures which formal perception gives remain
an undistinguished part of our comfort or curiosity.

[Sidenote: Authority of vital over verbal judgments]

Taste is formed in those moments when aesthetic emotion is massive and
distinct; preferences then grown conscious, judgments then put into
words, will reverberate through calmer hours; they will constitute
prejudices, habits of apperception, secret standards for all other
beauties. A period of life in which such intuitions have been frequent
may amass tastes and ideals sufficient for the rest of our days. Youth
in these matters governs maturity, and while men may develop their early
impressions more systematically and find confirmations of them in
various quarters, they will seldom look at the world afresh or use new
categories in deciphering it. Half our standards come from our first
masters, and the other half from our first loves. Never being