18 OF TASTE. BOOK I. 



the manner in which they are produced, is suited to perfect 

 our judgment, and instruct us in the art of criticism ; and also 

 to form artificial productions upon the principles which per- 

 vade the works of nature. 



The faculty of taste results from the combination of five 

 elementary senses. The objects of taste, or beauty, result from 

 the combination of certain modifications of matter which 

 correspond to those senses. As the result of the elementary 

 senses is denominated Taste, so the result of the elementary 

 modifications is called Beauty; a term, in general, indiscrimi- 

 nately applied to all objects of superior excellence. Taste is 

 inherent in the human mind, though in degrees varying per- 

 haps according to the education, habits, and moral sentiments 

 of men. The elementary principles of beauty are universal ; 

 but their combinations are as various as the diverse forms of 

 nature ; and their consequent effects pass all the gradations 

 from the highest rapture to the coldest disgust. 



According to this view of taste and its objects, an inquiry 

 might perhaps be pursued in the following manner, viz. 



1. Of the elementary senses of taste, and their union in form- 

 ing that faculty of the mind. 



